Quotes about Self-reflection

If I knew your thoughts, I would know what you are, for your thoughts make you who you are. By changing our thoughts, we can change our lives.

There is someone I must say goodbye to. Oh, not you - we are sure to see each other again - but the Lily Bart you knew. I have kept her with me all this time, but now we are going to part, and I have brought her back to you - I am going to leave her here. When I go out presently she will not go with me. I shall like to think that she has stayed with you.

One may be strengthened & fed without the aid of Joy, & no one knows it better than I do; & I believe I know the only cure, which is to make one's center of life inside of one's self, not selfishly or excludingly, but with a kind of unassailable serenity—to decorate one's inner house so richly that one is content there, glad to welcome anyone who wants to come and stay, but happy all the same when one is inevitably alone.

It is as if we want to believe the lie. Perhaps we blame ourselves because in a strange way it helps us feel as if we have more control. If we are responsible for whatever went wrong, for whatever hurt us, we might be able to figure out how to keep it from happening again.

Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness. What do you see in your own heart?

Here is a community goal: to be able to identify one pattern of sin in our lives.

At this point, we know that worry and fear are more about us than about the things outside us.

My wants are what concern me. That's where the battle must be fought.

To deeply understand fear we must also look at ourselves and the way we interpret our situations. Those scary objects can reveal what we cherish. They point out our insatiable quest for control, our sense of aloneness.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.

The condition of being forgiven is self-abandonment. The proud man prefers self-reproach, however painful --because the reproached self isn't abandoned; it remains intact.

I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.