Self Understanding Quotes

I take my cues from the world around me and carefully paint a self-portrait that the world can't help but accept. However, I would be much wiser to put down all such artistic notions and hold up the portrait of me painted by God simply because that is a picture at which the world can't help but marvel. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

What makes me feel alive and connected to God's voice and spirit in this world is creating opportunities for the people I love to rest and connect and be fed at my table. I believe it's the way I was made, and I believe it matters. For many years, I didn't let it matter, for a whole constellation of reasons, but part of becoming yourself, in a deeply spiritual way, is finding the words to tell the truth about what it is you really love. ~ Shauna Niequist

Am I so terribly insecure that every time life hits me I must immediately run off to some mirror and gaze into it in order to make certain that I am who I thought I was? Frankly, what I'd much rather do is rest in who God says I am. Then I can throw all my mirrors away instead of throwing away all my time looking into them. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

If you are an adult, you are responsible for your life and well-being. No one owes you the fulfillment of your needs or wants; no one is here on earth to serve you. If you respect the principle of self-ownership, you understand that no one else owns you and that you do not own anyone else. Only on this understanding can there be peace on earth and good will among human beings. ~ Nathaniel Branden

The green prehuman earth is the mystery we were chosen to solve, a guide to the birthplace of our spirit, but it is slipping away. The way back seems harder every year. If there is danger in the human trajectory, it is not so much in the survival of our own species as in the fulfillment of the ultimate irony of organic evolution: that in the instant of achieving self-understanding, through the mind of man, life has doomed its most beautiful creations. And thus humanity closes the door on its past. ~ E. O. Wilson

What is important is to keep our mind high in the world of true understanding, and returning to the world of our daily experience to seek therein the truth of beauty. No matter what we may be doing at a given moment, we must not forget that is has a bearing upon our everlasting self which is poetry. ~ Matsuo Basho

Women from earliest times have been used as conveniences of communication with unseen, inaccessible powers, but always in the sense that such exposing of self to dangerous mysteries, such destruction of the understanding as was required to become the slave of unseen powers, did not matter because the communicant was only a woman, in herself an undetermined cipher - a nothing. ~ Laura Riding

Faith in the gospel restructures our motivations, our self-understanding, our identity, and our view of the world. Behavioral compliance to rules without heart-change will be superficial and fleeting ... We can only change permanently as we take the gospel more deeply into our understanding and into our hearts. We must feed on the gospel, as it were, digesting it and making it part of ourselves. That is how we grow. ~ Timothy Keller

You are meant to understand the nature of your inner self, and to manifest it outward. ~ Seth

Rogers believed that we have within ourselves enormous potential for self-understanding and for altering our self-concept and for our behaviour. He believed that this potential can be tapped if a climate of facilitative psychological attitudes can be provided, which person-centred therapy aims to do ~ Jacqui Stedmon

There is a difference between working hard to create a life that truly serves you
and working hard to create a life that you've been told you should want. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

I've always been interested in plants because I'm a gardener, so I have a basic understanding of botany and things like that, but it's all self-taught. ~ Michael Pollan

When you define yourself based on things you have done, in order to maintain that self-image you must constantly look away from the present moment, as you search for a means of self-understanding through past experiences. ~ Chris Matakas

Beautiful writing is more than pretty prose. It creates resonance in readers' minds with parallels, reversals, and symbols. It conjures a story world that is unique, highly detailed, and brought alive by the characters that dwell there. It offers moments of breath-catching surprise, heart-gripping insight, revelation, and self-understanding. It engages the reader's mind with an urgent point, which we might call theme. ~ Donald Maass

Self-understanding is a lifetime endeavour. It is not a weekend seminar. It does not come in capsule form. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

The more that you're knowing, the more you will be feeling and seeing, the more that you will hurt in your heart, and in your self. Deep heart understanding replaces your need and your holding of personal truths. ~ John De Ruiter

