Quotes about Self-discovery

It was a great surprise to me when I discovered that most of the ugliness I saw in others, was but a reflection of my own nature.

The cause of all power, as of all weakness, is within; the secret of all happiness as of all misery is likewise within.

In my journal I logged this comment: On the day that I was officially a grown woman, I felt anything but feminine rather, befouled from the sweat of hard physical labor and the stinking mud. I wanted nothing so much as to sleep for a week.

When I started in 'Drag Race,' I didn't know anything about drag - my makeup was a mess, my hair was a mess, but I love what I was doing.

Even if two people have a baby together, they are still separate. Each of us remains in isolation. It's not by living together, or by having sexual relations, or even by having children together that we can dispel this feeling of isolation. We can only dispel our mutual isolation when we practice mindfulness and are able to truly come home to ourselves and each other.

Beauty and goodness are there in each of us. A true spiritual partner is one who encourages you to look deep inside yourself for the beauty and love you've been seeking. A true teacher is someone who helps you discover the teacher in yourself.

I think one travels more usefully when they travel alone, because they reflect more. ( Letter to John Banister, Jr., June 19, 1787)

I felt enough of the effect of withdrawing from the world then, to see that it led to an antisocial and misanthropic state of mind, which severely punished him who gives in to it. And it will be a lesson I never shall forget as to myself.

Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice "out there" calling me to be something I am not. It comes from a voice "in here" calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.

We have the choice of two identities: the external mask which seems to be real...and the hidden, inner person who seems to us to be nothing, but who can give himself eternally to the truth in whom he subsists. (295)

For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.

Art enables us to find ourselves and loose ourselves at the same time.