Self Reflective Quotes

...it shames me to admit that I can bring all of my self-reflective idols with me into Mass, line them up like trophies before the altar, bow to them through the monkey-chatter of the brain, and then pack them up (along with a few newly minted ones) to take home with me. ~ Elizabeth Scalia

There have been many things that have set my soul on fire throughout my life. Mainly situated within the different phases I go through. In the past, community work did just that, but right now, since I am in a very self-reflective phase, black artists are setting my soul on fire; especially jazz musicians. Like never before, there is a rise of a young cohort who are blowing the jazz scene apart. My soul blazes because black artists are channels that keep us accountable, heal us and reveal different mysteries to us. ~ Malebo Sephodi

Most people's Gods are self-reflective. God just has to be like you. You get concerned, so you assume God must get concerned. You get pissed off, so you assume God must get pissed off. You're attached to things that you create, so you assume that God would be. ~ Frederick Lenz

It's very interesting to me that the nationalist movement in Scotland has become so positive and self-reflective rather than anti-English. The referendum in 2014 was peaceful, for all its deeply and passionately divided people. ~ Sarah Hall

In its quest to discover how the patterns of reality are organised, the story of modern science hints at a picture of a set of Chinese puzzle boxes, each one more intricately structured and wondrous than the last. Every time the final box appears to have been reached, a key has been found which has opened up another, revealing a new universe even more breathtakingly improbable in its conception. We are now forced to suspect that, for human reason, there is no last box, that in some deeply mysterious, virtually unfathomable, self-reflective way, every time we open a still smaller box, we are actually being brought closer to the box with which we started, the box which contains our own conscious experience of the world. This is why no theory of knowledge, no epistemology, can ever escape being consumed by its own self-generated paradoxes. And this is why we must consider the universe to be irredeemably mystical. ~ Bob Hamilton

No reprimand in the mirror
Slow walk to Liberia
Slow dance across the Sahara
Slow unraveling of gray matter ~ Mellon Black

I think somebody who is more self-reflective should ask why they personally aren't going on that path. If amateurism is so great, why didn't you stay one? You have to look at the larger economy, a backdrop of unemployment; it's shitty out there. ~ Astra Taylor

As we progress along the intercultural journey, we become self-reflective about habits of heart and mind and the ways these are expressed in daily life. We develop strategies for encountering change, unfamiliarity and ambiguity in creative ways. We begin to realize that what is taken, as "common sense" is really "cultural sense". Our life becomes richer and deeper for having encountered differences. ~ H. Ned Seelye

Education best serves students by helping them be more self-reflective. ~ Randy Pausch

The media in the States can be quite self-reflective. When I lived in England, I was much more aware of the day-to-day politics that were happening. Living somewhere where the media involvement is greater and so omnipresent, you become pulled into it and, at the same time, because of that, politics changes and the way it's handled changes. ~ Max Minghella

All knowledge is self-reflective. ~ Jerry Uelsmann

The people who could most benefit from the self-reflective ego-dissolving qualities of cannabis are the ones that want it to be illegal. ~ Joe Rogan

As long as we remain self-reflective and keep looking at who and what we are, as long as we keep our analysis that way, then there's no freedom. We're just trying clothes on in front of a mirror and admiring them. ~ Frederick Lenz

Neuroscience is fast developing the technical and conceptual wherewithal to reveal in fine, bare detail the neurobiological substrates of the mind. Perhaps it will despoil a sacred myth - the myth of selfhood and souls. And, if so, we may be wandering innocently into the opening phase of a dangerous game. Our ethics and systems of justice, our entire moral order, are founded on the notion of society as a collective of individual selves - autonomous, introspective, accountable agents. If this self-reflective, moral agent is revealed to be illusory, then what? ~ Paul Broks

Educators best serve students by helping them be more self-reflective. The only way any of us can improve - as Coach Graham taught me - is if we develop a real ability to assess ourselves. If we can't accurately do that, how can we tell if we're getting better or worse? ~ Randy Pausch

Now there's a whole generation of filmmakers who grew up making their own films with video cameras, and have dined entirely on a diet of popular culture. It's been reflected in a lot of their work. It's self-reflective, it's quite knowing, but it's very literate. ~ Simon Pegg