We humans are a hungry lot. We are driven by a craving to know who we are. Yet who we are is embedded in the heart of a holy God. Unless we seek for ourselves in the epicenter of God's grace, we will be forever condemned to walk the arid edges of self-understanding. ~ Calvin Miller

If there is danger in the human trajectory, it is not so much in the survival of our own species as in the fulfillment of the ultimate irony of organic evolution: that in the instant of achieving self-understanding through the mind of man, life has doomed its most beautiful creations. ~ Edward O. Wilson

If you love someone, you will want to understand them and accept them as they grow and change; similarly, loving yourself involves a never-ending process of self-understanding and self-acceptance through life's ups and downs...we are finally coming to understand that love for neighbor and love for self naturally lead to love for the earth...if you love your neighbor as yourself, you want both them and you to be able to breathe, so you need to love clean fresh air...you want them and you to be able to drink, so you need to love pure water in all its forms...you want them and you to be be able to eat, so you need to care about the climate...." (p. 59-60) ~ Brian McLaren

When you act on your impulses to play, when you are open to the possibilities in each moment, you replace your fears with self-understanding, self-esteem, and personal strength. ~ Sandra Magsamen

The more we discover about God, the more we learn about ourselves and vice versa. Self-understanding and God awareness go hand in glove. We are not separated from the way God uniquely designed us; nor is our growing intimacy with God distinct from our ever-deepening self-discovery. Exploring both will lead us into the fullness of our life in the Spirit. ~ Stephen A. Macchia

Human existence may be simpler than we thought. There is no predestination, no unfathomed mystery of life. Demons and gods do not vie for our allegiance. Instead, we are self-made, independent, alone, and fragile, a biological species adapted to live in a biological world. What counts for long-term survival is intelligent self-understanding, based upon a greater independence of thought than that tolerated today even in our most advanced democratic societies. ~ E. O. Wilson

A person can only see their shadow if they awaken their eclectic soul. Self-understanding commences by admitting to the shadowy presence of the primordial unconsciousness. The unconscious mind is a magical concoction of logical and irrational thoughts and feelings. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

REAL people do not
have to lie, exaggerate, or brag for they are self-contained in self-understanding and acceptance of themselves. REAL people can make a mistake knowing that even when they do, it is only a mistake and just because the outcome was not to their liking, they know…THEY are not a mistake. REAL have the attitude this is who I am…and I am good enough, right now…just as I am. People who have chosen REAL have already clicked their heals together and returned home. ~ David Walton Earle

The most profound personal growth does not happen while reading a book or meditating. It happens in the throes of conflict, when you are angry, afraid, frustrated. It happens when you are doing the same old thing and you suddenly realize that you have a choice. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

You'd be surprised how often you doubt your own sanity when you don't understand your own capacities. ~ K.M. Mac Aulay "Black Anna"

Advocates of psychiatric drugs often claim that the medications improve learning and the ability to benefit from psychotherapy, but the contrary is true. There are no drugs that improve mental function, self-understanding, or human relations. Any drug that affects mental processes does so by impairing them. ~ Peter Breggin

It is not until you learn to look at yourself, through the truth of who you are, that you can look at someone else. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

My hope and my prayer for people would be to find and gather themselves such that their self-understanding, their willingness to act in the face of fear, [imbibes and imbues them] with enough faith [that] is bigger than their fear. ~ Rod Stryker

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

The ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus taught his students that what happens to them is not as important as what they believe happens to them. In this engaging and provocative book, Eldon Taylor provides his readers with specific ways in which their beliefs can lead to success or failure in their life undertakings. Each chapter provides nuggets of wisdom as well as road maps for guiding them toward greater self-understanding, balance, responsibility, and compassion. ~ Stanley Krippner

He who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others. He will communicate to them nothing but the contagion of his own obsessions, his aggressiveness, his ego-centered ambitions, his delusions about ends and means, his doctrinaire prejudices and ideas. ~ Thomas Merton

But finding a voice-let's be clear-is a political act. It defines a moment of presence, of being awake; and it involves not only self-understanding, but the ability to transmit that selfunderstanding to others ... To experience yourself as "voiceless" is a definition of depression, subjugation, and being counted out. ~ Mary Rose O'Reilley

