Quotes & Sayings About Understanding Yourself

Intimacy starts with a relationship with yourself, an understanding of who you are. — Cameron Diaz

Don't try to change the world.
First, change yourself or rather, your self-perception, and you find the world automatically corresponding to the level of your understanding.
You will find that it has always been you who set the pace and depth of your experience by recognizing and honoring your true nature. — Mooji

But science and experience reveal that with self-reflection and understanding, non-ideal patterns we've adopted from our own pasts can be transformed. Be patient with yourself and with your family members. With kindness and understanding, to yourself and to others, change can be nurtured and good things can emerge. — Daniel J. Siegel

If you're not aligned with God, it's hard to recognize yourself as being of God. The way that you get aligned with God is by being like God, being like Source, being like energy. That means understanding how God works. — Wayne Dyer

We each deal with childhood in different ways. That brothers and sisters can take the same lump of clay that is childhood and use it to shape themselves into unique human beings is a miracle in itself. Despite individual struggles, triumphs, joys and disappointments, someone is made of the same stuff and has been at your side, whether figuratively or literally, from the beginning. Use our brother and sister quote collection to explore this truth and gain compassionate understanding for yourself and your siblings. — Laura Ramirez

When you make a commitment to yourself, do so with the clear understanding that you're pledging your integrity. — Stephen Covey

Balance comes from slowing down, from taking deep breaths, from understanding your body and what it needs. It comes from accepting who you are and loving yourself every step of the way. — Rachel Brathen

Your past experiences are past indeed; those strains and emotions of sensuous life are gone and what has remained is the temple of your own building, that edifice not built by hands. The reality of you is in the invisible, the intangible. In retrospect your spiritual milestones stand stronger to you in their fixed position than any outward experience. Having arrived at this understanding try now, quietly, gently, without too much effort of self-discipline, to keep to the invisible, train yourself to keep immaterial. Watching and praying are essential. When hard pressed by old habits and you are under the heavy blanketings of times and events, you, as it were, disappear. This is the moment to step back into the invisible, for then the invisible will enfold you and give you great power in the visible world. — Mary Strong

Latin [...], it was the sign of being able to detach yourself from here and now, abstract your understanding of words, train your memory and live solitary in your head with only books for company. So it was meant to be hard, but I found it wonderfully easy, for just these reasons. I fell in love with Latin. — Lorna Sage

Identity the greatest thing that ever happened to all humanity on earth. Identity the source of knowing who you are and where you come from. Identity the source of understanding yourself and makes you proud to be the person who you are, the daughter, the son of the Most High God. — Euginia Herlihy

Be equal to whatever you meet! That is a better way to react to life. It is accomplished simply by meeting everything in understanding, by demanding understanding from within yourself. — Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

Sometimes the best way to learn a lesson isn't just hearing the words, but putting it into practice by experimenting with it and finding its truth for yourself instead of taking someone else's word for it. — A.J. Darkholme

Understanding and discovering yourself is a critical aspect of your life — Sunday Adelaja

Your Lord is Love: love Him and in Him all men, as His children in Christ. Your Lord is a fire: do not let your heart be cold, but burn with faith and love. Your Lord is light: do not walk in darkness of mind, without reasoning or understanding, or without faith. Your Lord is a God of mercy and bountifulness: be a source of mercy and bountifulness to your neighbors. If you will be such, you will find salvation yourself with everlasting glory. — John Of Kronstadt

Though it may be called a nescience, and unknowing, yet there is in it more than all knowing and understanding without it; for this unknowing lures and attracts you from all understood things, and from yourself as well. — Meister Eckhart

How much better it would be if they weren't so damn understanding
if they kicked me out of the house. To find yourself out in the street with two dollars to your name, to catch the streetcar downtown and get a job, perhaps as an airline stewardess. Think how wonderful it would be to fly to Houston and back three times a week for the next twenty years. You think I'm kidding? I'm not. It would be wonderful. — Walker Percy

