Self-Discovery
QUOTES
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Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
-- Aristotle
(384-322 BC)
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simplest questions are the most profound. Where
were you born? Where is your home? Where are you
going? What are you doing? Think about these once
in a while and watch your answers change. ~Richard
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"The
new education must be less concerned with sophistication
than compassion. It must recognize the hazards of
tribalism. It must teach man the most difficult
lesson of all—to look at someone anywhere in the
world and be able to see the image of himself. The
old emphasis upon superficial differences that separate
peoples must give way to education for citizenship
in the human community. With such an education and
with such self-understanding, it is possible that
some nation or people may come forward with the
vital inspiration that men need no less than food.
Leadership on this higher level does not require
mountains of gold or thundering propaganda. It is
concerned with human destiny. Human destiny is the
issue. People will respond."
-- Norman Cousins
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I
think happiness comes from self-acceptance. We
all try different things, and we find some comfortable
sense of who we are. We look at our parents and
learn and grow and move on. We change.
-- Jamie Lee Curtis
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The
self is not something ready-made, but something
in continuous formation through choice of action.
-- John Dewey
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Whatever
games are played with us, we must play no games
with ourselves.
-- Ralph
Waldo Emerson
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“Self-observation brings man to the realization
of the necessity of self-change. And in observing
himself a man notices that self-observation itself
brings about certain changes in his inner processes.
He begins to understand that self-observation
is an instrument of self-change, a means of awakening.”
-- George Gurdjieff
Without
self knowledge, without understanding the working
and functions of his machine, man cannot be free,
he cannot govern himself and he will always remain
a slave.
-- George Gurdjieff
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If
most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because
self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures
of illusion.
~ Aldous Huxley
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The
true spiritual life begins within the individual
when he perceives the importance of it, and begins
to realize what spiritual values are. Therefore,
in order for man to emerge from his present state
of chaos, he must experience a revolution of a
new type, one that will have neither a political
nor an economic character. We may call it the
individual self-revolution. There is nothing that
can better transform man from his materialistic
conception of existence to a spiritual awareness
of life than such individual revolution from within...
-- Frederick Kettner
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It
is wisdom to know others; It is enlightenment
to know one's self. - Lao-Tzu
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We
read books to find out who we are. What other people,
real or imaginary, do and think and feel is an essential
guide to our understanding of what we ourselves
are and may become.
- Ursula K. LeGuin |
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[Our biggest opportunity at this moment in history
is] perhaps a deeper connection with all human
beings. That kind of connection, made possible
by our various technologies, simply couldn’t exist
before recent times. The connection guarantees
nothing, but it does offer an opportunity for
expressions of a global spirit, or what I call
a “species consciousness” or “species self.” What
that means is not that one ceases to be an American,
or a Christian, or a Muslim, or a Jew, or a Hindu.
One is any of those and at the same time, in one’s
own sense of self, a human being. This kind of
species consciousness is expanding. Perhaps it
represents our greatest opportunity.
--
Robert Jay Lifton
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There
is nothing like returning to a place that remains
unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself
have altered.
-- Nelson Mandela
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"It's too easy only to blame the militarists,
racists, sexists and other pushers of violence
for the mess we're in. What is harder is self-examination,
moving beyond caring by looking inward to ask
the personal question: What more should I be
doing everyday to bring about a peace and justice
based world, whether across the ocean or across
the living room?"
-- Colman McCarthy
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"Charity
is in the heart of man, and righteousness in the
path of men. Pity the man who has lost his path
and does not follow it and who has lost his heart
and does not know how to recover it. When people's
dogs and chicks are lost they go out and look for
them and yet the people who have lost their hearts
do not go out and look for them. The principle of
self-cultivation consists in nothing but trying
to look for the lost heart."
-- Mencius (4th century B.C.) |
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In
my mind, the purpose of education is to enable
human beings to develop to their full potential,
intellectually and spiritually. That means that
students have to be empowered to pursue self-knowledge
and the skills that will help them be of service
to their fellow human beings. Education should
encourage people to develop their curiosity about
life; above all, it should not trivialize either
the students or their lives.
-- Michael Nagler
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The
true, or higher part of the self is always seeking
the state that mystics talk about, the state in
which we are filled with a universal love and
a peaceful euphoria.
-- James Redfield
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The
true, or higher part of the self is always seeking
the state that mystics talk about, the state in
which we are filled with a universal love and
a peaceful euphoria.
-- James Redfield
“Life
is short. Time is fleeting. Realize the Self.
Purity of the heart is the gateway to God. Aspire.
Renounce. Meditate. Be good; do good. Be kind;
be compassionate. Inquire, know Thyself.”
-- Swami Sivananda
Know
Thyself.
- Socrates
"Some
people say they haven't yet found themselves.
But the self is not something one finds; it is
something one creates."
-- Thomas Szasz
"Know
Thyself"
-- Thales of Miletus (640 - 546 B.C.)
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I
went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,
to front only the essential facts of life, and
see if I could not learn what it had to teach,
and not, when I came to die, discover that I had
not lived.
-- Henry David
Thoreau
Not
until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.
-- Henry David
Thoreau
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"Know
Thyself" was written over the portal of the antique
world. Over the portal of the new world, "Be Thyself"
shall be written.
- Oscar Wilde |
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Our
deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our
deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens
us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are
you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing
small does not serve the world. There is nothing
enlightened about shrinking so that other people
won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant
to shine, as children do. We were born to make
manifest the glory of God that is within us. It
is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same. As
we are liberated from our own fear, our presence
automatically liberates others.
-- Marianne
Williamson
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My
vision for the future? Two things: to make credit
a human right so that each individual human being
will have the opportunity to take loans and implement
his or her ideas so that self-exploration becomes
possible. And second: that it will lead to a world
where nobody has to suffer from poverty - a world
completely free from poverty.
-- Muhammad Yunus
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