Introspection Quotes

“The mirror tosses back a version of me as if it has been whirled through a cosmic blender, morphing into shapes that don't quite stick. It's not only a reflection staring back but a whole gallery of emotions, imprisoned into a perpetual loop —hope flickers, despair looms, joy bursts, and pain shadows. They all merge into faces I swear I've known and echoes of a past I carry, recklessly pieced together in a spectacle of what it means to be achingly, beautifully human.”
― Aura Biru, We Are Everyone

“There, at the very edge, bordering on the collapse of reality and the dawn of oblivion, an uncanny stillness pins me down to my bed. The world beyond my eyelids, unsteady under a convulsing sky, swings in rhythm with my faltering movements, shifting from pulse to pause, to pulse, to pause.”
― Aura Biru, We Are Everyone

“Then again, in the early morning hours, when the world outside whispers of slumber, my fingers still trace the outline of a memory. He rests there, in that blind spot between the everyday, when his presence feels most palpable, engraved on the half of the bed that remains unforgivingly empty. What a paradox of loss, this heightened sense of him in the heart of his absence.”
― Aura Biru, We Are Everyone

“The affairs of the past are like the waters flowing by: they cannot be returned.”
― Meng Xi Shi, Thousand Autumns: Qian Qiu (Novel), Vol. 2

“That night, I was deaf, blind, and empty. Nothing could affect me; no monsters visited, no demons sought my company. I had nothing to lose and nothing to fight for. So, I closed my eyes and journeyed through an eternal void—a world of nothingness and endless emptiness. Life comes and goes, you came, you left, my empty heart was the only thing that never left me alone.”
― Rolf van der Wind

“Your job isn’t to make the fool notice you, but to illuminate and those that see the beacon will instinctively move toward you.”
― Ayura Ayira, Nuclear Harlot

“I find it simpler to envision shedding tears over a matter than picturing myself genuinely prepared for change. Understanding my emotions proves intricate. It commences with a yearning to refine my thought processes, a longing to evolve into a superior version of myself, and an acknowledgment of the knowledge and superiority of others beyond my current perception. On rare occasions, this contemplation lingers within me, day after day, gradually evolving from a fleeting thought into an intrinsic facet of my identity. The aforementioned notion holds promise for instigating positive change within me, yet it often necessitates a significant passage of time before I yearn for it, and the resultant impact is distressing. I come to terms with the notion that my heart is astray, preyed upon by untamed beasts. I can anticipate your reassurance: "Don't worry, no one is perfect." Nonetheless, I acknowledge that I stand just a notch above the beasts and several steps below the angels.”
― Rolf van der Wind

“You want to know when was the last time I saw anybody. I could ask you when was the last time you didnt see anybody. When was the last time you just sat by yourself. Watched it get dark. Watched it get light. Thought about your life. Where you’d been and where you were goin. Was there a reason for any of it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger

“Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.”
― Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

“My life feels like a dream that has already ended. There's nothing to fear and nothing to rejoice about. I should feel happy, but instead, I feel nothing. Lately, I experience a profound sense of emptiness. This void is unmistakable, even when I try to convince myself otherwise. It is beautiful, boundless, full yet empty. Now I've come to understand what people mean about memories—whether they are good or bad, they always leave you feeling a bit more empty afterward. After an ending, there's just a long stretch of time where it seems everything has concluded and nothing new will ever begin. Maybe there is no path back to a lost paradise.”
― Rolf van der Wind

“The trees are not trees the birds are not birds and I am not me but just something that has been walking for a very long time...”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation

“How would I feel if I were another boy? How would I feel if I were a normal person? These questions obsessed me.”
― Yukio Mishima, Confessions of a Mask

“Not a cage, but a sanctuary," the soul sighs, seeking solace in silence, where whispers bloom and storms find their hush.”
― Huzefa Nalkheda wala