You need to invest time in understanding and discovering yourself — Sunday Adelaja

(Mma Ramotswe thinking about what her father taught her ... )
Having the right approach to life was a great gift in this life ... .Do not complain about your life. Do not blame others for things that you have brought upon yourself. Be content with who you are and where you are, and do whatever you can do to bring to others such contentment, and joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself ... You can do that in the company of an old friend - you can close your eyes and think of the land that gave you life and breath, and of all the reasons why you are glad that you are there, with the people you know, with the people you love. — Alexander McCall Smith

You assumed whatever was vivid to yourself was vivid to others, and vice versa, but she was going to make him spell it out, for the first time in either of their lives. — Garth Risk Hallberg

Your thoughts have the power to control; our being, our emotions, and the way we view the world that surrounds us. If you don't constantly re-think what you think of on a daily basis, how do you ever expect to evolve into a being of; wisdom, truth, understanding, love, and above all, to be there for others? — Martin R. Lemieux

You always debate with yourself about whether or not you made the right decision. And you have to then give the person that you're working for your best judgment based on your understanding of the facts, but also the calculus you use to make a determination about what's the best way to go forward. — John O. Brennan

The thing that's worth doing is trying to improve our understanding of the world and gain a better appreciation of the universe and not to worry too much about there being no meaning. And, you know, try and enjoy yourself. Because, actually, life's pretty good. It really is. — Elon Musk

Focus on understanding yourself instead of blaming others. — Wayne W. Dyer

Would you like the rhythm of your heart to be calm?
Would you like the music of your soul towards harmony and fulfillment?
Deal with any conflict constructively to reduce stress, tension and other unwanted collateral effects. Sharing you strategies on how to deal with a conflict:
- take care of yourself and know well yourself
- clarify what personal needs threatened by the conflict
- identify a safe place and appropriate time for negotiation
- seek first to understand than be understood, listening skills is very important. — Angelica Hopes

I had to open my eyes, so I could see a new life! — Jonathan Anthony Burkett

She lived a good deal by herself, to herself, working, passing on from day to day, and always thinking, trying to lay hold on life, to grasp it in her own understanding. Her active living was suspended, but underneath, in the darkness, something was coming to pass. If only she could break through the last integuments! — D.H. Lawrence

If you want to save the snow leopard, or the giant Redwoods, or the Okavango delta, or the Amazon, or the atmosphere, or the Earth, or those you love, or yourself, or the human race, this is the only path that can achieve that-so the truth is the sooner you support and adopt this path of transformation through understanding the better. The choice is self-destruction or self-discovery. — Jeremy Griffith

Oh, if only it were possible to find understanding," Joseph exclaimed. "If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of world history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn't there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?"
The master had never heard him speak so fervently. He walked on in silence for a little, then said: "There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht - I can see that they already have begun. — Hermann Hesse

I want you to remember something. Zo. It's important, and it'll make more sense when you have yourself together again. I'm gonna leave here and get another chance at life.You're gonna be a big, famous vamp High Priestess. That means you're gonna live like a gazillion years. I'll find you again. Even if it takes a hundred of those years. I promise you, Zoey Redbird, we'll be together again." Heath pulled her into his arms and kissed her trying through touch to show her that his love was never-ending. When he finally forced himself to let her go, he thought he saw understanding in her haunted, shocked gaze. "I'll love you forever, Zo."
Then Heath turned and walked away from his true love. The air before him opened, curtainlike, and he stepped from one realm to another and disappeared completely. — P.C. Cast

May you listen to the voice within the beat even when you are tired. When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead. May every experience in life be a door that opens your heart, expands your understanding, and leads you to freedom. If you are weary, may you be aroused by passion and purpose. If you are blameful and bitter, may you be sweetened by hope and humor. If you are frightened, may you be emboldened by a big consciousness far wiser than your fear. If you are lonely, may you find love, may you find friendship. If you are lost, may you understand that we are all lost, and still we are guided - by Strange Angels and Sleeping Giants, by our better and kinder natures, by the vibrant voice within the beat. May you follow that voice, for This is the way - the hero's journey, the life worth living, the reason we are here. — Elizabeth Lesser

