Self-examination Quotes - Page 2

• Though not always called upon to condemn ourselves, it is always safe to suspect ourselves.

  Richard Whately

  Safe, Suspects

  Richard Whately (1856). “Thoughts and Apophthegms: From the Writings of Archbishop Whateley”, p.41

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• Creativity requires introspection, self-examination, and a willingness to take risks. Because of this, artists are perhaps more susceptible to self-doubt and despair than those who do not court the creative muses.

  Eric Maisel

  Creativity, Artist, Self

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• To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.

  Richard Whately

  Passion, Air, Words Of Wisdom

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• Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Spiritual, Knowledge, Acceptance

  "In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching". Book by Pyotr Ouspensky, 1949.

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• I like to make people a little uncomfortable. It encourages them to examine who they are and why they think the way they do.

  Sally Mann

  Photography, Thinking, People

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• Sum up at night what thou hast done by day.

  George Herbert

  Wise, Wisdom, Night

  George Herbert, Christopher Harvey, George Gilfillan (1857). “The poetical works of George Herbert”, p.18

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• I think this is what college is all about: self-examination and dealing with those questions of "Who am I?"

  Wentworth Miller

  College, Thinking, Self

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• If you know yourself, then you'll not be harmed by what is said about you.

  Sufyan al-Thawri

  Self Esteem, Islamic, Knowing

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• A nonviolent life is an act of self-examination and self-purification, whether by an individual, group or nation.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Self, Examination, Groups

  Mahatma Gandhi (1958). “Collected Works”

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• Let mystery have its place in you ; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the ploughshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Heart, Self, Wind

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• To make a covenant with the Lord to always keep His commandments is a serious obligation, and to renew that covenant by partaking of the sacrament is equally serious. The solemn moments of thought while the sacrament is being served have great significance. They are moments of self-examination, introspection, self-discernment...a time to reflect and to resolve.

  Howard W. Hunter

  Self, Examination, Covenant

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• The value of a story isn't that it just has a narcotic effect. It's that it awakens something in you that makes you want to think, that makes you talk to other people, that stirs something that makes you examine the story that eventually turns into self-examination.

  Will Smith

  Thinking, Self, People

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• The public does not like you to mislead or represent yourself to be something you're not. And the other thing that the public really does like is the self-examination to say, you know, I'm not perfect. I'm just like you. They don't ask their public officials to be perfect. They just ask them to be smart, truthful, honest, and show a modicum of good sense.

  Ann Richards

  Smart, Self, Perfect

  "Ann Richards Discusses Texas, Politics and Humor". "Larry King Live", transcripts.cnn.com. January 23, 2001.

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• When you descant on the faults of others, consider whether you be not guilty of the same. To gain knowledge of ourselves, the best way is to convert the imperfections of others into a mirror for discovering our own.

  Henry Home, Lord Kames

  Mirrors, Imperfection, Way

  Henry HOME (Lord Kames.) (1775). “Introduction to the art of thinking. Third edition. Enlarged with additional maxims and illustrations. [By Henry Home, Lord Kames.]”, p.64

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• Know thyself; this is the great object.

  Seneca the Younger

  Know Thyself, Objects, Knows

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• I don't write books because I have answers. I write books because I have questions. What we are is the questions that we ask, not the answers that we provide. It's all about the process of self-examination. I think that's what the best writing always contains.

  John Edgar Wideman

  Book, Writing, Thinking

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• If thou seest anything in thyself which may make thee proud, look a little further and thou shalt find enough to humble thee; if thou be wise, view the peacock's feathers with his feet, and weigh thy best parts with thy imperfections.

  Francis Quarles

  Wise, Humble, Feet

  Francis Quarles (1844). “Enchiridion Institutions, Essays and Maxims, political, moral & divine. Divided into four centuries. By Francis Quarles”, p.81

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• Oh, the difficulty of fixing the attention of men on the world within them!

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Men, Attention, World

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• In self-examination, take no account of yourself by your thoughts and resolutions in the days of religion and solemnity; examine how it is with you in the days of ordinary conversation and in the circumstances of secular employment.

  Jeremy Taylor

  Self, Ordinary, Employment

  Jeremy Taylor (1851). “Readings for every day in Lent”, p.45

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• I see what you mean. It must be a huge relief, and an easy way out, to think the devil is always outside of us. (…) we would stop looking for Sheitan outside and instead focus on ourselves. What we need is sincere self-examination. Not being on the watch for the faults of others.” (p. 257).

  Elif Safak

  Mean, Thinking, Self

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• Transcendent Oneness does not require self-examination, self-help, or self-work. It requires self-loss.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Loss, Self, Oneness

  Barbara Ehrenreich (2009). “Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America”, p.76, Macmillan

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• If only I had more money is the easiest way to postpone the intense self-examination and decision-making necessary to create a life of enjoyment - now and not later.

  Tim Ferriss

  Self, Decision, Examination

  "The 4-Hour Workweek". Book by Tim Ferriss, 2007.

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• The symptoms and the illness are not the same thing. The illness exists long before the symptoms. Rather than being the illness, the symptoms are the beginning of its cure. The fact that they are unwanted makes them all the more a phenomenon of grace — a gift of God, a message from the unconscious.

  M. Scott Peck

  Spiritual, Self, Long

  "The Road Less Traveled, 25th Anniversary Edition: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth".

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• If you don't do any self-examinations or see a doctor ever, you'll live forever. That's how you do it. The diagnosis is what gets you. You just have a don't ask, don't tell policy with any and all bodily functions.

  Janeane Garofalo

  Doctors, Self, Forever

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• Assurance is not to be obtained so much by self-examination as by action

  Jonathan Edwards

  Self, Examination, Action

  Jonathan Edwards, Sereno Edwards Dwight (1829). “A treatise concerning religious affections. Five discourses on important subjects”, p.93

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