Quotes about Introspection

The greatest mistake is to think that we ever know why we do things...I suppose the nearest we can ever come to it is by getting what old people call 'experience.' But by the time we've got that we're no longer the persons who did the things we no longer understand. The trouble is, I suppose, that we change every moment; and the things we did stay.

We live in our own souls as in an unmapped region, a few acres of which we have cleared for our habitation; while of the nature of those nearest us we know but the boundaries that march with ours.

We live in our own souls as in an unmapped region, a few acres of which we have cleared for our habitation; while of the nature of those nearest us we know but the boundaries that march with ours.

The affair, in short, had been of the kind that most of the young men of his age had been through and emerged from with calm consciences and an undisturbed belief in the abysmal distinction between the women one loved and respected and those one enjoyed—and pitied.

She rose too, not as if to meet him or to flee from him, but quietly, as though the worst of the task were done and she had only to wait; so quietly that, as he came close, her outstretched hands acted not as a check but as a guide to him.

to be able to look life in the face: that's worth living in a garret for, isn't it?

The drawing-room door opened, and two high-stocked and ample-coated young men came in—two Jim Ralstons, so to speak. Delia had never before noticed how much her husband and his cousin Joe were alike: it made her feel how justified she was in always thinking of the Ralstons collectively.

In the thick of this meditation Archer suddenly felt himself looking at her with the startled gaze of a stranger

Archer looked down with wonder at the familiar spectacle. It surprised him that life should be going on in the old way when his own reactions to it had so completely changed.

God tests us because we are so oblivious to the mixed allegiances in our hearts. The purpose of the test is to help us see our hearts and if they are found traitorous, we can turn back to God.

When your emotions feel muted or always low, when you are unable to experience the highs and lows you once did, the important question is not "How can I figure out what I have done wrong?" but it is, "Where do I turn—or, to whom do I turn—when I am depressed?" Some turn toward their beds and isolation; others turn toward other people. Some turn away from God; others turn toward him.

A lingering sense that something was very wrong with him. That sense is called shame.