Self Exploration Quotes

“Be careful, lest in casting out your demon you exorcise the best thing in you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity – I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only a euphemism for folly.”
― Plato

“Trust yourself. Let self-awareness be your science. Let self-discovery be your research. Let your intuition be your expert. Let your endless curiosity be your teacher. And, above all, find out what makes you smile. That is the most important study you can ever undertake.”
― Vironika Tugaleva

“Writing allows a person to explore both physical reality and the internal workings of their mind. Writing places us in touch with our unconsciousness. Writing purposefully, applying the white heat of self-examination, can act to transform oneself. Writing allows a person with sufficient resolve to anneal their basic constitution, make their mind more flexible.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“You can never know who you really are or what you can do until you discover yourself”
― Sunday Adelaja

“What is the cost of holding back what is trying to be expressed through you?”
― Allison Fallon, The Power of Writing It Down: A Simple Habit to Unlock Your Brain and Reimagine Your Life

“Is it an accident that astronomy is the oldest science and psychology is the youngest? To some people, exploring the external universe seems far safer than exploring our own inner universe.”
― David Myers, Exploring Psychology

“Recounting the narrative of our personal story in a methodical and chronological manner helps us see our life in a historical perspective. Telling our personal stories allows us to bring hibernated memories out of seclusion. Reexamination of our historical existence under the light of growing conscious awareness assist us make psychological breakthroughs. Analyzing the elemental substance of our personal story from a sundry of viewpoints employing techniques of literature, philosophy, logical reasoning, and abstract thinking assist us perceive our discrete chronicle in symbolic terms and in mythological context.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“The evil components of our shadow are the part of us that we deplore, the part of us that we prefer not to admit. One must set themselves free from all inhibitions in order to initiate close encounters with their innermost monster. By standing toe-to-toe with the part of ourselves that we most detest, a person is in a position to slay their fiendish sense of self and, by doing so, undergo a soulful transformation.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“If someone else notices our qualities and talents, we think those parts of us must be worthwhile. Our potential floats like an island in the sea—uncharted, unexplored. We long for someone to discover us, admire us, colonize us. But why must it be another person? Why can’t you sail that voyage and explore yourself?”
― Vironika Tugaleva, The Art of Talking to Yourself

“Awareness of our conscious thinking patterns and unconscious behavior predilections enables us to examine the defining question of how we began to take certain values for granted. Once we accept that we are a product of our culture, we can begin the act of deliberately redefining our sense of self. By engaging in an intensive cultural investigation and undertaking a studious period of reflective self-examination, and by exercising disciplined behavior, we can alter our character. Using American society as a looking glass allows me to see how a dominating culture sculpted my self-image. This societal mirror reflects me in a either a positive or a perverted manner. Looking both inward and outward, therefore, is an essential step in seeing oneself clearly. An interior and exterior analysis is the critical initiating act in taking charge of the ultimate configuration of our conscious self.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“This scroll is my personal obituary, a journal that documents my time toiling on this rocky orb. I labored to say who I am, how I lived, and frame the troubling questions regarding what I seek. I wrote in order to penetrate illusions, address the tedium of existence, gain insight into my true nature, and give conscious shape to the vestiges of a tormented man. I used this written journey of the mind to explore all prior reference points of self-identity and toiled to meld the disharmonious components of a fragmented psyche into a wholesome human being. Writing was a tool employed to use conscious suffering mercilessly to suppress a caustic ego and resurrect a more inclusive, synthetic, and unitive consciousness that no longer wants for anything or suffers from the travails of life.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Some things are worth more than a title”
― Faith Dismuke

