Reflection Quotes

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“We always see our worst selves. Our most vulnerable selves. We need someone else to get close enough to tell us we’re wrong. Someone we trust.”
― David Levithan, Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

“Friends are the family you choose (~ Nin/Ithilnin, Elven rogue).”
― Jess C Scott, The Other Side of Life

“Doubt as sin. — Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature — is sin! And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality

“Reflect upon your present blessings -- of which every man has many -- not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings

“When you loved someone and had to let them go, there will always be that small part of yourself that whispers, "What was it that you wanted and why didn't you fight for it?”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Some nights are made for torture, or reflection, or the savoring of loneliness.”
― Poppy Z.Brite

“The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him?

No, thank you,' he will think. 'Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, although these are things which cannot inspire envy.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

“Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you're just a reflection of him?”
― Bill Watterson

“One of the saddest things in life, is the things one remembers.”
― Agatha Christie

“If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“how sad and bad and mad it was - but then, how it was sweet”
― Robert Browning

“The type of person you are is usually reflected in your business. To improve your business, first improve yourself.”
― Idowu Koyenikan, Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability

“That’s sad. How plastic and artificial life has become. It gets harder and harder to find something…real.” Nin interlocked his fingers, and stretched out his arms. “Real love, real friends, real body parts…”
― Jess C Scott, The Other Side of Life

“God knows far more about living a life of joy and blessings than we do.”
― Randy Loubier, Slow Brewing Tea

“The writer's curse is that even in solitude, no matter its duration, he never grows lonely or bored.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“I love the dark hours of my being.
My mind deepens into them.
There I can find, as in old letters,
the days of my life, already lived,
and held like a legend, and understood.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“Sorry, always sorry. What in the world can you buy with an apology?”
― Marie Lu, The Young Elites

“People will walk in and walk out of your life, but the one whose footstep made a long lasting impression is the one you should never allow to walk out.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“Sometimes, you have to look back in order to understand the things that lie ahead.”
― Yvonne Woon, Dead Beautiful

“If you can't prove your freedom in the nanosecond before you spilled rage out of your lips, you have proven your bondage.”
― Randy Loubier, Slow Brewing Tea

“Believing doesn't make God real. Unbelief doesn't make Him disappear. Your opinion doesn’t change reality.”
― Randy Loubier, Slow Brewing Tea

“I couldn't imagine that I'd ever fall in love again like I had with Gideon. For better or worse, he was my soulmate. The other half of me. In many ways, he was my reflection.”
― Sylvia Day, Reflected in You

“Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous.”
― Confucius, The Sayings of Confucius

“If you are offended by a belief that says you can’t have your own definition of God, be alarmed at yourself! The implications are humbling, if not embarrassing.”
― Randy Loubier

“I considered myself a Christian. But looking back on it, I guess I was more of a Kluggist. I was klugging my own spirituality. It was years before I would find out how dangerous that was.”
― Randy Loubier, Slow Brewing Tea

“It is an historical fact that you and I have a problem doing the right thing, for others and for ourselves. Yet, we deny it fiercely or wallow in shame, neither of which God wants for us.”
― Randy Loubier, Slow Brewing Tea

“Sometimes truths are what we run from, and sometimes they are what we seek.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree