#intro

My friend...care for your psyche...know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves" -Socrates ↗

— Socrates

#introspection #ourselves #psyche #self-awareness #introspection

Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#introspection

What is reading but silent conversation. ↗

— Walter Savage Landor

#introspection #reading #introspection

The magician seemed to promise that something torn to bits might be mended without a seam, that what had vanished might reappear, that a scattered handful of doves or dust might be reunited by a word, that a paper rose consumed by fire could be made to bloom from a pile of ash. But everyone knew that it was only an illusion. The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place. ↗

— Michael Chabon

#magic #introspection

She’s never where she is,' I said. 'She’s only inside her head. ↗

— Janet Fitch

#introspective #thoughts #introspection

Truth be told, the inward gaze is something she's not too fond of. But there are secrets that lurk in the mind, and she doesn't want any of them sneaking up on her. Sometimes it pays to take a deep look inside even if you get queasy gazing into those dark corners. ↗

— Alden Bell

#introspection #introspection

The mother who understands her own intentions and her daughter’s intentions, who has introspection and a strong sense of self, and who is able to separate her identity from her daughter’s, has the key to achieving the right balance. ↗

— Susan Shapiro Barash

#parenting-children #parenting-tip #introspection

There are those whose own vulgar normality is so apparent and stultifying that they strive to escape it. They affect flamboyant behavior and claim originality according to the fashionable eccentricities of their time. They claim brains or talent or indifference to mores in desperate attempts to deny their own mediocrity. These are frequently artists and performers, adventurers and wide-life devotees. Then there are those who feel their own strangeness and are terrified by it. They struggle toward normalcy. They suffer to exactly that degree that they are unable to appear normal to others, or to convince themselves that their aberration does not exist. These are true freaks, who appear, almost always, conventional and dull. ↗

— Katherine Dunn

#life

I spin around on the swivel chair and look up at the ceiling; Oliver being Oliver being Oliver being Oliver. I am suddenly aware of the separation between my-actual-self and myself-as-seen-by-others. Who would win in an arm wrestle? Who is better-looking? Who has the higher IQ? ↗

— Joe Dunthorne

#joe-dunthorne #submarine #introspection

Anything outside yourself, this you can see and apply your logic to it. But it’s a human trait that when we encounter personal problems, these things most deeply personal are the most difficult to bring out for our logic to scan. We tend to flounder around, blaming everything but the actual, deep-seated thing that’s really chewing on us. ↗

— Frank Herbert

#introspection