#introspection

Perhaps I had never had a grip on myself to start with, living life on cruise-control while I waited for a home that would never be mine. It would be warm. Loving. Wonderfully chaotic, occasionally tempestuous, but full of good intentions and laughter. It would be all of the great things embodied by your run-of-the-mill greeting card, and it was still the last thing that I thought of each night as I let myself believe for a moment or two that such things were possible. ↗

— Alice Yi-Li Yeh

#life

If I were to draw, I would apply myself only to studying the form of inanimate objects," I said somewhat imperiously, because I wanted to change the subjects and also because a natural inclination does truly lead me to recognise my moods in the motionless suffering of things. ↗

— Italo Calvino

#introspection #moods #suffering #change

How shall I ever learn who I am when there is so much of me that belongs to someone else? ↗

— Madeline Claire Franklin

#family #introspection #life #self-awareness #the-poppet-and-the-lune

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. ↗

— Aristotle

#self-discovery #wisdom #wisdom

The past may not hurt you, but it won't challenge you, either. ↗

— Brad Meltzer

#introspection #memories #introspection

…there is not a day of my life that I am not critiquing myself to see if my politics are borne out in the way that I live and the way that I talk and present myself. ↗

— Bell Hooks

#politics #life

The question is why one should be so inwardly preoccupied at all. Why not reach out to others in love and solidarity or peer into the natural world for some glimmer of understanding? Why retreat into anxious introspection when, as Emerson might have said, there is a vast world outside to explore? Why spend so much time working on oneself when there is so much real work to be done? ↗

— Barbara Ehrenreich

#positive-thinking #self-help #self-improvement #love

An accusing heart couldn't see her own sins. ↗

— Toba Beta

#introspection #sins #introspection

Vintage books, old china, antiques; maybe I love old things so much because I feel impermanent myself. ↗

— Josh Lanyon

#introspection #love

Appius Livius Ocella made mistakes in his whole long existence. Perhaps changing Eric was his finest hour. He created the perfect vampire. Eric's only flaw is you. ↗

— Charlaine Harris

#change