self-awareness quotes

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.

If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

No man is hurt but by himself.

If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.

The image is one thing and the human being is another. It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.

The truth is, I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let men sometimes fool themselves.

I had no talent for science. What was infinitely worse: all my fraternity brothers were engineers.

Let us be absolutely clear about one thing: we must not confuse humility with false modesty or servility.

I’m 31 now. I think I’m beginning to understand what life is, what romance is, and what a relationship means.

You’re just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate.

I’m trying to keep a level head. You have to be careful out in the world. It’s so easy to get turned.

I want you to be everything that’s you, deep at the center of your being.

When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people.

A woman knows by intuition, or instinct, what is best for herself.

Confine yourself to the present.

Just because I managed to do a little something, I don’t want anyone back home to think I got the big head.

You know, most people really don’t know me.

I know nothing, except the fact of my ignorance.

Only the really plain people know about love – the very fascinating ones try so hard to create an impression that they soon exhaust their talents.

Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it – this is knowledge.

Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues.

I don’t think I’m bad for people. If I did think I was bad for people, I would go back to driving a truck, and I really mean this.

The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.

Our necessities never equal our wants.

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?

A man’s own judgment should be the final appeal in all that relates to himself.

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.

I don’t know who I touch and who I don’t. I work hard trying to make people laugh. I try to do the kind of stuff that made me laugh growing up. I don’t have any secrets. I don’t know the reasons I’ve been so well received.

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.

Being a full human being is difficult, frightening, and problematical.

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

The problem with me, as far as getting married and having a family, is that my comedy is so important to me. So I don’t know if I’ll ever be as good a dad as my dad.

How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers names.

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.

An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.

There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

For a long time, I thought I was ugly and disfigured. This made me shy and timid, and I often reacted to insults that were not intended.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

It is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.

In one day, I have times where I’m feeling great, I feel like I love my life, and then 2:30 rolls around and I’m the angriest man alive. My wife sees it.

Avoid popularity if you would have peace.

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.