self-discovery Quotes

“But I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is.”

“Sooner or later, we are bound to discover some things about ourselves that we don’t like. But once we see they’re there, we can decide what we want to do with them.”

“By living a life based on wisdom and truth, one can discover the divinity of the soul, its union to the universe, the supreme peace and contentment which comes from satisfying the inner drive for self discovery.”

The ragamuffin who sees his life as a voyage of discovery and runs the risk of failure has a better feel for faithfulness than the timid man who hides behind the law and never finds out who he is at all.

“Those who leave have a reason that is more powerful than the one to stay.”

“I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed.”

“I could go back in the direction I had come from, or I could go forward in the direction I intended to go.”

“But what he’d shown me about myself wasn’t glamorous. It was worrying. It was something I had to change. And luckily he’d shown me the way.”

“From the moment we are born, people tell us that the world is like this and like that, this way, that way. It is natural that – for a certain period of time – we end up believing what we are told. But we must soon push these ideas aside and discover our own way of living reality.”

“So instead of trying to fit a mold- size, color, boyfriend or career path- find out who you are and what is your true voice in this world. There is no point in trying to become something you are not. There is a reason for you being who you are, and it is your job to find out what that is, because no one, and I mean no one on the planet, can be a better version of you than you can.. And if they don’t like what they see, they can simply look away.”

“Clues to your passion are always around you. The sequence of events that led me to that stage began when I least expected it, but I was on the lookout for something more, something meaningful in my ilife. And even then I had to battle my natural instincts to experience it. You’ll only find your passion if you search and fight to discover it.”

“It is impossible to live at the brink of your greatness if you do not take time to discover it.”

“Slower, he walked along in his thoughts and asked himself: “But what is this, what you have sought to learn from teachings and from teachers, and what they, who have taught you much, were still unable to teach you?” And he found: “It was the self, the purpose and essence of which I sought to learn. It was the self, I wanted to free myself from, which I sought to overcome. But I was not able to overcome it, could only deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from it. Truly, no thing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this my very own self, this mystery of me being alive, of me being one and being separated and isolated from all others, of me being Siddhartha! And there is no thing in this world I know less about than about me, about Siddhartha!”″

“Siddhartha learned a great deal from the Samanas; he learned many ways of losing the Self. He traveled along the path of self-denial through pain, through voluntary suffering and conquering of pain, through hunger, thirst and fatigue. He traveled the way of self-denial through meditation, through the emptying of the mind through all images. Along these and other paths did he learn to travel. He lost his Self a thousand times and for days on end he dwelt in non-being. But although the paths took him away from Self, in the end they always led back to it.”

“You can run and run as fast and as far as you like, but the truth is, wherever you run, there you are.”

“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’s not just in some of us; it’s 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.”

“Ah was wid dem white chillun so much till Ah didn’t know Ah wuzn’t white till Ah was round six years old. Wouldn’t have found it out then, but a man come long takin’ pictures and without askin’ anybody, Shelby, dat was de oldest boy, he told him to take us. Round a week later de man brought de picture for Mis’ Washburn to see and pay him which she did, then give us all a good lickin’. So when we looked at depicture and everybody got pointed out there wasn’t nobody left except a real dark little girl with long hair standing by Eleanor. Dat’s where Ah wuz s’posed to be, but Ah couldn’t recognize dat dark child as me. So Ah ast, ‘where is me? Ah don’t see me.’ Everybody laughed, even Mr. Washburn. Miss Nellie, de Mama of de chillun who come back home after her husband dead, she pointed to de dark one and said, ‘Dat’s you, Alphabet, don’t you know yo’ ownself?’ Dey all useter call me Alphabet ‘cause so many people had done named me different names. Ah looked at de picture a long time and seen it was mah dress and mah hair so Ah said: ’Aw, aw! Ah’m colored!’”

“Did not Atman dwell inside him, did not the primal source flow within his own heart?”

“Until the evil man finds evil unmistakably present in his existence, in the form of pain, he is enclosed in illusion. Once pain has roused him, he knows that he is in some way or other ‘up against’ the real universe: he either rebels (with the possibility of a clearer issue and deep repentance at some other stage) or else makes some attempting at an adjustment, which, if pursued, will lead him to religion.”

“It takes courage…to endure the sharp pains of self discovery rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives.”

“When we merely say that we are bad, the “wrath” of God seems a barbarous doctrine; as soon as we perceive our badness, it appears inevitable, a mere corollary from God’s goodness.”

“And loving you was a pattern of self-discovery because some way, somehow I always ended up learning something new about myself.”

“Never had I uttered such a speech before. Never had I thought myself capable of it. Never have I made such a speech again. Because, perhaps, never did such anger seize me as possessed me that day. Upstairs in the ruins of my home foreign soldiers were fighting for my country. Here in the cellar I was fighting for myself.”

“He shifted in his seat and smiled secretly. The pleasure of self-discovery.”

“I should flee, get away. They will turn on me next unless I go. But where to? What am I to do? Lose myself. Die in the forest. I look around. Eyes, hard with hatred, slide from mine. Mouths twitch between leering and sneering. I will not run away into the forest, because that is what they want me to do.”