Quotes & Sayings About Reflecting On Your Life

Perhaps the critics are right: this generation may not produce literature equal to that of any past generation
who cares? The writer will be dead before anyone can judge him
but he must go on writing, reflecting disorder, defeat, despair, should that be all he sees at the moment, but ever searching for the elusive love, joy, and hope
qualities which, as in the act of life itself, are best when they have to be struggled for, and are not commonly come by with much ease, either by a critic's formula or by a critic's yearning. — Bill Styron

I have seen a lot of beautiful things in my time. I have seen the sun rise and set. I have seen the moon upon the waters reflecting it's love. I have seen roses that's beauty sat upon heaven's doors. I have seen some of the most beautiful things in my life, and none of them can compare to the thought of you. — Vincent Edwards

Life is an unpleasant business. I have resolved to spend it reflecting on it. — Joris-Karl Huysmans

Happenstance is the myth of the simple mind, for it is the deliberate genius of God that what appears entirely disjointed always reveals itself to be stunningly seamless. And it is in reflecting on such stunning ingenuity that our faith becomes seamless. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

You have always been fond of little Nina." "Of course I have." "And in part, that is because she is such an independent spirit." "Precisely." "Then you must trust in her. And even if she is single-minded to a fault, you must trust that life will find her in time. For eventually, it finds us all." The Count nodded for a moment, reflecting on Marina's — Amor Towles

I look back at my career when I was younger and can connect what I was going through at the time with the characters I was playing. I see the similarities in them reflecting on my life. — Jodie Foster

In writing we live life twice: once in the experience, and again in recording and reflecting upon our experience. — Christina Baldwin

Watching movies (Titanic, Flirting with Disaster, Mannequin, Thelma and Louise, Rushmore, The Goonies, She's Having a Baby, it mattered very little) was a kind of prayer: She knew the characters as well as she knew herself, as well as she knew anything there was to know, and she could chart and rechart their movements and secrets and misunderstandings endlessly, reflecting in any number of new permutations on all of it, each time. Again and again. They were acquaintances - people she'd known her whole life and understood well, people incapable of letting her down by changing or disappearing or offering up the unexpected. The League of Their Own tears were purely for catharsis. When she was done she would reemerge, reborn. She would make new mistakes. Or maybe none at all. Okay, — Elisa Albert

Like children, we have dreamt, that what gratifies our desires, or contributes to our convenience to-day, will prove equally useful and satisfactory to-morrow, without reflecting on the growth of the body, the change of humours, the new objects, and the new situations, which every succeeding hour brings in its train. — Mary Hays

Imagine yourself near the end of your life. You are relaxing in a rocking chair reflecting on the decision you presently want to make. As the older, wiser you thinks about the outcome of your choice, ask yourself three simple questions.
1. Did it cause harm?
2. Did it bring about good?
3. How did it shape the person I became?
The Rocking Chair Test helps you to take a long view of your options. After imagining your answers to those questions, you should know better which way to go. — Steve Goodier

Living "in" a story, being part of a narrative, is much more satisfying than living without one. I don't always know what narrative it is, because I'm living my life and not always reflecting on it, but as I edit these pages I am aware that I have an urge to see my sometimes random wandering as having a plot, a purpose guided by some underlying story. — David Byrne

Humor, in one form or another, is characteristic of every nation; and reflecting the salient points of social and national life, it illuminates those crowded corners which history leaves obscure. — Agnes Repplier

I felt that the magical people must be in the hidden back roads and dusty cubby holes of life; on highways, in hostels, and in shabby, smoky cafes. These enchanting people are in trees, around fires and under hand-knit hats and street lamps reflecting gold on rain soaked pavement. They dance while others dangle; they vibrantly sing the songs that get jumbled and stuck in the subconscious of others who only wish to catch tune. They are the rare ones whose uncommon experiences touch your heart through just a wink of their eye, the stories stitched in the holes of their shoes, invoking a longing for the unknown, taking others to a place of missing what they've never even had -- they do not settle, they do not compromise. — Jackie Haze

It doesn't matter where you are right now. No matter where you are, you're on the way to greatness If you desire that reality. Be present. Be grateful for the stepping stones that have you here today reflecting on your dreams. Stepping stones are a necessary part of the success process. Go into overdrive now. You can do this. No one ever made it in just one day. Each step is a part of the process. It doesn't matter what it takes! You're winning! Keep flowing all the way there. Stay up. You were born a winner! — Sereda Aleta Dailey

