80+ Thought-provoking Self-Reflection Quotes (2023)

A collection of inspirational self reflection quotes to inspire you to pause and take the time to self reflect.

Self Reflection is a powerful tool that allows us to discover ourselves more and build a much deeper connection with ourselves that’ll help us learn, grow, evolve, and become the best version of ourselves.

HERE ARE 80+ SELF REFLECTION QUOTES AND INSPIRING REFLECTING QUOTES

Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.

— Ernest Holmes

Stop trying to be less of who you are. Let this time in your life cut you open and drain all of the things that are holding you back.

— Jennifer Elisabeth

Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.

—Margaret J. Wheatley

The journey into self-love and self-acceptance must begin with self-examination… until you take the journey of self-reflection, it is almost impossible to grow or learn in life.

— Iyanla Vanzant

It is when you lose sight of yourself, that you lose your way. To keep your truth in sight you must keep yourself in sight and the world to you should be a mirror to reflect to you your image; the world should be a mirror that you reflect upon.

— C. JoyBell C.

What we perceive about ourselves is greatly a reflection of how we will end up living our lives.

— Stephen Richards

The beauty you see in me is a reflection of you.

— Rumi

I look out into the water and up deep into the stars. I beg the sparkling lanterns of light to cure me of myself — my past and the kaleidoscope of mistakes, failures and wrong turns that have stacked unbearable regret upon my shoulders.

— Jennifer Elisabeth

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

— Confucius

Even if you think you’re doing well and have it all figured out, there is a voice you will always inevitably hear at some point which nags at you and says “but wait…” Don’t ever dismiss it, listen to what it has to say. Life will never be close enough to perfect, and listening to that voice means stepping outside of yourself and considering your own wrongdoings and flaws.

— Ashly Lorenzana

People who have had little self-reflection live life in a huge reality blind-spot.

— Bryant McGill

I think making mistakes and discovering them for yourself is of great value, but to have someone else to point out your mistakes is a shortcut of the process.

— Shelby Foote

Everyone and everything that shows up in our life is a reflection of something that is happening inside of us.

— Alan Cohen

Self-awareness is a good which still can, in some cases, steal one’s innocence – for it is often much worse to know better without the discipline to do better.

— Criss Jami

Everything in your life is a reflection of a choice you have made. If you want a different result, make a different choice.

— Anonymous

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

— Carl Gustav Jung

At the center of your being

you have the answer;

you know who you are

and you know what you want.

— Lao Tzu

Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

— C.G. Jung

Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?

— Marcus Aurelius

Women need real moments of solitude and self-reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away.

— Barbara De Angelis

I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.

— Hermann Hesse

It takes courage…to endure the sharp pains of self discovery rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives.

— Marianne Williamson

you can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.

— Ernest Hemingway

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

— Michel de Montaigne

Time spent in self-reflection is never wasted – it is an intimate date with yourself.

— Dr. Paul TP Wong

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES ABOUT SELF REFLECTION

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people.

— Carl Jung

This above all; to thine own self be true.

— William Shakespeare

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

— Eckhart Tolle

Don’t become too preoccupied with what is happening around you. Pay more attention to what is going on within you.

— Mary-Frances Winters

People are sent into our lives to teach us things that we need to learn about ourselves.

— Mandy Hale

Reflection is one of the most underused yet powerful tools for success.

— Richard Carlson

As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.

— Proverb

Remind yourself that you cannot fail at being yourself.

— Wayne Dyer

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

— Aristotle

Self-reflection entails asking yourself questions about your values, assessing your strengths and failures, thinking about your perceptions and interactions with others, and imagining where you want to take your life in the future.

— Robert L. Rosen

Compare less. Reflect more.

— Unknown

Self-reflection is necessary to dig beneath our own layers and visit the inner crevices of our heart and mind to develop an understanding of life.

— Unknown

Your greatest self has been waiting your whole life; don’t make it wait any longer.

— Steve Maraboli

Your soul needs time for solitude and self-reflection. In order to love lead, heal and create you must nourish yourself first.

— Linda Joy

Quiet reflection is often the mother of deep understanding. Maintain that peaceful nursery, enabling stillness to speak.

