self-awareness quotes

It’s hard to be humble, when you’re as great as I am.

I don’t think I get angry.

I get naturally uncomfortable when I’m put under a magnifying glass.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

Do not think of your faults, still less of other’s faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.

I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.

If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are slave.

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

I put a lot of pressure on myself. I think something’s not good enough, and I won’t stop until I feel like I’ve made it. I’m never satisfied.

I did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness which basically creates the world. ‚Is the world going to disappear if this spark of consciousness disappears? And how do I know it won’t? How do I know there’s anything there except what I’m conscious of?‘

I tend to get bored quickly, which means I must be boring.

It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.

For an author, the nice characters aren’t much fun. What you want are the screwed up characters. You know, the characters that are constantly wondering if what they are doing is the right thing, characters that are not only screwed up but are self-tapping screws. They’re doing it for themselves.

When you love and accept yourself, when you know who really cares about you, and when you learn from your mistakes, then you stop caring about what people who don’t know you think.

There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.

There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream.

Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you.

There’s two sorts of fear: one you embrace and one you should listen to and turn the other way.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

I don’t consider myself to be that credulous.

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.

I had a lot of resistance, and not just to fame. I was always conscious of not changing.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

I wouldn’t say that I am one of the greatest dancers, but I am really quite good at what I do.

I don’t ever want to be caught up in a system of thinking I can do one thing ‚cos that’s just… that’s just telling yourself a lie.

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

One might say that our words are a movie screen that reveals what we have been thinking and the attitudes we have.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

Your timeless self does not age and has no fear of the future. Contemplate your physical self and all its possessions, and practice laughing peacefully at it all.

Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth to see it like it is, and tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.

God didn’t make me to make movies, flex muscles, buy gold. What you love the most becomes your God… If I never make another dollar, my life is complete.

He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.

Nothing I can say or devise, and nothing anybody else can say or devise, is going to be perfect.

Many a man thinks he is patient when, in reality, he is indifferent.

The truth is that you can only come to know God when you give up the past and the future in your mind and merge totally into the now, because God is always here now.

I have a hard time figuring out what kind of box to put me in, too, because I don’t know exactly what’s going on around me or why. But I need to stay outside of boxes because then I can look at what’s inside of them without being part of them.

The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.

When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

I’ve never professed to be anything but an average student.

It’s easy to forget who you are.

I’m considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I’ve never been bored in my life.

Sometimes, I want to talk on a song and be angry, because I am angry. Then there’s always a part of me that remembers that this record lives past my being angry, and so do I really want to be angry about that? Is that feeling going to have longevity?

A lot of times, people make other people responsible for their joy: ‚You’re not making me happy, you’re not doing this, you’re not doing that.‘

Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.

When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself.

Everything’s intentional. It’s just filling in the dots.

Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.

Fear is the thought of admitted inferiority.

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.

I think I’m pretty smart. I think I’m pretty clever. But there’s a lot that you hone in on when you finish your education.

Every spoken word arouses our self-will.

The truth is something that burns. It burns off dead wood. And people don’t like having the dead wood burnt off, often because they’re 95 percent dead wood.

When you are young you tend to do so many things that are not needed. When you get experience, you know what exactly what works for you and you tend to do things that you want.

Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you’re living?

It is more difficult to rule yourself than to rule a city.

I put my flaws on front street. So the world accepted my flaws, so I don’t have any flaws.