Science does not see beyond the atom interacting with atom, the chemicals interacting with chemicals. The scientist cannot see the impressive existence of himself. Academics will never learn the meaning of life because they don't feel it; they can only accept its existence as fact. "I think therefore I am." And yet, thought is a cloud reflecting the impressions of a consciousness. I am therefore I think. The academic mind does not appreciate life in the festive sense therefore - derailed to love by a numb perspective. Life is an unknown, death is a mystery; no, life is a mystery, death is the unknown - in the sense that I will un-know my self in death. Science ignores the ultimate question in pursuance of the distant things, the most superficial things. One must discover from the inside out to discover he is made of nothing, and in that supreme emptiness, he is connected directly to everything that he studies. — Matthew Holbert

Without reflecting that this is the only moment in which you can study character," said the count; "on the steps of the scaffold death tears off the mask that has been worn through life, and the real visage is disclosed. — Alexandre Dumas

Reflecting back on your life is not only food for thought, but a Wiseman's bridge looking at how and why, you made your path for today! Will be most important, when you find yourself at the crossroads of tomorrow. Remember the goals you set yourself, travel the path closest to your heart. Trust your heart, your instincts, your soul. — Ron Bennington

I had a dream once that Boughton and I were down at the river looking around in the shallows for something or other - when we were boys it would have been tadpoles - and my grandfather stalked out of the trees in that furious way he had, scooped his hat full of water, and threw it, so as sheet of water came sailing toward us, billowing in the air like a veil, and fell down over us. Then he put his hat back on his head and stalked off into the trees again and left us standing there in that glistening river, amazed at ourselves and shining like the apostles. I mention his because it seems to me transformations just that abrupt do occur in this life, and they occur unsought and unawaited, and they beggar your hopes and your deserving. This came to my mind as I was reflecting on the day I first say your mother, that blessed, rainy Pentecost — Marilynne Robinson

When I turned 45, I lay in bed reflecting on all life had taught me. My soul sprang a leak and ideas flowed out. My pen simply caught them and set the words on paper. I typed them up and turned them into a newspaper column of the 45 lessons life taught me. When I hit 50, I added five more lessons and the paper ran the column again. — Regina Brett

Every second you spend thinking about what you don't want in your life is a second denying focus and energy from getting what you do want. Every minute you worry about what's not working is a minute drawn away from creating what will work. And every hour spent reflecting on the disappointments of the past is an hour stolen from seeing the possibilities that your future holds. — Robin S. Sharma

Education comes from living life, following passions, accessing information, observing, reflecting, and being inspired by wise and courageous elders in the community. — Claire Aumonier

Jung said there are four archetypes adults go through, and these archetypes are reflected in the development of my work. The first archetype is the archetype of the athlete, reflecting the time in our adult life when our primary emphasis is on our body - what it looks like, how beautiful it is, how strong it is, and so on. We identify ourselves with our body. We are our body. Growing adults next move to what Jung called the archetype of the warrior. We take our physical bodies out there to do what warriors do. — Wayne Dyer

yet still I crave the sight of my own hypnotic gaze reflecting out at me from the shared mirror of anorexia and bulimia, number to life and reality, existing only in my self-made tortured state — Carol Lee

At moments of departure and a change of life, people capable of reflecting on their actions usually get into a serious state of mind. At these moments they usually take stock of the past and make plans for the future. — Leo Tolstoy

Everything that you want in life, is possible. But the reflection in the mirror will always show who is reflecting. One can't change the reflection without changing himself. — Robin Sacredfire

I often learn more about myself from listening to the life story of a friend than I do reflecting on my own story. — Donald Miller

It put me upon reflecting how little repining there would be among mankind at any condition of life, if people would rather compare their condition with those that were worse, in order to be thankful, than be always comparing them with those which are better, to assist their murmurings and complaining. — Daniel Defoe

Oh! To rationalize oneself into matrimony ... Oh! To decide something so grave in life 'after mature consideration'! Choose the color of a dress after a thousand hesitations, but for God's sake, get married without reflecting on it! That's the grace I wish I wish for you. May you even be so distracted that day that you walk past the registry office without remembering to stop there. — Colette

Many people think that being Christian makes you sort of subhuman or, at least, less than fully human. Guys out there on the street (people think) are having a wonderful time enjoying human life to the fullest, and we in the church are sort of cramped and constricted. Well, things shouldn't be that way. Being a Christian is supposed to make you more truly human, more fully yourself. That means that you are supposed to become somebody who is reflecting the image of God. — N. T. Wright

The interesting thing about reflecting on your death is that it reawakens you to what's truest about life. — Robin S. Sharma

I was kind of reflecting on my life and certain experiences, and you know, when I'm teaching and coaching my partners on 'Dancing With the Stars,' I sort of use those stories and anecdotes to help them sort of overcome certain fears. — Derek Hough

My lyrics come from my experiences growing up in life, trying to find out and express who I am. That's basically it. I'm not trying to be a prophet or anything like that. I'm just reflecting on life. — Sean Paul