I understood myself only after I destroyed myself. And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was. — Sade Andria Zabala

Mr. Suttree it is our understanding that at curfew rightly decreed by law and in that hour wherein night draws to its proper close and the new day commences and contrary to conduct befitting a person of your station you betook yourself to various low places within the shire of McAnally and there did squander several ensuing years in the company of thieves, derelicts, miscreants, pariahs, poltroons, spalpeens, curmudgeons, clotpolls, murderers, gamblers, bawds, whores, trulls, brigands, topers, tosspots, sots and archsots, lobcocks, smellsmocks, runagates, rakes, and other assorted and felonious debauchees.
I was drunk, cried Suttree. — Cormac McCarthy

In order to become a grandmaster class player whose understanding of chess is superior to the thousands of ordinary players, you have to develop within yourself a large number of qualities, the qualities of an artistic creator, a calculating practitioner, a cold calm competitor. — Alexander Kotov

Making sense only to yourself is the most feasible test for human personal understanding — Mpho Leteng

When your mind is simply trapped by the image out there so that you never make the reference to yourself, you have misread the image. — Joseph Campbell

Old Testament scholar David Atkinson writes: "Shame . . . is that sense of unease with yourself at the heart of your being."89 We know there is something wrong with us, but we can't admit it or identify it. There is a deep restlessness, which can take various forms - guilt and striving to prove ourselves, rebellion and the need to assert our independence, compliance and the need to please others. Something is wrong, and we may know the effects, but we fall short of understanding the true causes. — Timothy Keller

Society is a cross-section of multiple dynamics..
A socially driven mind will have the capacity to digest all..
For purposes of understanding, learning, dissecting and knowing..
Criticizing what you don't understand or have never done yourself..
Shows lack of intelligence as well as lack of social mindedness... — Abha Maryada Banerjee

A happy love is a single story, a disintegrating one is two or more competing, conflicting versions, and a disintegrated one lies at your feet like a shattered mirror, each shard reflecting a different story, that it was wonderful, that it was terrible, if only this had, if only that hadn't. The stories don't fit back together, and it's the end of stories, those devices we carry like shells and shields and blinkers and occasionally maps and compasses. The people close to you become mirrors and journals in which you record your history, the instruments that help you know yourself and remember yourself, and you do the same for them. When they vanish so does the use, the appreciation, the understanding of those small anecdotes, catchphrases, jokes: they become a book slammed shut or burnt. — Rebecca Solnit

To the same degree that your understanding of and attitude towards Afrika becomes more positive, your understanding of and attitude towards yourself will also becomes more positive ... — Malcolm X

Understanding requires our own observation. Solutions frequently come in the form of mental pictures. The only prescription is to get out and use our eyes to see how things work. — David Sturt

We all have struggle in our lives. We're all searching for personal freedom, whether we're in a bad place or trying to be true to ourselves. — Barbara Becker Holstein

But here is the thing about anger: People hold onto it because letting go means dealing with pain. It is a coping strategy that seems to show strength and confidence, but in reality it shows how much you care about someone's actions, which leads to this question: Why is this person's respect so important to you? — Shannon L. Alder

Make a vow to yourself today that from now on you will treat yourself with the same love, attention, affection, understanding, compassion and forgiveness that you so readily give to others. — Miya Yamanouchi

You need to put yourself in their place in order to understand people — Sunday Adelaja

This is beyond understanding." said the king. "You are the wisest man alive. You know what is preparing. Why do you not make a plan to save yourself?"
And Merlin said quietly, "Because I am wise. In the combat between wisdom and feeling, wisdom never wins. — John Steinbeck

