When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.

It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false.

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.

Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people’s actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.

Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.

I don’t think I’m tangible to myself.

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.

There’s no reality except the one contained within us. That’s why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.

Humanity, you never had it to begin with.

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.

The human mind is our fundamental resource.

We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.

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

Of course, when I say that human nature is gentleness, it is not 100 percent so. Every human being has that nature, but there are many people acting against their nature, being false.

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.

I’m an expert typist. I learned in high school. I would close my eyes and just type without worrying about mistakes. I tried to penetrate my heart, and as I let my thoughts drift, things bubbled up to the surface.

There are some Christian people who taste and see and enjoy religion in their own souls, and who get at a deeper knowledge of it than books can ever give them, though they should search all their days.

Sisters, do you realize the breadth and scope of your influence when you speak those things that come to your heart and mind as directed by the Spirit?

Good psychology should include all the methodological techniques, without having loyalty to one method, one idea, or one person.

Somebody’s boring me. I think it’s me.

To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

I’m inconsistent, even to myself.

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey ‚people.‘ People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war… Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

I’m not good at talking about myself.

If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?

Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.

Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb.

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?

I think I lived those years very impersonally. It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president’s wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.

We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives… inside ourselves.

In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body.

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

What the mind doesn’t understand, it worships or fears.

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.

Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering – because you can’t take it in all at once.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

Man’s enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die.

Fondly we think we honor merit then, When we but praise ourselves in other men.

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind.

Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.

All art really does is keep you focused on questions of humanity, and it really is about how do we get on with our maker.

We are rarely proud when we are alone.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you’re the funniest person you’ve ever heard of.

It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts.

I have no human feelings.

It was still quiet in the house, and not a sound was heard from outside, either. Were it not for this silence, my reverie would probably have been disrupted by reminders of daily duties, of getting up and going to school.

The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.