What we learned about love and relationships from our childhood feels normal. But just because something feels familiar doesn't mean it is healthy. Spend five minutes today quietly reflecting on one of your relationships. Does it enrich your life? If you find that it doesn't, consider what changes you need to make so the relationship feeds you. — Judith Hanson Lasater

True contemplation is reflecting on the blessings of God in your life. — Harold Klemp

Seeing God is all about getting in touch with reality. If you want to photograph God, focus your lens on Hamakom, The Place, anyplace where you see divine light illuminating reality. Let your camera collect the light reflecting from the reality shaping your everyday life and you will find yourself photographing God in action." (From the Introduction to the book Photograph God) — Mel Alexenberg

Sometimes, most times, when I think back to the people that I loved, the person that I was ... I feel like I'm reading the pages of a book written about
someone else's life.
I can't believe that was me. I can't believe that was you. I can't believe there was an us.
It's not that I regret it. It just doesn't feel like it happened to me and yet, I can't forget it.
I feel like it's still refracting and reflecting back on me, haunting me.
Jesus intercepted my mind, my thoughts, my mistakes, my shame. He's changed me from the inside out. But I'm afraid you still see the stain.
Lord, let them see my heart, look at You and Your still-in-progress work of art. Help us all to look beyond our burned bridges, charred reputations, scattered shards of memories, and gaze at the One who took on the weight of all the hate to find the freedom in redemption that we all crave. — Katie Kiesler

There are times in
life when the question of knowing if one can think differently
than one thinks, and perceive differently than one sees, is
absolutely necessary if one is to go on looking and reflecting
at all. — Michel Foucault

A kaleidoscope consists of a tube (or container), mirrors, pieces of glass (or beads or precious stones), sunlight, and someone to turn it and observe and enjoy the forms. Metaphorically, perhaps the sun represents the divine light, or spark of life, within all of us. The mirrors represent our ability to serve as mirrors for one another and each other's alignment, reflecting sides of ourselves that we may not have been aware of. The tube (or container) is the practice of community yoga. We, as human beings, are the glass, the beads, the precious stones. The facilitator is the person turning the Kaleidoscope, initiating the changing patterns. And the resulting beauty of the shapes? Well, that's for everyone to enjoy... — Lo Nathamundi

The keys to the life of the heart lie in reflecting upon the Quran, being humble before Allah in secret, and leaving sins. — Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya

He was always with her, an appendage to her life, and she never could decide how to feel about him. Sometimes, when a smile broke across his face like sun reflecting off a stream, or she saw him relax into sleep, she was filled with an unaccountable sort of ache. It terrified her. — Kiersten White

A particularly poignant moment for me today was after being given two quotes which caused me to spend time reflecting on the path that my own life has taken so far, and might take in the future: "Whatever does not make your heart sing was not meant for you in this life" "Whatever you lose time doing, you should be doing in life — Rachel Stainer

My whole artistic life has been devoted to battling myself and my ability to externalize my deepest emotions. As I have gotten older, the work has become more direct, perhaps reflecting the fact that for the first time in my life I feel really free. I have been fascinated with wings all my life. I have had an obsession with transcendence, the need to push forward and metaphorically fly. — Joyce Tenneson

I would that I could have stopped time and preserved that day forever. It was a perfect day. There was the shadow of sorrow, yes. It would always be there. But that was the nature of life. The bright mirror and the dark, reflecting one another. And today there was so much brightness. — Jacqueline Carey

I urge you to sit with yourself for 5 minutes and pour your heart out, ask yourself the serious questions ~ not the day to day duties we get caught up in. I can assure you, the 5 minutes spent reflecting on the life you have lived and how much more you're yet to achieve will spark something in you that we all forgot we have. — Nikki Rowe

There was a single window that tapered into a funnel, with eerie moonlight passing through it, reflecting directly off the globe like a mirror. For a moment, as I rose I saw something glimmering within. Dumbly, with feverish whispers assailing me, I realized it was the center of one of the distant galaxies, flaring after some unknown cataclysm. Its radiance was such that it burst from its prison. It met the moonlight halfway. It created kaleidoscopic colours on the walls. Then, in answer, the reliefs transformed from majestic art into something approaching divine, alive, plays from Egyptian memory, given the spark of life from space. I saw animal-headed gods move. They stepped from the walls to take their place around the altar. All stared at the globe. Each raised their arms in silent supplication. And such was their toxic ecstasy that I wished to join them, to forget my dreadful experiences and revel in something truly wondrous. — Tim Reed

Happiness is not fame or riches or heroic virtues, but a state that will inspire posterity to think in reflecting upon our life, that it was the life they would wish to live. — Herodotus

My hands hold safely to my dreams
Clutching tightly not one has fallen
So many years I've shaped each one
Reflecting my heart showing who I am
Now you're asking me to show
What I'm holding oh so tightly
Can't open my hands can't let go
Does it matter?
Should I show you?
Can't you let me go?