Wherever you are, whatever circumstance you are facing, know that you are not alone in your struggles. God yearns to help you through this journey. Always trust in His truth, always lean on His understanding, and always submit to Him and He will make your paths straight. God is your source of power and strength. He is the only one who is capable of fulfilling you completely. Unveil yourself to Him and He will transform you. He will also be your help so that you can unveil yourself to your husband. May you continually walk in His amazing grace, covered in a blanket of white. — Jennifer Smith

Belief in the liberating power of knowledge has become the ruling illusion of modern humankind. Most want to believe that some kind of explanation or understanding will deliver them from their conflicts. Yet being divided from yourself goes with being self-aware. This is the truth in the Genesis myth: the Fall is not an event at the beginning of history but the intrinsic condition of self-conscious beings. — John Gray

In suffering, you've found a greater understanding and appreciation for all of life's wonders. You're still trying to believe it every day. One morning you convince yourself it will all be worth it, the next you're down and believe it all to be worthless. — Connor Franta

Expansion in love is an action that is available to every being in the universe all the time. A willing awareness will take
us to heaven, a loving attitude will make us free. Nothing else controls our fate. Good or bad behavior is secondary.
Whatever you are doing, love yourself for doing it. Whatever you are thinking, love yourself for thinking it. Love is the
only dimension that needs to be changed. If you are not sure how it feels to be loving, love yourself for not being sure of
how it feels. There is nothing on earth more important than the love which conscious beings feel towards each other,
whether or not it is ever expressed. — Thaddeus Golas

All the episodes from my stories and novels are not about food only, but about meals. You can eat food by yourself. A meal, according to my understanding anyhow, is a communal event, bringing together family members, neighbors, even strangers. At its most ordinary, it involves hospitality, giving, receiving, and gratitude. — Wendell Berry

You can believe what you've been told. You can imagine in vivid detail the things explained to you. You may even feel emotions assumed to accompany the related experience. But you absolutely cannot know something with any real degree of understanding until you've personally walked the road yourself. — Richelle E. Goodrich

With that realization came the understanding that sometimes you can't appreciate the true beauty of a thing until you experience it for yourself; no amount of words or pictures will do the trick. And no amount of planning could make it happen. Sometimes, we just have to go where the wind takes us and see where we end up. — Elle Casey

But no-one came here to live an ordinary life. Despite what our somnambulistic, mythless society society tells us - a place stuffed to the gilders with unawake, unthinking folk ruled by shoulds, oughts and have-tos; people who have no understanding of themselves; individuals afraid to acknowledge, let alone live their dreams - you came here to weave your unique essence and vision into the world, thus rendering it magnificent, both for yourself and others. — Thea Euryphaessa

The pain of leaving those you grow to love is only the prelude to understanding yourself and others. — Shirley Maclaine

The question you'll need to ask yourself as your heart is filled with fear is: "Do you know God's heart?" Do you know Him that intimately? Do you trust Him with all of your heart, instead of leaning unto your own understanding? Most of us don't, especially when life is falling apart at the seams. If you want to know God's heart, if you want to trust Him and have the kind of peace that comes with that, you're going to have to read His word. The Bible is His voice and it reveals His character. — Cherie Hill

Psychiatry is a strange field because, unlike any other field of medicine, you never really finish. Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I'm still learning. — Irvin D. Yalom

When you allow yourself to express both your authentic creativity and leadership talents, you will move in authentic humility and open yourself to the freedom offered by The No-Plan Plan. You will know you have no need to control all the details or waste precious moments fooling yourself with unneeded plans. You'll find faith and trust yourself, the Spirit of your own understanding, and those you lead. — Kevin E. Houchin Esq.

