Quotes about Reflection

We suffer not from the events in our lives but from our judgement about them.

For even sheep do not vomit up their grass and show to the shepherds how much they have eaten; but when they have internally digested the pasture, they produce externally wool and milk. Do you also show not your theorems to the uninstructed, but show the acts which come from their digestion.

He who exercises wisdom, exercises the knowledge which is about God.

Be free from grief not through insensibility like the irrational animals, nor through want of thought like the foolish, but like a man of virtue by having reason as the consolation of grief.

In literature, too, it is not great achievement to memorize what you have read while not formulating an opinion of your own.

For if we had any sense, what else should we do, both in public and in private, than sing hymns and praise the deity, and recount all the favours that he has conferred!

On the occasion of every accident (event) that befalls you, remember to turn to yourself and inquire what power you have for turning it to use.

I want to die, even though I don't have to.

Who is a friend? His answer was, a second self (alter ego).

Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents.

We must consider what is the time for singing, what the time for play, and in whose presence: what will be unsuited to the occasion; whether our companions are to despise us, or we to despise ourselves: when to jest, and whom to mock at: and on what occasion to be conciliatory and to whom: in a word, how one ought to maintain one's character in society. Wherever you swerve from any of these principles, you suffer loss at once; not loss from without, but issuing from the very act itself.

Tis true I know what evil I shall do but passion overpowers the better council.