10 Quotes on Self Awareness

The key to meaningful work and a fulfilling life is first to become more self aware. Really understanding yourself and what is important to you in your life and in your work is the key to getting satisfaction out of work and life. Over the years many people have talked about different aspects of self awareness. Here are 10 quotes that express what others have thought about it.

1. Lao Tzu - He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.

2. Anonymous - Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.

3. Richard Bach - We wait all these years to find someone who understands us, I thought, someone who accepts us as we are, someone with a wizard's power to melt stone to sunlight, who can bring us happiness in spite of trials, who can face our dragons in the night, who can transform us into the soul we choose to be. Just yesterday I found that magical Someone is the face we see in the mirror: It's us and our homemade masks.

4. William Faulkner - Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.

5. August Wilson - Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.

6. Tao Te Ching - Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.

7. Carl Gustav Jung - Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

8. Mevlana Rumi - People of the world don't look at themselves, and so they blame one another.

9. Thich Nhat Hanh - If we are too busy, if we are carried away every day by our projects, our uncertainty, our craving, how can we have the time to stop and look deeply into the situation-our own situation, the situation of our beloved one, the situation of our family and of our community, and the situation of our nation and of the other nations?

10. Joseph Campbell - If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.