For the normative self-understanding of modernity, Christianity has functioned as more than just a precursor or catalyst. Universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of a continual critical reappropriation and reinterpretation. Up to this very day there is no alternative to it. And in light of the current challenges of a post-national constellation, we must draw sustenance now, as in the past, from this substance. Everything else is idle postmodern talk. ~ Jurgen Habermas

To deny the truth of our own experience in the scientific study of ourselves is not only unsatisfactory; it is to render the scientific study of ourselves without a subject matter. But to suppose that science cannot contribute to an understanding of our experience may be to abandon, within the modern context, the task of self-understanding. Experience and scientific understanding are like two legs without which we cannot walk.

We can phrase this very same idea in positive terms: it is only by having a sense of common ground between cognitive science and human experience that our understanding of cognition can be more complete and reach a satisfying level. We thus propose a constructive task: to enlarge the horizon of cognitive science to include the broader panorama of human, lived experience in a disciplined, transformative analysis. ~ Evan Thompson

This important theme of Abraham's deep trust in God's promise and faithfulness helped shape Israel's own self-understanding and identity. So it's not surprising to hear Moses's words to Israel at Sinai: "Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test [the Hebrew verb is nasah] you, and in order that the fear [yir'ah] of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin" (Exod. 20:20). These two key verbs link back to Genesis 22. Abraham was tested by God (Gen. 22:1) and through this ordeal demonstrated his fear of God (v. 12). Abraham's obedience is intended to serve as a model for Israel and to inspire Israel's obedience and solidify their relationship with ("fear of") God.5 ~ Paul Copan

One may escape from the prisons of experience, ideology or philosophy, but it is impossible to escape from the reality of one's innermost self. Understanding this, I had freed myself from nostalgia, and having done so, what remained was to free myself from the prospect of the future.
("The Tower") ~ Mark Samuels

Sadly the very thing that strikes us as obvious always defeats our thinking about it in more penetrating ways: just as the Romans said that "the good is the enemy of the better," so too "the self-evident is the enemy of the very process of clarification or understanding," not to mention the enemy of the "transcendent or ultimate." ~ Kenny Smith

Self knowledge is a virtue in its own right. We value the way in which people can fulfill their own natures by gaining an unsentimental self understanding. We think it is good to grow, for all our vices, into someone who is mature enough to face the past and the present, someone who understands how character, in its weaknesses as well as its strengths, is made of interlocking tendencies and gifts that have grown in the course of a life. The image of growth and maturing is Aristotelian rather than Kantian. These ancient values are ideals that none fully achieve, and yet they are modest, not seeking to find a meaning in life, but finding excellence in living and honoring life and its potentialities. ~ Ian Hacking

Instead of labelling your emotions as problems to solve, you can see them as signals to interpret. Instead of judging your desires as shameful aberrations, you can learn to meet them in healthier ways. Instead of calling yourself critical names when you cannot build or break certain habits, you can explore your motivations. You can become a student of yourself rather than always seeking a wiser teacher. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

Before he died in 2013, the great sociologist Robert Bellah said that his view of everything he'd studied across his life was tilted on its axis by this late recognition: when mammals began to bring forth offspring from the center of their bodies, spiritual life became possible. With apes and far more with humans, the period of necessary parental care - care in order for the offspring to survive - became longer and longer. The long helplessness of the child generated a sphere of softening, experimentation, and creativity in self-understanding and shared life. This is the biological groundwork for the axial move - stepping out of fear and into care beyond one's self. The religions apprehended this long ago and wove it into language; compassion in both Hebrew and Arabic derives from the word for womb. ~ Krista Tippett

Human self-understanding changes with time, and so also human consciousness deepens. ~ Pope Francis

We employ our personality, what we know, think, and believe, in order to interpret the world, making self-understanding a critical act because it establishes the baseline for our philosophical and intellectual approach towards life. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