You've found a way to stay sane, Renfew--even if that means admitting a tiny piece of piano-playing madness into your world. But there's a cost to that sanity, and it isn't moi. the cost is you can't ever allow yourself an instant of hope, because hope is something that will always be crushed, crushed utterly, and in the crushing of hope you will be weakened forever, just as surely as if you'd mainlined some slow-acting poison."
~"Understanding Space & Time — Alastair Reynolds

Obsessive love is built on a tissue of illusions: that by having sex with someone you can possess that person's soul; that you can transmute past defeats into present triumphs without understanding or mourning; that you make the unloving love you by constancy, uncomplaining availability, and molding yourself into what you thing that person wants. — Jeanne Safer

The best advice I have is keep writing, keep practicing, keep winning, losing and understanding the difference. Never stop learning, never stop pushing yourself. Then find yourself a team you can work well with and help make awesome things happen. — Rhianna Pratchett

Yes, there are many ways to collect content, but in my experience - the best and most authentic content is one which you speak when you are in moments of flow. You can use any recording device. Do not let the lack of understanding technology slow you down. Ask someone how to turn the damn thing on and record yourself. Remember, you are on a mission to complete the levels within and win a better life for yourself and your family. You owe it to them to overcome these obstacles and to see your way through, not to create excuses. — Kytka Hilmar-Jezek

Greater in battle
than the man who would conquer
a thousand-thousand men,
is he who would conquer
just one
himself.
Better to conquer yourself
than others.
When you've trained yourself,
living in constant self-control,
neither a deva nor gandhabba,
nor a Mara banded with Brahmas,
could turn that triumph
back into defeat. — Gautama Buddha

Liberate yourself from unconstructive beliefs forced upon you by others for imprisonment sake. Allow into this space a new-fangled reality which warrant viewpoints increasing a new understanding. — Michaelson Williams

I don't believe the cure for loneliness is meeting someone, not necessarily. I think it's about two things: learning how to befriend yourself and understanding that many of the things that seem to afflict us as individuals are in fact a result of larger forces of stigma and exclusion, which can and should be resisted. — Olivia Laing

You're angry."
"Wow. You really are good."
"And guarded. You've been hurt, but you still crave connection. Understanding. So you throw yourself into risk in a calculated way. You're a paradox: a careful daredevil. — Leah Raeder

It takes a certain skill set to be partnered. You have the biological knowledge of the machine. What are the parts, where are they located, how do they work, what do they do? Then there is your intellectual understanding about sex, in history, what you believe about sex, what you were taught about sex. Then there's you intrapersonal skill, your relationship with yourself. Then there are interpersonal skills. — Nina Hartley

Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. — J.I. Packer

He liked to join in any game that was afoot, so long as it was simple, such as dominoes or draughts, but was so good natured that he always let his opponents win. Not that he said so, but we were always aware of it, and could see him making mistakes on purpose. To poor Arthur we owed our disgust with obtrusively unselfish people, and our understanding of mother's oft-repeated maxim: 'Please yourself, your friends will like you the better. — Molly Hughes

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe. — Jerry Garcia

Think of the last thing you prayed about - were you devoted to your desire or to God? Was your determination to get some gift of the Spirit for yourself or to get to God? "For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him" (Matthew 6:8). The reason for asking is so you may get to know God better. "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). We should keep praying to get a perfect understanding of God Himself. — Oswald Chambers

It's so funny, you go to acting school thinking you're going to learn how to be other people, but really it taught me how to be myself. Because it's in understanding yourself deeply that you can lend yourself to another person's circumstances and another person's experience. — Lupita Nyong'o

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in things that we find fascinating or become so consumed by mundane responsibilities that we lose sight of God's objectives. As you consistently focus your life on the most basic principles, you will gain an understanding of what you are to do, and you will produce more fruit for the Lord and more happiness for yourself. — Richard G. Scott

Be less of a judge and you will be surprised that when you become a witness and you don't judge yourself, you stop judging others too. And that makes you more human, more compassionate, more understanding. — Osho