Surrender, surrender you whisper gently
You say I will be free
I know but can't you see?
My dreams are me. My dreams are me

You say you have a plan for me
And that you want the best for my life
Told me the world had yet to see
What you can do with one
That's committed to Your calling
I know of course what I should do
That I can't hold these dreams forever
If I give them now to You
Will You take them away forever?
Or can I dream again? — BarlowGirl

Our reverence for the nobility of manhood will not be lessened by the knowledge that man is in substance and in structure, one with the brutes; for he alone possesses the marvellous endowment of intelligible and rational speech whereby he has slowly accumulated and organized the experience which is almost wholly lost with the cessation of individual life in other animals; so that he now stands raised above it as on a mountain-top, far above the level of his humble fellows, and transfigured from his grosser nature by reflecting, here and there, a ray from the infinite source of truth. — Thomas Huxley

Do not despise death, but be well content with it, since this, too, is one of those things that nature wills. For such as it is to be young and to grow old, and to increase and to reach maturity, and to have teeth and beard and grey hairs, and to beget, and to be pregnant and to bring forth, and all the other natural operations that the seasons of your life bring, such also is dissolution. This, then, is consistent with the character of a reflecting man, to be neither careless nor impatient nor contemptuous with respect to death, but to wait for it as one of the operations of nature. As you now wait for the time when the child shall come out of your wife's womb, so be ready for the time when your soul shall fall out of this envelope. — Marcus Aurelius

We do not learn from experience ... we learn from reflecting on experience. — John Dewey

Don't ask me to apologize for holding up a mirror. If you don't like what it's reflecting, take accountability and change it. — Steve Maraboli

Because God made humans in his image reflecting God's very nature. You're here to bear fruit, reproduce, lavish life on the Earth, live bountifully! — Anonymous

My dad died, I write. almost a year ago. Car accident. My hand is shaking; my eyes sting and fill. I add Not his fault before pushing the notebook and pen back across the table, wiping a hand across my cheeks.
As he reads, my impulse is to reach out, grab the notebook, run outside, dump it in the trash, bury it in the snow, throw it under the wheels of a passing car - something, something, so I can go back fifteen seconds when this part ofme was still shut away and private. Then I look at Ravi's face again, and the normally white white whites of his eyes are pink. This causes major disruption to my ability to control the flow of my own tears. I see myself when I look at him right now: he's reflecting my sadness, my broken heart, back to me.
He takes the pe, writes, and slides it over. You'd think it's something epic from the way it levels my heart. It isn't.
I'm really sorry, Jill.
Four little words. — Sara Zarr

Reflecting on various aspects of our lives is essential for a person to grow and adjust to changing phases in their life. Self-analysis entails examining a person's existing level of self-esteem and documenting the inner voice that speaks to a person, which is frequently either affirming of self-defeating. Failure to periodically engage in self-analysis, make crucial revisions in our personas, and modify our thinking patterns when we encounter transformative events in life can lead to mood disorders, burnout, and other emotional maladies. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Political writers argue in regard to the love of liberty with the same philosophy that philosophers do in regard to the state of nature; by the things they see they judge of things very different which they have never seen, and they attribute to men a natural inclination to slavery, on account of the patience with which the slaves within their notice carry the yoke; not reflecting that it is with liberty as with innocence and virtue, the value of which is not known but by those who possess them, though the relish for them is lost with the things themselves. I know the charms of your country, said Brasidas to a satrap who was comparing the life of the Spartans with that of the Persepolites; but you can not know the pleasures of mine. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I finished the [blog] post reflecting on the fact that, despite all the changes in my life, maybe I wasn't so different after all. If I typed it, maybe I could believe it, too. — Stephanie Nielson

We are each a concert reverberating with our whole lives and reflecting and amplifying the world around us. — Natalie Goldberg

Class reunions were about curiosity; about satisfaction at the avoidance of the mistakes of one's contemporaries, now revealed in their emerging life histories; about reflecting on the ravages - and injustices - of time; and of realizing, perhaps, how strange and random are the twists and turns of fate. — Alexander McCall Smith

Most of us are reflecting life and not affecting it. Your inner speech mirrors your mind, and your mind mirrors God. If you
do not change your thoughts, you haven't changed their activity. And if
you do not change their activity, the conditions of your life cannot
change, for they are only bearing witness to the inner action of your
mind. — Neville Goddard

When Willie was a baby, he used to look into the soft almond eyes of his black-gold mother and in those reflecting mirrors of life and the world, he saw that the earth was a splendid lovely planet. — Thomas S. Klise