[L]ife is a phenomenon in need of criticism, for we are, as fallen creatures, in permanent danger of worshipping false gods, of failing to understand ourselves and misinterpreting the behaviour of others, of growing unproductively anxious or desirous, and of losing ourselves to vanity and error. Surreptitiously and beguilingly, then, with humour or gravity, works of art
novels, poems, plays, paintings or films
can function as vehicles to explain our condition to us. They may act as guides to a truer, more judicious, more intelligent understanding of the world. ~ Alain De Botton

Those of us who attempt to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening our own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others. We will communicate to them nothing but the contagion of our own obsessions, our aggressivity, our ego-centered ambitions, our delusions about ends and means. ~ Thomas Merton

The highest task of education is - to take command of one's transcendental self - to be at once the I of its I. It is all the less to be wondered at that we lack complete insight and understanding for others. Without perfect self-understanding one will never learn to truly understand others. ~ Novalis

To be depressed or neurotic is passive. It has happened to all of us; we are its victims, are we have no control over it. ~ William Glasser

So that's the process of understanding, and through that process, if you have a deep realization of the selflessness in regard to your absolute self, then it releases your relational self to be happily interconnected with everything in a blissful way. Then you yourself have "no problem" in the sense of no suffering. You reach Nirvana. ~ Robert Thurman

Those who have chosen the path of least resistance in life, who cannot bear to bring themselves to make a stern value-judgment in criticism of their own most intimate feelings, achieve what they deserve: not self-understanding but radical self-superficialization, not a discovered but a self-ascribed identity that explains nothing, reveals nothing, means nothing, and ultimately accomplishes nothing culturally or intellectually. ~ Kenny Smith

When we say we understand something, but we do not experience it, we do not understand it.

Understanding and experiencing are the same thing.

For example, we may say: I understand the importance of forgiveness BUT I can't do it.

Firstly, replace "I can't do it" with:
I am choosing to remain in the state of being of ignorance (misinformation), because I believe it to be the best option I can choose from.

Secondly, replace "I understand the importance of forgiveness" with:
"I do not understand the importance of forgiveness".

Being honest with oneself is the first step to self-understanding. ~ Raphael Zernoff

If you do not respect your own wishes, no one else will. You will simply attract people who disrespect you as much as you do. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

The biggest adversary in our life is ourselves. We are what we are, in a sense, because of the dominating thoughts we allow to gather in our head. All concepts of self-improvement, all actions and paths we take, relate solely to our abstract image of ourselves. Life is limited only by how we really see ourselves and feel about our being. A great deal of pure self-knowledge and inner understanding allows us to lay an all-important foundation for the structure of our life from which we can perceive and take the right avenues. ~ Bruce Lee

Psychiatry is a strange field because, unlike any other field of medicine, you never really finish. Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I'm still learning. ~ Irvin D. Yalom

Begin ... where you are, NOT where you want to be. Begin stuck in the doldrums of your false story
if that is where you are. Begin there because, in truth, there is no other place to start from. Tell yourself that you are going to listen for the sound of your own voice
and remind yourself when you forget. And you will forget, over and over again. ~ Florence Falk

Therapy really did prepare me to become an empathic songwriter. As far as advice goes, it's a matter of self understanding first. ~ William Fitzsimmons

To deny our pasts is to burn the bridge we must cross to self-understanding. Alan Christoffersen's diary ~ Richard Paul Evans

A recurrent theme in Kissinger's early writing is the historical ignorance of the typical American decision-maker. Lawyers, he remarked in 1968, are the "single most important group in Government, but they do have this drawback - a deficiency in history." For Kissinger, history was doubly important: as a source of illuminating analogies and as the defining factor in national self-understanding. Americans might doubt history's importance, but, as Kissinger wrote, "Europeans, living on a continent covered with ruins testifying to the fallibility of human foresight, feel in their bones that history is more complicated than systems analysis."
-Foreign Affairs, The Meaning of Kissinger: A Realist Reconsidered, By Niall Ferguson ~ Niall Ferguson