Choose food, clothing, and shelter that accords with nature.Rely on your own body for transportation. Allow your work and your recreation to be one and the same. Do exercise that develops your whole being and not just your body. Listen to music that bridges the three spheres of your being. Choose leaders for their virtue rather than their wealth or power. Serve others and cultivate yourself simultaneously. Understand that true growth comes from meeting and solving problems of life in a way that is harmonizing to yourself and to others. If you can follow these simple old ways, you will be continually renewed. — Lao-Tzu

Do not attempt to accomplish greater results by a greater effort of your little understanding, but by a greater understanding of your little effort. The greater your understanding of the power within yourself, the less effort you need to make in order to achieve. — Walter Russell

I who am the beauty of the green earth and the white moon among the stars and the mystery of the waters, I call upon your soul to arise, and to come unto me, for I am the soul of nature, that gives life to the universe, from me all things proceed, and unto me all things must return, but for those who would seek to worship me, let them do so with joy in their hearts for all acts of love and of pleasure are my rituals, let them develop within them the qualities of compassion, kindness, humility, love, understanding. But for those who seek to know me, let them know that if all they are seeking and they are yearning it will avail them not until they learn the great mystery that which you seek you find not within yourself you'll never find it without. For I am that which is attained at the end of all suffering. I am she of a thousand names. — The Empress

A look filled with understanding, an accepting smile, a loving word, a meal shared in warmth and awareness are the things which create happiness in the present moment. By nourishing awareness in the present moment, you can avoid causing suffering to yourself and those around you. The way you look at others, your smile, and your small acts of caring can create happiness. True happiness does not depend on wealth or fame. — Nhat Hanh

But however minimal, however threadbare, it (collective memory) is ballast of a kind. We all need that seven-eighths of the iceberg, the ballast of the past, a general past, the place from which we came.
That is why history should be taught in school. to all children, as much of it as possible. If you have no sense of the past, no access to historical narrative, you are afloat, untethered; you cannot see yourself as a part of the narrative, you cannot place yourself within a context. You will not have an understanding of time, and a respect for memory and its subtle victory over the remorselessness of time. — Penelope Lively

In general, I feel if you can't say it clearly you don't understand it yourself. — John Rogers Searle

This is your commitment. This is the time for it. If you are to be an entity, as you have chosen to be, then this is your opportunity, and this is your last reincarnation upon this earth. You need power, strength, determination, and joyous spontaneity in your working hours. You also need to influence personally those people in the outside world with whom you come in daily contact, and to extend yourself in using your full abilities of understanding and creativeness in your outside contacts. You need also to expand in the direction in which you are going, in terms of these sessions and psychological time. — Jane Roberts

Being strong means allowing yourself to cry over the things you can't change; laugh when things are funny; smile when you're happy. It means understanding where your breaking point is, and yet, going further and still remaining whole. Strong people push themselves to the limits of pain and joy. They fall to their knees in agony, then they lift up their faces to find the beautiful morning rays shining down on them, and they rise to their feet. Being strong means never giving up, no matter how crushed you are, and finding happiness in the smallest parts of life. — D. Nichole King

Until you understand a writer's ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

There's something very touching to me about someone almost communicating to themselves in some way - trying to come to some deeper understanding of yourself and having compassion for yourself. — Mike White

It was more about understanding that you could give it your all, give yourself the best chances, but control is an illusion. — Harlan Coben

Keep constantly in mind in how many things you yourself have witnessed changes already. The universe is change, life is understanding. — Marcus Aurelius

Falling in love ... how could he have made such light of it? Sneered even. As if it was trivial for us, a frill, a whim. It was, on the contrary, heavy going. It was the central thing, the way you understood yourself. — Margaret Atwood

You make your life choices understanding that you might and do have to work harder to prove yourself. — Sonia Sotomayor

