Wisdom and Self-Reflection
In the pages of this blog post, you will find a collection of wisdom and self-reflection quotes. This list is not exhaustive so there are probably more out there to add to it, but if you do find any that I missed or want more information about them please leave a comment below and I'll be happy to provide it!
"All thinking is hard; fainting easier." -Paulsen
"The one who fails is not the one who tries but the one who doesn't try." -Elizabeth D'Arcy Brissenden
"Everything that we know is forgotten promptly, except those things which remain in our memory. The web of living creatures needs constant renewal. It is like a river whose source and mouth are everywhere, but its centre cannot be found." -Taken from The Circle of the Seasons by Lewis Nordan
"The real problem is living in a world that's outgrown reflection. You know: forgetting where you've been, where you got to, and what it was that brought you to this place." -River Tam
"The last thing on earth we want is for our little ones to grow up thinking that you can become anything… but if they succeeded in believing that or not, they would still be growing up." -Numan Kishleff
"A man who has lived his life on the run has one chance at the game. He has to be a natural ballplayer in his mind, in the way that a man who has been taught matters of style is a natural at golf." -Kishleff
"There's not only an end to what you're living for. There's also an end to how much you can learn about it. It ain't all in the books. It's also in the doing. And the only way you can do is by living through it." -Willard Wigan
"Never forget that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else." -Jan Adams
"I find against hope, I still hope; against love, I still love." – The Passion Poem by Anne Sexton
"It begins with a whisper like an echo in a canyon wall." – Four Corners by S.L. Morgan (story)
"I have been walking through this world for decades now and in all that time have hardly met anyone who understands what it is to be alive. People who have never wondered what it is they are truly made of, and whether or not they dream in colour. They live their lives like the pages of a book, turning day by day, chapter by chapter. The dreamer awakens and finds himself still dreaming." -Taken from Luv Kush by Megha Kumar
"It's not so much that this world is cruel. It's just that it is indiscriminate." -Taken from We3 by Grant Morrison
"You are more than the result of your background or the mistakes you've made; you're always carrying around whatever it was that saw you through. You have an ether, a spirit, you've been holding on to, even if you weren't aware of it." -Taken from Lucy is Gone by Terry Pratchett
"The only real danger of a crisis is the illusion that it might be the end of something. If anything is going to be lost, don't bother panicking; just grab what's really important and run. Because this isn't who you are or where you're going to end up. This isn't your final destination. You are still alive, and you are still growing. At least, that's how it's supposed to work." -Taken from The Jewel by Amy Ewing
"People can be terrible in the way they blame themselves for their own unhappiness. When you depress yourself with the weight of self-disgust and self-pity over your mistakes, everyone else gets to benefit from your misfortune. If you're worrying a lot about yourself, rest assured that someone else is making money off your depression." -Taken from Extras by Scott Westerfeld
"In this life, we can never know who or what will be an instrument of happiness; for one human being to another. The only certainty is that the one who brings you the most happiness will be your closest friend." -Taken from The Seven-Per-Cent Solution by Nicky Singer
"If you're not sure if you really love someone, then you shouldn't bother. It's better to live without love than to try it and find out that it doesn't work out." -Taken from I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
"If we stay stuck in our own heads, we'll never learn to care for ourselves or for other people. This is what makes us human; this is how we evolve. To be able to care about something beyond ourselves... I think this is where all great change comes from. People have so much potential in this regard. And they just give up on it - or give it up on them." -Taken from An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
"We bury our failures to remember them, and we go to sleep every night and wake up every morning with the ghosts of our regrets for company. It's not a pleasant way to live; it's a struggle, worse than fighting off real predators." -Taken from American Gods by Neil Gaiman
"One man may lose heart, but the world has time." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"A hero lives forever in song & story. For a short time he enjoys his glory. Then he returns. He may be gone, but the story goes on – and on they go." -Taken from The Muses by Neal Stephenson
"You are never as young as you remember being, and you are never as old as you seem." -Taken from So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish by Douglas Adams
"You don't get rid of your ideas or your thoughts. You just learn to live with them. You won't have time to fool around with them forever. You'll have to render an account of them someday." -Taken from Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
"Happiness is the problem with all the solutions we've found up till now.
Conclusion: Happiness is." -Taken from The Young and the Restless by William Boyd
"There is no such thing as an entirely useless thought. Even a bad one may be of some help to somebody, somewhere, in some way." -Taken from Life and Death by Andre Dubus III
"We are all frightened each day of something. Most of it is not worth being frightened about anyway. But each day we choose what to be frightened about.