I protect myself by refusing to know myself. ~ Floriano Martins

Might I wish to be all that I can be and not fall victim to all that I fear to be. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

You don't need to wait for someone else to notice your talents before nourishing them. You don't need others to accept you to feel accepted. You don't need to wait. You can begin, at any moment, to work on noticing, nourishing, and accepting yourself. You can work on being a better friend to your reflection. You can start listening to yourself like you wish other people would. You can become curious about who you are. You can begin to learn the language of your mind and body so that you can decode it, understand it, speak it. You can work on understanding yourself instead of always trying to make yourself into someone else. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

No tree tries to become a certain kind of tree. No flower tries to become a certain kind of flower. The tree and the flower open up to the sun and soak up water. Thus, they grow into themselves. No judgment. No expectations. No commentary. Your task is the same. If you can stop trying so hard to become who you think you should be, and instead commit to understanding and nourishing yourself, you will bloom into whatever kind of person you are. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

We read books to find out who we are. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

But myth is something else than an explanation of the world, of history, and of destiny. Myth expresses in terms of the world - that is, of the other world or the second world - the understanding that man has of himself in relation to the foundation and the limit of his existence. Hence to demythologize is to interpret myth, that is, to relate the objective representations of the myth to the self-understanding which is both shown and concealed in it. ~ Paul Ricoeur

What is important is to realize that whether we understand fully who we are or what will happen when we die, it's our purpose to grow as human beings, to look within ourselves, to find and build upon that source of peace and understanding and strength that is our individual self. And then to reach out to others with love and acceptance and patient guidance in the hope of what we may become together. ~ Elisabeth Kubler Ross

Honest self-understanding liberates us from our stuck emotions. ~ C. Terry Warner

Too often we confuse 'discovering who we are' with 'discovering who we want to be.' And if we commit to the former it will take care of the latter. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

the next step in the adventure of self-understanding can begin only when we take note of our innate and legitimate need for an environment rich in mental states that are induced through an act of will. ~ Terrence McKenna

Not to Learn Irish is to miss the opportunity of understanding what life in this country has meant and could mean in a better future. It is to cut oneself off from ways of being at home. If we regard self-understanding, mutual understanding, imaginative enhancement, cultural diversity and a tolerant political atmosphereas a desirable attainments, we should remember that a knowledge of the Irish language is an essential element in their realisation. ~ Seamus Heaney

Life is a conversation with yourself. And who are you if not the eternal presence behind everything that is, was, and will be? Like this, the blow of each breeze and the beauty of each sunset can teach you about yourself, if you listen. If you hear. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

Don't try to change the world.
First, change yourself or rather, your self-perception, and you find the world automatically corresponding to the level of your understanding.
You will find that it has always been you who set the pace and depth of your experience by recognizing and honoring your true nature. ~ Mooji

Greater in battle
than the man who would conquer
a thousand-thousand men,
is he who would conquer
just one
himself.
Better to conquer yourself
than others.
When you've trained yourself,
living in constant self-control,
neither a deva nor gandhabba,
nor a Mara banded with Brahmas,
could turn that triumph
back into defeat. ~ Gautama Buddha

Too often fear is fiction madly running amuck, all the while madly tracking 'muck' across the floor of fact. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

I regret it when I suppress my feelings too long and they burst forth in ways that are distorted or attacking or hurtful. ~ Carl R. Rogers

The opposite of fear is faith' is an adage I heard often when I quit drinking. The thinking is that fear is paralyzing or even regressive, causing you to retreat in defense, while faith inspires forward progress. So why, I always wondered, does fear feature so prominently in our discussions and practice of faith? We talk about fear of God as a good thing - and being God-fearing as a desirable state. I know I'm not the first to say this, and smarter people have given it more thorough examination and more eloquent expression, but that just makes no sense to me. It's counterintuitive and, I think, confuses fear with respect. As a way of motivating people, cultivating fear is easier than investing the time and effort necessary to engender respect. Respect requires greater knowledge, and in my experience, the more you know, the less you fear.

