Best Introspection Quotes to Inspire, Uplift & Motivate You Every Day

“True change doesn’t happen when the world adjusts to us; it begins when we adjust to the truth within ourselves and act boldly upon it.”

“In the shadow of success, it's easy to lose sight of who you are. The brighter the spotlight, the darker the corners where your true self hides.”

“If Mike convinces a woman to date him because he is dominant, the resulting relationship will be entirely different than if he had inspired this same woman to date him by convincing her that, through dating him, she could improve herself (though such dynamics might be ameliorated through therapy).”

“Know thyself, presume not God to scan;”

“Find yourself first, and be surprised at how quickly and logically “the” one just appears in front of you.”

“Generally, the silence offered by others says everything we refuse to hear.”

“The connection that brings us closer to others is the same that can distance us from ourselves...”

“The crisis enters the political scene like the glove that fits on a mime's hand, who, without color and without sound, creates drama and laughter at a traffic light.”

“From under her relentless hatred of you, which is sincere and absolute, shines love at every moment and... madness... the most sincere and boundless love, and - madness! Conversely, from under the love she feels for me, also sincerely, there shines hatred at every moment - the greatest hatred! Until now I could never have imagined all these "metamorphoses".”

“Just friends, just friends. Standing there in the bookstore, watching Seth walk away, I half wondered how anyone could still use that line. But I knew why, of course. It was used because people still believed it. Or at least they wanted to.”

“The samovar has been on the boil since before eight, but.. gone out... like everything else in the world. Even the sun, it's they say, will go out eventually. However, if necessary, I'll start it going again.”

“I swear, I loved you less yesterday. Why, then, are you trying to take everything away from me today? Do you know what it's cost me, this fresh hope? I've paid for it with a life.”

“She wonders how terrifying it felt . . . looking at the sea, feeling like she was at the very end of it all. She wonders what it was that made her realize there was somewhere else to go.”

“Hope is the slowest poison.”

“that's exactly the good thing about the Injun life--you don't have to stop and think about whether or not you're 'happy'--which in my opinion is a highly overrated human condition invented by white folks”

“Isn’t it funny how we make rational excuses for being out of alignment?”

“When the day ends, the promises we never kept return.”

“The act of going within, finding our truth, and then sharing it, it helps us far more than we know.”

“Don't call anyone a devil, because within you, you can experience hell and the devil, and the devil is nothing, but you!”

“No man is brave that has never walked a hundred miles. If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet introspection.”

“A mirror has always symbolized more than glass and reflection.”

“To know yourself, spend a season with something that cannot flatter you.”

“Be like the ocean, stay deep, not everyone deserves to see what’s beneath your surface.”

“Whenever we look around the world, we see smart leaders – in politics, in business, in media – making terrible decisions. What they're lacking is not IQ, but wisdom. Which is no surprise; it has never been harder to tap into our inner wisdom, because in order to do so, we have to disconnect from all our omnipresent devices – our gadgets, our screens, our social media – and reconnect with ourselves.”

“They were quiet for a while, eating, then Oromis asked, "Can you tell me, What is the most important mental tool a person can possess?”

“Pico Iyer: “And at some point, I thought, well, I’ve been really lucky to see many, many places. Now, the great adventure is the inner world, now that I’ve spent a lot of time gathering emotions, impressions, and experiences. Now, I just want to sit still for years on end, really, charting that inner landscape because I think anybody who travels knows that you’re not really doing so in order to move around—you’re traveling in order to be moved. And really what you’re seeing is not just the Grand Canyon or the Great Wall but some moods or intimations or places inside yourself that you never ordinarily see when you’re sleepwalking through your daily life. I thought, there’s this great undiscovered terrain that Henry David Thoreau and Thomas Merton and Emily Dickinson fearlessly investigated, and I want to follow in their footsteps.”

“Isn’t it funny how we make rational excuses for being out of alignment?”

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

“Maybe worship was the mistake.”

“God whispered, "You endured a lot. For that I am truly sorry, but grateful. I needed you to struggle to help so many. Through that process you would grow into who you have now become. Didn't you know that I gave all my struggles to my favorite children? One only needs to look at the struggles given to your older brother Jesus to know how important you have been to me.”

“As long as I have questions and no answers I’ll keep on writing. How do you start at the beginning, if things happen before they happen? If before the pre-prehistory there were already the apocalyptic monsters? If this story doesn’t exist now, it will. Thinking is an act. Feeling is a fact. Put the two together—I am the one writing what I am writing. God is the world. Truth is always an interior and inexplicable contact. My truest life is unrecognizable, extremely interior and there is not a single word that defines it. My heart has emptied itself of every desire and been reduced to its own final or primary beat.”

“You cannot be solved. You can only be understood”

“Nothing is more visible than things hidden; Nothing is more manifest than things minute; Therefore, the superior man should be aware of his aloneness”

“Healthy introspection, without undermining oneself; it is a rare gift to venture into the unexplored depths of the self, without delusions or fictions, but with an uncorrupted gaze.”

“The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour.”

“I do feel that I’ve managed to make something I could maybe call my world…over time…little by little. And when I’m inside it, to some extent, I feel kind of relieved. But the very fact I felt I had to make such a world probably means that I’m a weak person, that I bruise easily, don’t you think? And in the eyes of society at large, that world of mine is a puny little thing. It’s like a cardboard house: a puff of wind might carry it off somewhere.”