This book is about those other pieces, and getting them in place. It's about understanding the external myths that have broken down; the same ones that created the massive American middle class, which is now dying, and left us with the Choose Yourself era in the fallout. People are walking around blind. If you are the one who can see, you will be able to navigate through this new world. You will be the beacon that will enhance the lives of everyone around you and, in doing so, trigger the actual law of nature that says when you enhance everyone around you, you can't help but enhance yourself. — James Altucher

It's just a matter of understanding what's necessary and discipline yourself to do it. — Arthur Lydiard

I AM (your true self) is not interested in man's opinion. All its interest lies in your conviction of yourself. What do you say of the I AM within you? Can you answer and say, "I AM Christ"? Your answer or degree of understanding will determine the place you will occupy in life. Do you say or believe yourself to be a man of a certain family, race, nation, etc.? Do you honestly believe this of yourself? Then life, your true self, will cause these conceptions to appear in your world and you will live with them as though they are real. — Neville Goddard

If you are still thinking of yourself as two parts - soul and body, then you will inevitably confuse your psychological reactions with your spiritual life, and this is not only confusing to the understanding, but it can actually, in this very psychological age, lead you into real false teaching. — Dennis J. Bennett

Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home. Understanding nourishes belonging. When you really feel understood, you feel free to release yourself into the trust and shelter of the other person's soul. — John O'Donohue

I never had one beer. If I bought a six-pack of beer, I kept drinking till all six beers were gone. You have to have that kind of understanding about yourself. I haven't had a drink now in 12 years. — Samuel L. Jackson

Sometimes you come to realize you understand something but you can't explain it to anyone, not even yourself. This is perhaps the most sacred kind of understanding. — James Rozoff

Arjuna asked Sri Krishna, "In this chaotic condition of my mind, what is my duty? I surrender myself to you, great Master. Please tell me."
The answer of Bhagavan Sri Krishna is, "You understand nothing. You draw conclusions without proper understanding of the structure of life and your relationship to people or things in general. It is a very sorry state. How can you draw conclusions without proper premises? If you draw a conclusion based on a wrong premise, the conclusion is also wrong. Therefore, all that you have been told up to this time is without any foundation because you do not know either yourself or the world. — Swami Krishnananda

If you love someone, you will want to understand them and accept them as they grow and change; similarly, loving yourself involves a never-ending process of self-understanding and self-acceptance through life's ups and downs...we are finally coming to understand that love for neighbor and love for self naturally lead to love for the earth...if you love your neighbor as yourself, you want both them and you to be able to breathe, so you need to love clean fresh air...you want them and you to be able to drink, so you need to love pure water in all its forms...you want them and you to be be able to eat, so you need to care about the climate...." (p. 59-60) — Brian McLaren

If you have realistic ideals and can generally live up to them, your self-esteem will not be threatened. If your ideals are exaggerated and you cannot reach them, your good feelings from successes may be short lived, and you may feel that you are never good enough.
The continued hope for the impossible, the expectation that you will or can be unconditionally loved and adored, is not facing reality but rather holding onto an idealized image of yourself and an idealized version of what others can provide. If this is the case, your sense of self may be threatened by shame and its resulting depression, or by feelings of inadequacy for not living up to your unrealistic ideals. A better understanding of shame may help you recognize your tendency to hide what you feel from yourself and others. — Mary C. Lamia

If you let yourself go I am sure you are sensible. . . . You are inclined to get muddled, if I may judge from last night. Let yourself go. Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them. By understanding George you may learn to understand yourself. — E. M. Forster

To be in the Burren is to be reminded that physical matter is simultaneously indestructible and entirely transmutable: that it can swap states drastically, from vegetable to mineral or from liquid to solid. To attempt to hold these to contradictory ideas, of permanence and mutability, in the brain at the same time is usefully difficult, for it makes the individual feel at once valuable and superfluous. You become aware of yourself as constituted of nothing more than endlessly convertible matter - but also of always being perpetuated in some form. Such knowledge grants us comfortless immortality: an understanding that our bodies belong to a limitless cycle of dispersal and reconstruction. — Robert Macfarlane