— Tom Althouse

Since everything is a reflection of our minds, everything can be changed by our minds.

— Buddha

Our self-image, strongly held, essentially determines what we become.

— Maxwell Martz

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It is always our own self that we find at the end of the journey. The sooner we face that self, the better.

— Ella Maillart

The soul usually knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.

— Caroline Myss

One of the greatest tragedies in life is to lose your own sense of self and accept the version of you that is expected by everyone else.

— K.L. Toth

Life is growth. If we stop growing, technically and spiritually, we are as good as dead.

— Morihei Ueshiba

Sometimes the people around you won’t understand your journey. They don’t need to, it’s not for them.

Joubert Botha

Honest self-reflection opens your mind to reprogramming, change, success and freedom.

— Vikas Runwal

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

— Mark Twain

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

— Aristotle

Great leaders develop through a never-ending process of self-study, self-reflection, education, training, and experience.

— Tony Buon

You are not discovering yourself but creating yourself anew. Seek, therefore, not to find out who you are, seek to determine what you want to be.

— Neal Donald Walsch

Self-reflection is a humbling process. It’s essential to find out why you think, say, and do certain things…. then better yourself.

— Sonya Teclai

MORE INSPIRING SELF REFLECTION QUOTES

Emotions are there to enjoy life; but they are not used in self-reflection because they inhibit a proper reflection. They gunk us up.

— Frederick Lenz

The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.

— Thomas Paine

Self-reflection is the gateway to freedom. It also brings greater appreciation and enjoyment. We begin to enjoy spending time with our own mind, and we enjoy reflecting on our experience of the teachings. Like the sun emerging from behind the clouds, the teachings of the dharma become clear.

— Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

Learning to love my inner and outer beauty wasn’t an easy road. I still don’t always love the reflection I see in the mirror, but I have learned that my outer appearance does not define me.

— Katherine Schwarzenegger

Self-awareness gives you the capacity to learn from your mistakes as well as your successes.

— Lawrence Bossidy

Make sure the outside of you is a good reflection of the inside of you.

— Jim Rohn

Friendship with one’s self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.”

—Eleanor Roosevelt

Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?

— Charles Bukowski

I visualize where I wanted to be, what kind of player I wanted to become. I knew exactly where I wanted to go, and I focused on getting there.

— Michael Jordan

It takes a certain ingenuous faith – but I have it – to believe that people who read and reflect more likely than not come to judge things with liberality and truth.

— A.C. Grayling

If you are not evolving, you are dying.

— Marcus Lemonis

You are a mirror of yourself in others. Whatever you want, give. Be the best reflection of yourself.

— Karen A. Baquiran

Difficulty creates the opportunity for self-reflection and compassion.

— Suzan-Lori Parks

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

— Leo Tolstoy

Engaging in meditative self-reflection and gaining increased control of inner experiences provides a person with a sense of control over fear and trembling and the chaos of life.

— Kilroy J. Oldster

One can not reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.

— Lao Tzu

You cannot have a meaningful life without having self-reflection.

— Oprah Winfrey

It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.

— Claude Monet

Self-reflection is a kind of self-judgment. The difference is just this – the former is positive and the latter is negative.

— Balroop Singh

People of the world don’t look at themselves, and so they blame one another.

— Rumi

It is always our own self that we find at the end of the journey. The sooner we face that self, the better.

— Ella Maillart

When the mind is still, the beauty of the self is seen reflected in it.

— B.K.S Iyengar

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.

— William Makepeace Thackeray

Self-reflection is the school of wisdom.

— Baltasar Gracian

To achieve happiness I advocate four major principles, the principles of love, wisdom, self-reflection, and progress.

— Ryuho Okawa

Self-reflection entails asking yourself questions about your values, assessing your strengths and failures, thinking about your perceptions and interactions with others, and imagining where you want to take your life in the future.

— Robert L. Rosen

There is one art of which people should be masters – the art of reflection.

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values – that all reality hinges on moral foundations, and that all reality has spiritual control.

— Martin Luther King Jr.

Which of these self reflection quotes inspired you the most?

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