In the state of enlightenment, you are yourself - "you" and "yourself" merge into one. You do not judge yourself, you do not feel sorry for yourself, you are not proud of yourself, you do not love yourself, you do not hate yourself, and so on. The split caused by self-reflective consciousness is healed, its curse removed. There is no "self" that you need to protect, defend, or feed anymore. When you are enlightened, there is one relationship that you no longer have: the relationship with yourself. Once you have given that up, all your other relationships will be love relationships. ~ Eckhart Tolle

As the components of your life are stripped away, after all the ambitions and hopes vaporize, you reach a self-reflective starkness
the repetitious plucking of a single overwound string. ~ Arthur Nersesian

The best gift an educator can give, to get somebody to become self-reflective. ~ Randy Pausch

Pedagogy is not about training, it is about critically educating people to be self reflective, capable of critically address their relationship with others and with the larger world. Pedagogy in this sense provides not only important critical and intellectual competencies; it also enables people to intervene critically in the world. ~ Henry Giroux

Given the current state of publishing, I think it helps to have a brand name on the cover of your book. Comedians are proven commodities with built-in audiences. They may not have the writing chops of a Dave Eggers, but they're salacious and funny and self-reflective. ~ Michael Showalter

To have the detached eye of the occultist, to look outward, to not be so self-reflective and to learn to step through the various viewpoints of consciousness - that we call occultism - leads to freedom. ~ Frederick Lenz

Time is a topological manifold. It is a surface. Events flow across it like water over land and like water flowing over land, when the land is flat, the water becomes reflective and moves slowly. When the landscape becomes disrupted, the water moves faster and chaotic attractors appear and new kinds of activity emerge and out of that new activity, there comes the new states that define the future. ~ Terence McKenna

Dad was the glue to the broken pieces of our family. ~ Joanie Chevalier

Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven; and every countenance, bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever-shining benevolence. ~ Washington Irving

A man separated from his reflective belt is no man at all. ~ Benjamin Franklin

A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become. ~ W. H. Auden

[T]he idea of treating Mind as an effect rather than as a First Cause is too revolutionary for some–an "awful stretcher" that their own minds cannot acommodate comfortably. This is as true today as it was in 1860, and it has always been as true of some of evolution's best friends as of its foes. For instance, the physicist Paul Davies, in his recent book The Mind of God, proclaims that the reflective power of human minds can be "no trivial detail, no minor by-product of mindless purposeless forces" (Davies 1992, p. 232). This is a most revealing way of expressing a familiar denial, for it betrays an ill-examined prejudice. Why, we might ask Davies, would its being a by-product of mindless, purposeless forces make it trivial? Why couldn't the most important thing of all be something that arose from unimportant things? Why should the importance or excellence of anything have to rain down on it from on high, from something more important, a gift from God? Darwin's inversion suggests that we abandon that presumption and look for sorts of excellence, of worth and purpose, that can emerge, bubbling up out of "mindless, purposeless forces. ~ Daniel C. Dennett

This album [Stroll] and all my songs that break barriers are more reflective of my personality. ~ SonReal

With the buck before me suspended in immobility, there seems to be time for all things, time even to turn my gaze inward and see what it is that has robbed the hunt of its savour: the sense that this has become no longer a morning's hunting but an occasion on which either the proud ram bleeds to death on the ice or the old hunter misses his aim; that for the duration of this frozen moment the stars are locked in a configuration in which events are not themselves but stand for other things. ~ J.M. Coetzee

It may be seriously questioned whether the philosophies ... which isolate mind and set it over against the world did not have their origin in the fact that the reflective or theoretical class of men elaborated a large stock of ideas which social conditions did not allow them to act upon and test. Consequently men were thrown back into their own thoughts as ends in themselves. ~ John Dewey

The world after a war is a good world, I told myself. A happy world. A secure world. In this world, I might do anything. ~ Jennifer Niven

She remembered one of her boyfriends asking, offhandedly, how many books she read in a year. "A few hundred," she said.
"How do you have the time?" he asked, gobsmacked.
She narrowed her eyes and considered the array of potential answers in front of her. Because I don't spend hours flipping through cable complaining there's nothing on? Because my entire Sunday is not eaten up with pre-game, in-game, and post-game talking heads? Because I do not spend every night drinking overpriced beer and engaging in dick-swinging contests with the other financirati? Because when I am waiting in line, at the gym, on the train, eating lunch, I am not complaining about the wait/staring into space/admiring myself in reflective surfaces? I am reading!
"I don't know," she said, shrugging. ~ Eleanor Brown