In the year or so between my Parkinson's diagnosis and my quitting drinking, I had considered getting sober but feared life without the perceived buffer of alcohol. What I came to realize after a few months of disciplined sobriety was that my fear had nothing to do with alcohol or a lack thereof. It had to do with a lack of self-understanding. As I gained more intimate knowledge of myself, why I did the things I did, what my resentments were, and how I could address them, my fear began to subside. ~ Michael J Fox

What I find difficult, when I read, is to encounter other people's achievements passed off as one's own. I find it difficult to discover literary tradition so warmly embraced and coddled, as if artists existed merely to have flagrant intercourse with the past, guaranteed to draw a crowd but also certain to cover that crowd in an old, heavy breading. I find it difficult when a narrative veers toward soap opera, when characters are explained by their childhoods, when setting is used as spackle to hold together chicken-wire characters who couldn't even stand up to an artificial wind, when depictions of landscape are intermissions while the author catches his breath and gets another scene ready. I find writing difficult that too readily subscribes to the artistic ideas of other writers, that willingly accepts language as a tool that must be seen and not heard, that believes in happy endings, easy revelations, and bittersweet moments of self-understanding. I find writing difficult that could have been written by anyone. That's difficult to me, horribly so. Mr. Difficult? It's not Gaddis. Mr. Difficult is the writer willing to sell short the aims of literature, to serve as its fuming, unwanted ambassador, to apologize for its excesses or near misses, its blind alleys, to insult the reading public with film-ready versions of reality and experience and inner sensations, scenes flying jauntily by under the banner of realism, which lately grants it full critical immunity. ~ Ben Marcus

Most perfect self-understanding is the capability to directly (immediately) transcend dilemma, all problems, all seeking. ~ Adi Da

I don't know what understanding myself is. I don't look inside.
I don't believe I exist behind myself. ~ Alberto Caeiro

To see was not to control, that self-understanding was far short of self-mastery. He was afraid of himself. ~ Richard Wright

Conviction is having the mindset to never doubt your self-understanding ~ Gino Norris

Over the last three centuries our historical reception of folk and fairy tales has been so negatively twisted by aesthetic norms, educational standards and market conditions that we can no longer distinguish folk tales from fairy tales nor recognize that the impact of these narratives stems from their imaginative grasp and symbolic depiction of social realities. Folk and fairy tales are generally confused with one another and taken as make-believe stories with no direct reference to a particular community or historical tradition. Their own specific ideology and aesthetics are rarely seen in the light of a diachronic historical development which has great bearing on our cultural self-understanding. ~ Jack D. Zipes

When people of different religions or countries harm people as a means to create peace, it's out of the compulsion to make all colors the same. This is also why people think that war is a logical avenue towards creating peace. People who do not have or know inner peace perpetuate these shards of illusions. Thus, they are projecting their fragmented concepts of peace out onto the world. ~ Alaric Hutchinson

Caution is crediting, and reserve in speaking, and in revealing one's self to but very few, are the best securities both of a good understanding with the world, and of the inward peace of our own minds. ~ Thomas A Kempis

One of the most important phases of maturing is that of growth from self-centering to an understanding relationship to others. A person is not mature until he has both an ability and a willingness to see himself as one among others and to do unto those others as he would have them do to him. ~ Harry Allen Overstreet

Emotional intelligence is knowledge of the "Self," understanding who we are, and employing this knowledge to exercise self-control in our relationships with other beings and the world. Only by knowing ourselves can we responsibly and efficiently manage our senses, thoughts, words and actions, and behave in a benevolent manner toward other beings and the world. ~ Joseph Rain

The secret of understanding poetry is to hear poetry's words as what they are: the full self's most intimate speech, half waking, half dream. You listen to a poem as you might listen to someone you love who tells you their truest day. Their words might weep, joke, whirl, leap. What's unspoken in the words will still be heard. It's also the way we listen to music: You don't look for extractable meaning, but to be moved. ~ Jane Hirshfield

