Best Self Reflection Quotes And Saying

Reflection Quotes

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.Søren Kierkegaard

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ― Søren Kierkegaard

Self Reflection Questions

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death. Leonardo da Vinci

The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection. Thomas Paine

Social media is something of a double-edged sword. At its best, social media offers unprecedented opportunities for marginalized people to speak and bring much needed attention to the issues they face. At its worst, social media also offers 'everyone' an unprecedented opportunity to share in collective outrage without reflection. Roxane Gay

 Self Reflection Quotes

Surround yourself with really good people. I think that's an important thing. Because the people you surround yourself are a reflection of you. Aaron Rodgers

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. Confucius

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. Thomas Merton

Self Reflection Questions

“We always see our worst selves. Our most vulnerable selves. We need someone else to get close enough to tell us we’re wrong. Someone we trust.” ― David Levithan, Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Friends are the family you choose (~ Nin/Ithilnin, Elven rogue).” ― Jess C Scott, The Other Side of Life

 Self Reflection Quotes

“Doubt as sin. — Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature — is sin! And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality

“Reflect upon your present blessings -- of which every man has many -- not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” ― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings

“Some nights are made for torture, or reflection, or the savoring of loneliness.” ― Poppy Z.Brite

“When you loved someone and had to let them go, there will always be that small part of yourself that whispers, "What was it that you wanted and why didn't you fight for it?” ― Shannon L. Alder

Reflection Quotes

“Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you're just a reflection of him?” ― Bill Watterson

“Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?” ― Charles Bukowski, Post Office

Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful. Margaret J. Wheatley

“One of the saddest things in life, is the things one remembers.” ― Agatha Christie

I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. Thomas Paine

Reflection Quotes

“If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.” ― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“That’s sad. How plastic and artificial life has become. It gets harder and harder to find something…real.” Nin interlocked his fingers, and stretched out his arms. “Real love, real friends, real body parts…” ― Jess C Scott, The Other Side of Life

 Self Reflection Quotes

“The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him?

Self Reflection Questions

No, thank you,' he will think. 'Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, although these are things which cannot inspire envy.” ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?I hear my being dance from ear to ear.I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to doTo you and me, so take the lively air,And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.What falls away is always. And is near.I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.I learn by going where I have to go.” ― Theodore Roethke, The Collected Poems

“The writer's curse is that even in solitude, no matter its duration, he never grows lonely or bored.” ― Criss Jami, Killosophy

There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination. Denis Diderot

I learned a few years ago that balance is the key to a happy and successful life, and a huge part of achieving that balance is to instill rituals into your everyday life - a nutritious balanced diet, daily exercise, time for yourself through meditation, reading, journaling, yoga, daily reflection, and setting goals. Gretchen Bleiler

What I wear is a reflection of where I am going and how I am feeling. If I'm in a good mood, it's got to be cashmere and jeans - just something comfy, soft and warm. When I'm down, I might find something that I haven't worn for a while that was bought for me - or wear a brooch or a pair of shoes that are like old friends. Kim Cattrall

A battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it. Frederick Douglass

“Sometimes, you have to look back in order to understand the things that lie ahead.” ― Yvonne Woon, Dead Beautiful

“I love the dark hours of my being.My mind deepens into them.There I can find, as in old letters,the days of my life, already lived,and held like a legend, and understood.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

A healthy social life is found only when, in the mirror of each soul, the whole community finds its reflection, and when, in the whole community, the virtue of each one is living. Rudolf Steiner

“Beauty is not who you are on the outside, it is the wisdom and time you gave away to save another struggling soul like you.” ― Shannon L. Alder

“I couldn't imagine that I'd ever fall in love again like I had with Gideon. For better or worse, he was my soulmate. The other half of me. In many ways, he was my reflection.” ― Sylvia Day, Reflected in You

There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest. Confucius

Your self-esteem won't come from body parts. You need to step away from the mirror every once in a while, and look for another reflection, like the one in the eyes of the people who love you and admire you. Stacy London

Many scientists think that philosophy has no place, so for me it's a sad time because the role of reflection, contemplation, meditation, self inquiry, insight, intuition, imagination, creativity, free will, is in a way not given any importance, which is the domain of philosophers. Deepak Chopra

The first time I made myself up, I was looking at my reflection in the mirror and it wasn't me looking back. It allowed me to do things I couldn't do as myself. I found out how powerful that was and how much that can mean to an actor. Rick Baker

“It takes a certain ingenuous faith - but I have it - to believe that people who read and reflect more likely than not come to judge things with liberality and truth.” ― A.C. Grayling, The Heart of Things: Applying Philosophy to the 21st Century

“I had an uneventful few days," it told her. "The most exciting thing was an hour-long lecture from the headmaster on taking our studies seriously. He said next year's exam will arrive sooner than we think.""No, they won't," Valkyrie said, frowning. "They'll arrive next year, exactly when we expect them.""That's what I told him," the reflection nodded. "I don't think he's comfortable with logic, because he didn't look happy. He sent me to the Career Guidance counsellor, who asked me what I wanted to do after college."Valkyrie stowed her black clothes. "What did you say?""I told her I wanted to be a Career Guidance counsellor. She started crying, then accused me of mocking her. I told her if she wasn't happy in her job then she should look at other options, then pointed out that I was already doing her job better than she was. She gave me detention.” ― Derek Landy, Kingdom of the Wicked