“Spend sometime with yourself to know the you in you”
― Ambika Thapa

“The biggest stranger in your life is yourself.”
― Justin Alcala

“Personal essay writing that incites the mind and instigates personal growth involves examination and re-examination, a process of noticing and reflecting upon what a person perceives. Essayistic writing is an osmotic process wherein a person intuitively absorbs information and ideas, allows inchoate thoughts to gestate in the unconscious mind, and then consciously places the emergent strands of language and logic into an orderly and expressive format.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“None of us exists in an isolation tank. We stand in blood and brains and in familial relationships with our brethren. We exist within the backdrop of experiences provided by our families, teachers, friends, church, social events, newspapers, books, television, film, art, music, science, and self-exploration. The pattern of our personality hat is comprised of the many fine hairs shed by our gargantuan society.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Self-love and compassion for other people commences with accepting responsibility for the harm caused by our own misconduct and by forgiving other people for their individual trespasses. Self-improvement begins with rejection of destructive and malicious behaviorisms. Our behavior reflects our character, which we develop by studiously examining and reflecting upon the consequences of our actions and by integrating the entire accumulation of life experiences into a comprehensive living philosophy.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“A writer might elect to place what is inside them on paper because their life is disappointing or insufficiently stimulating, to escape agony and despair, to blunt withering discontentment and bitterness, or because language and endless self-exploration intrigues them.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“I write not to justify a portfolio of personal failures. I do not seek to moralize or cast blame for my follies and catastrophes upon other people. I do not seek to malign other persons when documenting a series of unpleasant personal encounters in an unyielding society. I desire to overcome myself. I write in an attempt to alter my worldview, calm the soul, find serenity, extinguish hatred, and discover those elementary feelings of wellbeing which subsist permanently in humankind, which are independent of culture, race, class, and time. I write in an effort to discover the moral sublimity underlying existence. I write in order to understand myself and to transfigure myself. Writing is my attempt to rise beyond the facileness of my prior existence. I write in an effort to transcend the prodigious pain of living a profligate life. I write in an attempt to transmute my personage from that of an ordinary toad who despises all of his visible warts. I write in an attempt to decipher how to overcome a penchant for personal aggressiveness and brutality and become kind and gentle. I write in an attempt to discover how I can become a wise person who courageously faces the obstacles of life and exhibits grace and poise in the horror of his blackest days. I write to create an artifact of an intact and pacific persona.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Each day I attempt to establish a conjugated ring of reasons to rise tomorrow. Each day I seek to engage in some audible act of faith reaffirming a spiritual warrior’s commitment to living. Each day when engaged in investigative writing, I seek to perform some testimonial act that will lead me towards achieving desirable, premeditated change. Each day that I dabble with writing a deliberative memoir requires a scathing examination of how I lived. It also demands scrupulous assessment of how I want to live the remainder of an unspooling life.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“We learn about ourselves by taking one footstep at a time along a road of discovery. Greek philosopher Heraclitus who lived around 500 BCE proffered cogent advice about how to acquire wisdom and achieve a proper perspective on all worldly events. ‘Whosoever wishes to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details. Knowledge is not intelligence. In searching for truth, be ready for the unexpected. The same road goes both up and down. The beginning of a circle is also its end. Not I, but the world says it: all is one.’ This script tells of one man’s journeying a full circle in an effort to become one with all that exists.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“I don't regret a single one of our kisses; and, I'm not about to repent for being a woman who lives her life with kindness and love.”
― Faith Dismuke

“You used me. You Ade me feel special then you threw me away when you were bored. You took my trust. You broke my trust. You turned people against me. You turned me against myself.”
― Faith Dismuke

“Your grandmother was not teaching me how to behave in class. She was teaching me how to ruthlessly interrogate the subject that elicited the most sympathy and rationalizing--myself.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“Your mind is a gold mine. Dig deep!”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Before You Doubt Yourself: Pep Talks and other Crucial Discussions

“You might go out to explore the world but if you haven't explored yourself then you have missed the most beautiful exploration one could explore which is exploring your soul.”
― Aiyaz Uddin, The Inward Journey

“Few words find their way
Land deep within your being
A place which is beyond
Remembering and forgetting
Your mind may reject
But something else
Rejoices in it!”
― Amogh Swamy, On My Way To Infinity: A Seeker's Poetic Pilgrimage

“It seems like a strange idea, but it’s quite simple. We’re shaped
by the stories we’re told about ourselves when we’re young. As we
age, we have the chance to decide whether those narratives really
fit or whether we want something different. But changing often
requires us to—” Olivia seemed to search for words. “Untangle
ourselves from the old script.”
― Khristin Wierman, This Time Could Be Different

“But deep down I'm glad I did what I did. I'm glad because it's the one intelligent, independent, creative thing I've done in my life, and the one thing I've done for me.”
― William Bell, Crabbe