Spiritual Quotes

Introspection

...wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. —Romans 2:1 (KJV)

While we are in life the one essential thing is to play our part bravely and well and to keep our active interest in all its varying phases, the same as it is well to be able to adapt ourselves always to changing conditions. It is by the winds of heaven blowing over it continually and keeping it in constant motion, or by its continual onward movement, that the water in pool or stream is kept sweet and clear, for otherwise it would become stagnant and covered with slime. If we are attractive or unattractive to ourselves and to others the cause lies in ourselves. —Ralph Waldo Trine, Character-Building Thought Power

Each must work out his own problems. Each must grow the insight that will enable him to see what the causes are that have brought the unfavorable conditions into his life; each must grow the strength that will enable him to face these conditions, and to set into operation forces that will bring about a different set of conditions.... And so the way to get out of any conditioning we have got into, either knowingly or inadvertently, either intentionally or unintentionally, is to take time to look the conditions squarely in the face, and to find the law whereby they have come about. —Ralph Waldo Trine, Character-Building Thought Power

It will do you a lot of good to think over what you said and thought the last time you were angry. Persevere until you see yourself as others see you. It would do no harm to write the scene out in story form and then sit in judgment of the character that played your part. —Theron Q. Dumont, The Power of Concentration

What would you like to do, that you are not doing? If you think you should be “getting on” better, why don’t you? Study yourself carefully. Learn your shortcomings. Sometimes only a mere trifle keeps one from branching out and becoming a success. Discover why you have not been making good— the cause of your failure. Have you been expecting someone to lead you, or to make a way for you? If you have, concentrate on a new line of thought. —Theron Q. Dumont, The Power of Concentration

If you are standing still, or going backward, there is something wrong. You are the [one] to find out what is wrong. —Theron Q. Dumont, The Power of Concentration

Study yourself. Find your strong points and make them stronger as well as your weak ones and strengthen them. Study yourself carefully and you will see yourself as you really are. —Theron Q. Dumont, The Power of Concentration

Socrates used to say that we should never lead a life not subjected to examination. —The Golden Sayings of Epictetus

[We should] be able to converse with ourselves, to need none else beside, to sigh for no distraction, to bend our thoughts upon the Divine Administration, and how we stand related to all else; to observe how human accidents touched us of old, and how they touch us now; what things they are that still have power to hurt us, and how they may be cured or removed; to perfect what needs perfecting as Reason would direct. —The Golden Sayings of Epictetus

Give thyself more diligently to reflection: know thyself: take counsel with the Godhead: without God put thine hand unto nothing! —The Golden Sayings of Epictetus

Life is a mirror, and we find only ourselves reflected in our associates. —Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It

You must study and find out for yourself what your nature requires to bring it permanent happiness. You are a book for yourself. You must open this book page after page, and chapter after chapter, as they come to you with the experience of each day, each month, each year, and read them. No one else can read them for you as you can for yourself. No one else can think exactly as you think, or feel just as you feel, or be affected just as you are affected by other forces or persons about you; and for this reason no other person can judge what you really need to make your life more complete, more perfect, more happy so well as yourself. —Prentice Mulford, Thoughts Are Things

All things are mirrors in which you see yourself reflected. —James Allen, Byways of Blessedness

Only by much searching and mining, are gold and diamonds obtained, and man can find every truth connected with his being, if he will dig deep into the mine of his soul; and that he is the maker of his character, the molder of his life, and the builder of his destiny, he may unerringly prove, if he will watch, control, and alter his thoughts, tracing their effects upon himself, upon others, and upon his life and circumstances, linking cause and effect by patient practice and investigation, and utilizing his every experience, even to the most trivial, everyday occurrence, as a means of obtaining that knowledge of himself which is Understanding, Wisdom, Power. —James Allen, As a Man Thinketh

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. —Shakespeare, Hamlet (II:ii:259)

Practical psychology directs first of all its energies in controlling the unconscious, and we know that we can do it. Why? Because we know the cause of the unconscious is the conscious; the unconscious thoughts are the submerged millions of our old conscious thoughts, old conscious actions become petrified—we do not look at them, do not know them, have forgotten them. But mind you, if the power of evil is in the unconscious, so also is the power of good. We have many things stored in us as in a pocket. We have forgotten them, do not even think of them, and there are many of them, rotting, becoming positively dangerous; they come forth, the unconscious causes which kill humanity. True psychology would, therefore, try to bring them under the control of the conscious. The great task is to revive the whole man, as it were, in order to make him the complete master of himself. —Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (8 Vol. set), Volume 2

This external world is only the world of suggestion. All that we see, we project out of our own minds. A grain of sand gets washed into the shell of an oyster and irritates it. The irritation produces a secretion in the oyster, which covers the grain of sand and the beautiful pearl is the result. Similarly, external things furnish us with suggestions, over which we project our own ideals and make our objects. The wicked see this world as a perfect hell, and the good as a perfect heaven. Lovers see this world as full of love, and haters as full of hatred; fighters see nothing but strife, and the peaceful nothing but peace. The perfect man sees nothing but God. —Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (8 Vol. set), Volume 2

Why do we see wickedness? There was a stump of a tree, and in the dark, a thief came that way and said, "That is a policeman." A young man waiting for his beloved saw it and thought that it was his sweetheart. A child who had been told ghost stories took it for a ghost and began to shriek. But all the time it was the stump of a tree. We see the world as we are.... That which we have inside, we see outside. —Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (8 Vol. set), Volume 2

Having clothed himself with humility, the first questions a man asks himself are: "How am I acting towards others?" "What am I doing to others?" "How am I thinking of others?" "Are my thoughts of, and acts towards others prompted by unselfish love?" As a man, in the silence of his soul, asks himself these searching questions, he will unerringly see where he has hitherto failed. —James Allen, Morning and Evening Thoughts