Self Knowledge Quotes

Mark Twain: There ain't no way to find out why a snorer can't hear himself snore.
Yaqui Mystic: To be a man of knowledge one needs to be light and fluid.
Chogyam Trungpa: We have a fear of facing ourselves. That is the obstacle. Experiencing the innermost core of our existence is very embarrassing to a lot of people. A lot of people turn to something that they hope will liberate them without their having to face themselves. That is impossible. We can't do that. We have to be honest with ourselves. We have to see our gut, our excrement, our most undesirable parts. We have to see them. That is the foundation of warriorship, basically speaking. Whatever is there, we have to face it, we have to look at it, study it, work with it and practice meditation with it.
Thoreau: It is as hard to see one's self as to look backwards without turning around.
Ludwig Wittgenstein: What is troubling us is the tendency to believe that the mind is like a little man within.
H.P. Blavatsky, Voice of the Silence: To reach Nirvana one must reach Self-Knowledge, and Self-Knowledge is of loving deeds the child.
Albert Einstein: The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.
Carl Jung: The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.
Coco Chanel: How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.
St. Anthony: The prayer of the monk is not perfect until he no longer recognizes himself or the fact that he is praying.
Erich Fromm: Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself.
Chief Tecumseh, Shawnee Indian Chief: Live your life so that the fear of death can never enter your heart. When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light. Give thanks for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. And if perchance you see no reason for giving thanks, rest assured the fault is in yourself.

Karlfried Graf von Durckheim, The Way of Transformation: The man who, being really on the Way, falls upon hard times in the world will not, as a consequence, turn to that friend who offers him refuge and comfort and encourages his old self to survive. Rather, he will seek out someone who will faithfully and inexorably help him to risk himself, so that he may endure the suffering and pass courageously through it, thus making of it a "raft that leads to the far shore." Only to the extent that man exposes himself over and over again to annihilation, can that which is indestructible arise within him. In this lies the dignity of daring. Thus, the aim of practice is not to develop an attitude which allows a man to acquire a state of harmony and peace wherein nothing can ever trouble him. On the contrary, practice should teach him to let himself be assaulted, perturbed, moved, insulted, broken and battered – that is to say, it should enable him to dare to let go his futile hankering after harmony, surcease from pain, and a comfortable life in order that he may discover, in doing battle with the forces that oppose him, that which awaits him beyond the world of opposites. The first necessity is that we should have the courage to face life, and to encounter all that is most perilous in the world. When this is possible, meditation itself becomes the means by which we accept and welcome the demons which arise from the unconscious -- a process very different from the practice of concentration on some object as a protection against such forces. Only if we venture repeatedly through zones of annihilation, can our contact with Divine Being, which is beyond annihilation, become firm and stable. The more a man learns whole-heartedly to confront the world that threatens him with isolation, the more are the depths of the Ground of Being revealed and the possibilities of new life and Becoming opened.

Pema Chodron: The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes.
H.P. Blavatsky, Lucifer Vol. 1, No. 2; Oct. 15, 1887: The first necessity for obtaining Self-knowledge is to become profoundly conscious of ignorance; to feel with every fibre of the heart that one is ceaselessly self-deceived.
The second requisite is the still deeper conviction that such knowledge - such intuitive and certain knowledge - can be obtained by effort.
The third and most important is an indomitable determination to obtain and face that knowledge.
Self-knowledge of this kind is unattainable by what men usually call 'self-analysis.' It is not reached by reasoning or any brain process; for it is the awakening to consciousness of the Divine nature of man.
To obtain this knowledge is a greater achievement than to command the elements or to know the future.
H.P. Blavatsky, Lucifer Vol. 2, No. 8; April 15, 1888.: It is not `the fear of God' which is `the beginning of wisdom,' but the knowledge of Self which is wisdom itself.
H.P. Blavatsky, Lucifer Vol. 4, No. 22; June 15, 1889.: Occultism is concerned with the inner man, who must be strengthened and freed from the dominion of the physical body and its surroundings, which must become its servants. Hence the first and chief necessity of Chelaship is a spirit of absolute unselfishness and devotion to Truth; then follow self-knowledge and self-mastery.
H.P. Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I-639.: With every effort of will toward purification and unity with that `Self-god,' one of the lower rays breaks and the spiritual entity of man is drawn higher and ever higher to the ray that supercedes the first, until, from ray to ray, the inner man is drawn into the one and highest beam of the Parent-Sun.
H.P. Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II-110.: "Unless the higher Self or EGO gravitates toward its Sun-the Monad, the lower Ego or personal Self will have the upper hand in every case."
Sankaracharya, Atmabodha: Self-Knowledge alone is the direct cause of Liberation.
Sankaracharya, Crest Jewel of Wisdom.: Let the seeker after Self-Knowledge find the Teacher (the Higher Self), full of kindness and knowledge of the Eternal.
Common Tennessee: The thought occurred to me today that self-obsession is tiring. When I am thinking of renunciation and service, I feel awake, and when I am thinking of myself, I get tired. Granted that I include a sense of self-awareness in both cases. Of course, it could go either way. Maybe it isn't tiring. What do you think? Do you find self-obsession tiring?
Unknown: We Come To Love Not By Finding a Perfect Person, But By Learning To See An Imperfect Person Perfectly
Chapter 56, Tao Te Ching: Those who know don't talk. Those who talk don't know. Close your mouth, block off your senses, blunt your sharpness, untie your knots, soften your glare, settle your dust. This is the primal identity. Be like the Tao. It can't be approached or withdrawn from, benefited or harmed, honored or brought into disgrace. It gives itself up continually. That is why it endures.
Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to your life's purpose: When you say, I enjoy doing this or that, it is really a misperception. It makes it appear that the joy comes from what you do, but that is not the case. Joy does not come from what you do, it flows into what you do and thus into this world from deep within you. The misperception that joy comes from what you do is normal, and it is also dangerous, because it creates the belief that joy is something that can be derived from something else, such as an activity or thing. You then look to the world to bring you joy, happiness. But it cannot do that. This is why many people live in constant frustration. The world is not giving them what they think they need.