“There are times when I soar on the wings of dreams, exploring the vast expanse of imagination. And there are times when I plunge into the depths of introspection, discovering hidden facets of my own complexity”
― Monika Ajay Kaul

“All the mortal things I had been revering in my life, everything that I was looking up to in awe suddenly came down to eye level in front of me and all the mortal things I had looked down upon and patronized in my life, suddenly rose up to eye level. Now, the world was flat and I was looking it in the eye.”
― Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights

“Guard against the spirit of rebellion, it has destroyed the lives of so many people.”
― Khuliso Mamathoni, The Greatest Proposal

“What I have to say, since it is itself a piece of philosophy, is an example of what I take philosophy to be, part of a more general attempt to make the best sense of our life, and so of our intellectual activities, in the situation in which we find ourselves.”
― Bernard Williams, Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline

“Was there any wonder I was jaded and depressed all the time? I had spent my childhood being abused by the people I was supposed to be able to trust the most only to grow into a world where being discarded and exploited not only made one a good citizen but also the fodder for the earth's biblical inheritance.”
― Brian Krasielwicz, Marsupial Tracks

“Peace of mind is what I aspire for in this lifetime.”
― Mitta Xinindlu

“Freedom guides our actions in powerful ways. I hadn't been so much under the external control of other people as my own rigid belief system. The one that told me to conform to a set of rules. I hadn't even thought through and honestly considered whether it was a good choice or not.”
― Monica Nelson, Mere Sense: A Memoir of Men, Migraine, and the Mysteries of Being Highly Sensitive

“I always knew I'd be killed by a cliché.”
― James Crumley, The Mexican Tree Duck

“But now that day had broken, nothing had changed, no one had rescued them, and the possibility that that was how it would be the whole day, whole night, and all the other days, and all the other nights, had started to eat away at him right there, in his chest, at that blue place where tears are born and hope dies.”
― Grégoire Courtois, The Laws of the Skies

“There is no time in what you are going through. Your suffering is a place, and you don't know whether you can ever leave this place. You don't even have enough hope to wish that it be over faster. Faster doesn't exist, any more than time itself. You are not alive enough to measure it. You live in a present of incessant pain.”
― Grégoire Courtois, The Laws of the Skies

“Hope is the slowest poison.”
― Duncan Ralston, Dead Men Walking: a Novelette

“Writers are archaeologists of their own souls. We dig until we hit bottom, only to find there is another bottom underneath, and another after that.”
― Philip Schultz, My Dyslexia

“...but she liked it. She had an unconscious fascination for tilting her head down towards melancholy.”
― Leonardo Berch, Fragments of Self: a novel of love across borders

“Critiques are an important part of training because critical self-analysis, even after success, is essential to improvement. Their purpose is to draw out the lessons of training. As a result, we should conduct critiques immediately after completing training, before memory of the events has faded. Critiques should be held in an atmosphere of open and frank dialogue in which all hands are encouraged to contribute. We learn as much from mistakes as from things done well, so we must be willing to admit mistakes and discuss them. Of course, a subordinate’s willingness to admit mistakes depends on the commander’s willingness to tolerate them. Because we recognize that no two situations in war are the same, our critiques should focus not so much on the actions we took as on why we took those actions and why they brought the results they did.”
― U.S. Marine Corps, Warfighting

“One of the best ways to learn how to deal with jealousy productively is to identify the root cause of what is causing your jealousy. If someone gets a big car or house or something, is it really their material possessions that bother you or is there something deeper that you crave?

Going from this example you may analyse your jealousy and come to a conclusion to it may not be riches you want but maybe the respect and adulation from society that come along with it.

If you go after the material possessions without knowing your true desires, you may not be happy even if you get them, because what you really wanted was something else.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“I don't know.
I hope it doesn't matter.
I have a terrifying feeling it does.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves: The Remastered Full-Color Edition

“And if he does not know the answer he is at least asking the right questions [to himself].”
― James Hollis, Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men