Good writers always have a strong sense of who they are and who they are not. Like actors, their boundaries are strong, and fluid. They have a deep understanding of the human condition, and an empathy that is not so diffuse that it is diluted. ~ Suzy Davies

As a teacher I realize that what one learns in school doesn't serve for very much at all, that the only thing one can really learn is self-understanding, and this is something that can't be taught. ~ Laura Esquivel

Self-understanding is crucial for understanding another person; self-love is crucial for loving others. When you've understood your suffering, you suffer less, and you are capable of understanding another person's suffering much more easily. When you can recognize the suffering in the other person and see how that suffering came about, compassion arises. You no longer have the desire to punish or blame the other person. You can listen deeply, and when you speak there is compassion and understanding in your speech. The person with whom you're speaking will feel much more comfortable, because there is understanding and love in your voice. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Religion without sense is like a car with no wheels. You can be in it, but it won't take you anywhere. We must be logical and good-natured if we want it to take us places for the greater good. ~ Torron-Lee Dewar

Accepting the fact that I don't even remotely understand all that I can be might prove an insurmountable barrier to some. Yet, if I can accept that fact, the far greater barrier constructed of my suffocatingly limited understanding of myself would be removed. And without a doubt, the former might be difficult to deal with but the latter is certain to kill me. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Enlightenment is the liberation of man from his self-caused state of minority ... Supere aude! Dare to use your own understanding!is thus the motto of the Enlightenment. ~ Immanuel Kant

What I do is the truest mirror of who I am. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

It becomes increasingly clear that we won't be free of self-destructive patterns unless we develop a compassionate understanding of what they are. ~ Pema Chodron

We learn to understand ourselves in and through it because the artwork is not a timeless present for a pure aesthetic consciousness (i.e., it is not an encounter with an object for which one can only express feelings of pleasure or displeasure), but rather, a real encounter with a world that presents itself historically. The self-understanding that occurs in relation to the experience of art, Gadamer tells us, is only possible when our experiencing is not discontinuous with "the unity and integrity of the other."17 ~ James Risser

If we reverse the outer shell and the essence
in other words, consider the outer shell the essence and the essence only the shell
our lives might be a whole lot easier to understand. ~ Haruki Murakami

You are nature. You are already perfect, peaceful, and powerful. You don't need to become anything. You simply need to remember yourself. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

Trust yourself. Let self-awareness be your science. Let self-discovery be your research. Let your intuition be your expert. Let your endless curiosity be your teacher. And, above all, find out what makes you smile. That is the most important study you can ever undertake. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

Provocative. Striking. Rachel Resnick is a virtuoso on the page. Her fearless examination of the desperate thirst to find love is guaranteed to break your heart. Yet her cool-eyed analysis of the roots of this addiction inspires hope that through committed self-understanding, maybe each of us can change toxic patterns, whatever they may be. ~ Samantha Dunn

But none of the feeling which the joys or misfortunes of a real person arouse in us can be awakened except through a mental picture of those joys or misfortunes; and the ingenuity of the first novelist lay in his understanding that, as the image was the one essential element in the complicated structure of our emotions, so that simplification of it which consisted in the suppression, pure and simple, of real people would be a decided improvement. A real person, profoundly as we may sympathise with him, is in a great measure perceptible only through our senses, that is to say, remains opaque, presents a dead weight which our sensibilities have not the strength to lift. If some misfortune comes to him, it is only in one small section of the complete idea we have of him that we are capable of feeling any emotion; indeed it is only in one small section of the complete idea he has of himself that he is capable of feeling any emotion either. The novelist's happy discovery was to think of substituting for those opaque sections, impenetrable to the human soul, their equivalent in immaterial sections, things, that is, which one's soul can assimilate. After which it matters not that the actions, the feelings of this new order of creatures appear to us in the guise of truth, since we have made them our own, since it is in ourselves that they are happening. ~ Marcel Proust

I am not always just living, just following all my fantasies; I come up for air, for understanding. ~ Anais Nin