“Nico was devastatingly alone. He’d lost his big sister Bianca. He’d pushed away all other demigods who’d tried to get close to him. His experiences at Camp Half-Blood, in the Labyrinth and in Tartarus had left him scarred, afraid to trust anyone.” ― Rick Riordan, The Blood of Olympus

“The type of person you are is usually reflected in your business. To improve your business, first improve yourself.” ― Idowu Koyenikan, Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability

Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief. C. S. Lewis

Learning to love my inner and outer beauty wasn't an easy road. I still don't always love the reflection I see in the mirror, but I have learned that my outer appearance does not define me. Katherine Schwarzenegger

My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all. John Lennon

When I'm writing, I'm constantly thinking about myself, because it's the only experience I have to draw on. And I don't see an exact reflection of myself in every face in the audience, but I know that my songs have validity to them, and that's why the fans are there. Chester Bennington

“People will walk in and walk out of your life, but the one whose footstep made a long lasting impression is the one you should never allow to walk out.” ― Michael Bassey Johnson

“Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy ready-made things in the shops. But since there are no shops where you can buy friends, men no longer have any friends.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“There was a brief silence in which the distant echo of Hagrid smashing down a wooden front door seemed to reverberate through the intervening years.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read. If one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost.” ― Arthur Schopenhauer

Spiritual Self Reflection Questions

“Given enough time, you could convince yourself that loneliness was something better, that it was solitude, the ideal condition for reflection, even a kind of freedom.

Once you were thus convinced, you were foolish to open the door and let anyone in, not all the way in. You risked the hard-won equilibrium, that tranquility that you called peace” ― Dean Koontz, The Good Guy

“Now the wren has gone to roost and the sky is turnin' goldAnd like the sky my soul is also turnin'Turnin' from the past, at last and all I've left behind” ― Ray Lamontagne, God Willin' & the Creek Don't Rise

“Religion is, in reality, living. Our religion is not what we profess, or what we say, or what we proclaim; our religion is what we do, what we desire, what we seek, what we dream about, what we fantasize, what we think - all these things - twenty-four hours a day. One's religion, then, is ones life, not merely the ideal life but the life as it is actually lived. 

Spiritual Self Reflection Questions

Religion is not prayer, it is not a church, it is not theistic, it is not atheistic, it has little to do with what white people call "religion." It is our every act. If we tromp on a bug, that is our religion; if we experiment on living animals, that is our religion; if we cheat at cards, that is our religion; if we dream of being famous, that is our religion; if we gossip maliciously, that is our religion; if we are rude and aggressive, that is our religion. All that we do, and are, is our religion.” ― Jack D. Forbes, Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Imperialism, Exploitation and Terrorism

Running is a great metaphor for life. You set a goal, and then you get to work. How well you do is a direct reflection of how hard you work. It's a mental game, too. There are setbacks along the way, but the true test of a runner is how you overcome and push past them. Ivanka Trump

Spiritual Self Reflection Questions

No one would suggest completely ignoring news about your investments. Enron investors, for example, would have been well served to sell once early reports of accounting irregularities surfaced. But the key is to keep news in context and act only if further reflection or study indicates that the core thesis for an investment has changed. Whitney Tilson

I believe that who we are, and consequently the work that we make, whether we're visual artists or writers or journalists or filmmakers, is a projection of where we were born, what's been withheld or lavished upon us, our color, our sex, our class. And everything we do in life to some degree is a reflection of that context. Barbara Kruger

“Quiet people always know more than they seem. Although very normal, their inner world is by default fronted mysterious and therefore assumed weird. Never underestimate the social awareness and sense of reality in a quiet person; they are some of the most observant, absorbent persons of all.” ― Criss Jami, Healology

“COMING FORTH INTO THE LIGHT

I was born the dayI thought:What is?What was?AndWhat if?I was transformed the dayMy ego shattered,And all the superficial, materialThings that matteredTo me before,Suddenly ceasedTo matter.I really came into beingThe day I no longer cared aboutWhat the world thought of me,Only on my thoughts forChanging the world.” ― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children? 
They are alive and well somewhere, The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. 
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.” ― Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

“Who does ever get what they want? It doesn’t seem to happen to many of us if any at all. It’s always two people bumping against each other blindly, acting out old ideas and dreams and mistaken understandings.” ― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“The wind god Favonius had warned him in Croatia: If you let your anger rule you … your fate will be even sadder than mine. But how could his fate be anything but sad? Even if he lived through this quest, he would have to leave both camps forever. That was the only way he would find peace. He wished there was another option – a choice that didn’t hurt like the waters of the Phlegethon – but he couldn’t see one.” ― Rick Riordan, The Blood of Olympus

“Anya looked upon Nin admirably. Having him as a partner-in-crime—if only on this one occasion, which she hoped would only be the start of something more—was more revitalizing than the cheap thrills of a cookie-cutter shallow, superficial romance, where the top priority was how beautiful a person was on the outside.” ― Jess C Scott, The Other Side of Life

One thinks of toys and play as an area of great novelty and potentiality where all sorts of responses can be developed. The fact that adults are allowing their imaginations to have activity through toy kinds of objects is a further reflection of the belief in the imagination of the adult mind. Brian Sutton-Smith