I'm disappointed that I really haven't been able to race in a way that is reflective of the amount of work that I have done and how I have trained. But I don't regret giving this a go. ~ Ian Thorpe

All of my movies are about how I wish the world would work. I've made very few movies about how the world worked. I could name them on one and a half hands, about how my movies have been very reflective of how the world was exactly. A lot of my movies are really about the way I wish the world was, and that's what this whole art form is all about. It's an interpretive art form. ~ Steven Spielberg

One conceals oneself standing silently beside the trunk of a tree and what there is of a reflective tendency in his nature is intensified. One shudders at the thought of the meaninglessness of life while at the same instant, and if the people of the town are his people, one loves life so intensely that tears come into the eyes. ~ Sherwood Anderson

In terms of whether my mom was influential, I think she instilled a certain way of thinking in me quite early: having a reflective mindset regarding my actions and trying to find the underlying reasons to behavior. I think that's quite helpful when you're trying to understand a character. ~ Joel Kinnaman

Anatomy lab, in the end, becomes less a violation of the sacred and more something that interferes with happy hour, and that realization discomfits. In our rare reflective moments, we were all silently apologizing to our cadavers, not because we sensed the transgression but because we did not. ~ Paul Kalanithi

However, I have also argued for allegory's positive effects. It is a process that typically takes control away from the author of a narrative and gives it to the reader. It is the reader who decides whether to interpret writing on a literal or a symbolic level. In giving greater control to the reader, allegory allows for imaginative and reflective analyses of mythology, and for its ideological purposes to be criticized, as well as affirmed. ~ Helen Morales

The human mind is generative, creative, proactive, and reflective -- not just reactive. ~ Albert Bandura

There is a saying of my adoptive ancestors. Though he performs a miracle, or two miracles, if he refuses the third miracle, it is not as profit to him. I shall dine at the Court of France tonight, and in the course of that evening, acquire the royal consent for O'LiamRoe and myself to stay as long as we please. For, to be perfectly frank," said Lymond, gently reflective, "to be perfectly frank, I can't wait to sink my teeth into the most magnificent, the most scholarly and the most dissolute Court in Europe, which so lightly slid out The O'LiamRoe, Chief of the Name, on his kneecaps and whiskers. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

I found that gloss paint suited me entirely, and its qualities still intrigue me. It's viscous and fluid and feels like a pool. It's highly reflective, which means there are layers of looking. You look at the picture, and you look at the surface, then you look at the reflection in the surface behind you, then you look at yourself. ~ Gary Hume

Most architects say: I want to use this type of glass, even if it's too reflective or doesn't let enough light in. However, the use of a certain type of glass might change the comfort level. ~ Helmut Jahn

Consciousness, which is the "reflective" element of Norman's conceptual brain, handles the "higher" functions at the metaphorical tip of the very top of that complicated organ. Because consciousness pays a lot of attention to your thoughts, you tend to identify it with cognition. However, if you try to figure out exactly how you run your business or care for your family, you soon realize that you can't grasp that process just by thinking about it. As Norman puts it, "Consciousness also has a qualitative, sensory feel. If I say, 'I'm afraid,' it's not just my mind talking. My stomach also knots up. ~ Winifred Gallagher

Chris Marker has a brilliant mind and heart and appetite for life, and it's a privilege to travel with him to whatever he chooses to remember and to evoke. He is one of cinema's all time greats - the most important reflective or non-narrative filmmaker after Dziga Vertov. ~ Susan Sontag

...there is a danger of churning out students who are rapid processors of information but may not necessarily be more reflective, thoughtful, and able to give sustained consideration to the information that matters most. ~ Karen Bohlin

But then, she wonders,just what kind of man would ever give her the courage to marry at all- to overcome that dreadful fear of death that seemed always to accompany the very thought of love? It was illogical, idiotic and childish. And yet the child was with her always; and always she would be afraid unless someone could place a light down there inside that dark and chilly heart of hers and chase all the ghosts away - the ghosts of Katherine Howard, of Jane Seymour and, not least, that of her own poor mother. They accompanied her always, those spirits - especially at this kind of time, a time of being alone, of being feminine and reflective. They would all gather round to whisper in her ear and warn her - so that even as she looks up once more into her mirror she almost expects to see them there, ranged behind her shoulders, their faces full of concern and anxiety. Never trust them - never trust the men, for they will betray you always the moment you surrender to them! ~ Robert Stephen Parry

