reflection quotes

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot? The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.

To insult someone we call him ‚bestial. For deliberate cruelty and nature, ‚human‘ might be the greater insult.

Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl?

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

People are more aware now of cities and of different ways of life. I suppose the writing I do is a bit in the past, and I’m not sure it’s the kind of writing I would do if I were starting now.

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.

Their mothers had finally caught up to them and been proven right. There were consequences after all but they were the consequences to things you didn’t even know you’d done.

Each life makes its own immitation of immortality.

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea.

Anger is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall.

If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.

It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous.

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er shall be.

Looking back on the production of ‚Nevermind,‘ I’m embarrassed by it now. It’s closer to a Motley Crue record than it is a punk rock record.

Anything can make me stop and look and wonder, and sometimes learn.

It is true we have won all our wars, but we have paid for them. We don’t want victories anymore.

Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?

Time is the only critic without ambition.

Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.

One always dies too soon or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.

I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

The end is the beginning of all things, Suppressed and hidden, Awaiting to be released through the rhythm Of pain and pleasure.

Every man’s memory is his private literature.

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

Beauty and folly are old companions.

There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature’s way.

Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn’t always so lucky. Less than a century ago, men and women did not have easy access to the puzzle boxes within them.

We might as well die as to go on living like this.

It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.

My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.

I think there is a sense of being forced at this time to look at America’s really large shadow and that’s not all that bad.

Life cannot be without relationship, but we have made it so agonizing and hideous by basing it on personal and possessive love. Can one love and yet not possess? You will find the true answer not in escape, ideals, beliefs but through the understanding of the causes of dependence and possessiveness.

If some years were added to my life, I would give fifty to the study of the Yi, and then I might come to be without great faults.

Mozart’s music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe.

These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.

It takes a long time to bring the past up to the present.

Through my films I’m eventually trying to one day tell the truth. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get there, but I’m slowly letting pieces of myself out there and then maybe by the time I’m 85, I’ll look back and say, ‚All right, that about sums it up.‘

Culture: the cry of men in face of their destiny.

I restore myself when I’m alone.

Study the past, if you would divine the future.

One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.

The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal.

What I can say is that all my characters are searching for their souls, because they are my mirrors. I’m someone who is constantly trying to understand my place in the world, and literature is the best way that I found in order to see myself.

No man is rich enough to buy back his past.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.