Knowing Oneself Quotes

“Life is like a game of chess.
To win you have to make a move.
Knowing which move to make comes with IN-SIGHT
and knowledge, and by learning the lessons that are
acculated along the way.

We become each and every piece within the game called life!”
― Allan Rufus, The Master's Sacred Knowledge

“As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself…The critical issue is allowing yourself to know what you know. That takes an enormous amount of courage.”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

“It's a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.”
― Germany Kent

“A genius in the wrong position could look like a fool.”
― Idowu Koyenikan, Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability

“Be happy with who you are and what you do, and you can do anything you want.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“Life is like a sandwich!

Birth as one slice,
and death as the other.
What you put in-between
the slices is up to you.

Is your sandwich tasty or sour?
Allan Rufus.org”
― Allan Rufus

“How would your life be different if…You stopped focusing on what you didn’t want and started focusing on what you do want? Let today be the day…You establish a clear intent, make a plan, and take actions towards your intent.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow -- you are not understanding yourself.”
― Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do

“I have to figure out why I worked at a job I hated for years. I have to find out why I can’t see what everyone else sees in me. I don’t feel beautiful. When I look in the mirror, I never saw beautiful. For this to happen to someone like me, it’s devastating, Jonas. I don’t want you to think it’s vanity, it isn’t. I can’t see me and I need to be able to do that. I need to find out what I’m like and what I want. I have to be comfortable in my own skin before I can be in a relationship the way you want.”
― Christine Feehan, Safe Harbor

“Sometimes it’s only in the ecstasy of unrepressed movement that we may enter the stillness of our authentic selves. In such sacred moments, the world seems to be in step. This is why the idea of finding love across the dance floor endure — symbolizing that, when we know the true rhythm of our heart, we know the other.”
― Alexandra Katehakis, Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Reflections on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence

“How to recognize what is real? To know the layers and depths of oneself, to know how to open, to know how to fill a capacious hold-all, to know one’s own quirks and nervous twitches, cravings and transparencies, and, above all the force, literally the force, of events, connections, the wild calm in every thing. ”
― Shawna Lemay

“The power of getting to know one another is so immense, eclipsed only by first getting to know ourselves.”
― Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason

“Some people think that if they don’t know their faults, they don’t have any.”
― Frank Sonnenberg, Listen to Your Conscience: That's Why You Have One

“Using reason without applying it to experience only leads to theoretical illusions. Ideas derived from real world experiences lead to acquisition of knowledge, and the accumulation of time-tested principles leads to wisdom.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Long ago I thought I knew myself, now my knowledge about myself is nothing but a empty shell…”
― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Nights

“Let the ego lose so that the soul can win.”
― Hiral Nagda

“Maybe there is no single self to speak of. Maybe you're a shifting collage of many different personas, each as authentic as the next. A kaleidoscope of ever-moving fragments, reflecting a thousand little impressions of the world around you, with flashes of different moods and vibrant clusters of quirks — but no broader pattern.

Maybe you have no true colors. You're not some finished painting, signed and sealed in varnish. If there is a “real you,” surely it’s the mess of paint on the palette: colors swirling and mixing and playing together, perpetually unfinished, searching and striving to make something new.”
― John Koenig, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

“Power, my young friends, is nothing but fear in disguise. Those who seek power do so because they are afraid — afraid of their own insignificance, afraid of losing control, afraid of facing the truth about themselves.”
― Anton Sammut, The Heirs of the Lost Legacy: A Modern Odyssey in a Forgotten Past

“I try to understand, but everything I do is a surprise even to me, as if I were an unknowable amalgam full of errors, an open wound closing up and splitting open, always wavering between criticism and self-pity.”
― Gabriela Ponce, Blood Red

“A man stares at himself in the mirror and peels away all the layers. But the person he sees doesn't feels like someone he knows. He feels like he is looking at a total stranger.”
― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Nights

“...isn't everyone with any degree of self-knowledge an insignificant person?...”
― Margaret Atwood, Old Babes in the Wood: Stories

“This is the essence of mindsight: We must look inward to know our own internal world before we can map clearly the internal state, the mind, of the other. As we grow in our ability to know ourselves we become receptive to knowing each other. And as a "we" is woven into the neurons of our mirroring brains, even our sense of self is illuminated by the light or our connection. With internal awareness and empathy, self-empowerment and joining, differentiation and linkage, we create harmony within the resonating circuits of our social brains.”
― Daniel J. Siegel, Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation

“Loneliess is a start of knowing oneself.”
― Kamaran Ihsan Salih

“There are no identities or statuses which can make up for not truly owning your Divine Unique Expression. Know the difference. Know your signature. Nothing can replace this.”
― Gwen Juvenal, Our New Story: Guides in the Garden Volume 1

“It often happens that I don't know myself, which is typical in those who know themselves. I look at myself in the various disguises that make me alive.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“When your present self and your ideal self are in different time zones, figure out what’s keeping you apart.”
― Frank Sonnenberg, Values to Live By: Know What Matters Most and Let It Be Your Guide

“How you speak, dress, move through life and engage with others can always welcome some refinement but not at the expense of trading who you are.”
― Sasha Laghonh

“And yet in the past I used to be terribly distressed at appearing to be ridiculous. No, not appearing to be, but being. I've always cut a ridiculous figure, I suppose I must have known it from the day I was born. At any rate, I've known for certain that I was ridiculous ever since I was seven years old, Afterwards I went to school, then to the university, and—well—the more I learned, the more conscious did I become of the fact that I was ridiculous. So that for me my years of hard work at the university seem in the end to have existed for the sole purpose of demonstrating and proving to me, the more deeply engrossed I became in my studies, that I was an utterly absurd person. And as during my studies, so all my life. Every year the same consciousness that I was ridiculous in every way strengthened and intensified in my mind. They always laughed at me. But not one of them knew or suspected that if there were one man on earth who knew better than anyone else that he was ridiculous, that man was I. And this—I mean, the fact that they did not know it— was the bitterest pill for me to swallow, But there was myself at fault. I was always so proud that I never wanted to confess it to anyone. No, I wouldn't do that for anything in the world. As the years passed, this pride increased in me so that I do believe that if ever I had by chance confessed it to any one I should have blown my brains out the same evening.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“So, what kind of things do you like?" Sidney asked.

"Well, I love to dance and sing like my momma. I like trying new things. I like helping people. I like it when boys think I'm intimidating, which they should. But I also know I'm still young, so I'm giving myself space to learn all the things I like. And not being hard on myself for not being what somebody else wants. That's all. Trusting my instincts. Never making myself small for other people. And no judgment."

"That sounds perfect."

"Not perfect. In progress.”
― Cebo Campbell, Sky Full of Elephants

“In a world where knowledge is more available than ever, choosing not to seek it is no longer innocent, it is dangerous.”
― Egbearor Favour