Rifle at Rylie. He stared at her down the barrel, meeting her reflective golden gaze. She was a beautiful wolf, much more slender than Jericho, and more ~ S.M. Reine

[Sadness] enforces a kind of reflective retreat from life's busy pursuits, and leaves us in a suspended state to mourn the loss, mull over its meaning, and, finally, make the psychological adjustments and new plans that will allow our lives to continue ~ Daniel Goleman

About a week after they had come back, a load of mail came to the island. They were the first letters the men had received in several weeks, and for a night it relieved the changeless pattern of their lives. One of the infrequent rations of beer was given out the same night, and the men finished their three cans quickly, and sat about without saying very much. The beer had been far too inadequate to make them drunk; it made them only moody and reflective, it opened the gate to all their memories, and left them sad, hungering for things they could not name. ~ Norman Mailer

Foreign novels are less action-oriented. They have a different pace; they're more reflective. They challenge us to look for the story, find the story within the story. ~ Stephanie Perkins

Those who pose, suppose that everything goes the way of the dodos. Yet, I've met, some who bet on luck like a cashed check, that is, before a major wreck. ~ Joel T. McGrath

Under his buckskin riding-coat he wore a black vest and the cravat and collar of a churchman. A young priest, at his devotions; and a priest in a thousand, one knew at a glance. His bowed head was not that of an ordinary man, - it was built for the seat of a fine intelligence. His brow was open, generous, reflective, his features handsome and somewhat severe. There was a singular elegance about the hands below the fringed cuffs of the buckskin jacket. Everything showed him to be a man of gentle birth - brave, sensitive, courteous. His manners, even when he was alone in the desert, were distinguished. He had a kind of courtesy toward himself, toward his beasts, toward the juniper tree before which he knelt, and the God whom he was addressing. ~ Willa Cather

A rush age cannot be a reflective age. ~ Ronald Knox

Since it is in the nature of consciousness to be reflective, we can never fully inhabit any conscious state that we are in, so that our 'restlessness' lies in the very nature of our being. ~ Thomas E. Wartenberg

Every day I walk out into the world / to be dazzled, then to be reflective. ~ Mary Oliver

Some of our best and most productive moments arise from a period when we are silent and reflective. ~ Lozetta Hayden

I suspect I said nothing because I was doing what I have done most of my life, which is to cover for the mistakes of others when they don't know they have embarrassed themselves. I do this, I think, because it could be me a great deal of the time. ~ Elizabeth Strout

Most people don't wear glasses in the U.S., and we're not conditioned to finding men and women who wear glasses sexy. If you need your glasses to see, find a good optometrist who can outfit you with a great frame, thin lenses, and a high-quality anti-reflective coating. ~ Amy Webb

Ultimately, Roger learned only of the encounter with the urban bees. The boy remained thoroughly fascinated by what he heard nonetheless, his blue-eyed stare never once straying from Holmes; his visage passive and accepting, his eyes wide, Roger's pupils stated fixed on those venerable, reflective eyes, as though the boy were seeing distant lights shimmering along an opaque horizon, a glimpse of something flickering and alive existing beyond his reach. And, in turn, the gray eyes that focused sharply on him - piercing and kind at the same instant - endeavoured to bridge the lifetime that separated the two of them, attempting to do so as brandy was sipped, and the vial's glass grew warmer against soft palms, and that seasoned, well-lived voice somehow made Roger feel much older and more worldly than his years. ~ Mitch Cullin

It is perhaps permissible here to draw attention to a distinction made by Martin Heidegger, who speaks of the duality of calculating and reflective thought. Both modes of thought are legitimate and necessary, but for this very reason neither can be absorbed in the other. There must therefore be both: calculating thought, which is concerned with "makability," and reflective thought, which is concerned with meaning. And one cannot deny that the Freiburg philosopher has a good deal of justification for expressing the fear that in an age in which calculating thought is celebrating the most amazing triumphs man is nevertheless threatened, perhaps more than ever before by thoughtlessness, by the flight from thought. By thinking only of the practicable, of what can be made, he is in danger of forgetting to reflect on himself and on the meaning of his existence. Of course, this temptation is present in every age. Thus in the thirteenth century the great Franciscan theologian Bonaventure felt obliged to reproach his colleagues of the philosophical faculty at Paris with having learned how to measure the world but having forgotten how to measure themselves. ~ Benedict XVI