Quotes about Personal Growth

I would not say I am looking for God. Or, I am not looking for God precisely. I am not seeking the God I learned about as a Catholic child, as an 18-year-old novice in a religious community, as an agnostic graduate student, as - but who cares about my disguises? Or God's.

I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind, and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self.

There is but one solution to the intricate riddle of life; to improve ourselves, and contribute to the happiness of others.

we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves--such a friend ought to be--do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures.

Give me time to be myself, know myself, become a little used to happiness. The rest will be up to me.

Everybody needs a–a centre. Somewhere to go out from and come back to. And I suppose as you get older you enjoy the coming back more than the going out.

Imitating others, I failed to find myself. I looked inside and discovered I only knew my name. When I stepped outside I found my real Self. ~Rumi

Those who cannot acknowledge themselves will eventually fail

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought.

What is the logic of punishing yourself each day, of striving to become better, more efficient, tougher?" He went on to answer his own question. "The value in it is what you learn about yourself. In this sort of situation all kinds of qualities come out—things that you may not have seen in yourself before.

reality is that we all make mistakes, which ultimately make us

being yourself"; however, the more you smile, the more natural it will feel and eventually if you do it enough, it will become a habit (which takes

For the first thirty-something years of my life, I never once asked my dad if he was OK . . . and now I've done it twice in one week. I wonder if this is just the way it is. Are all our parents, collectively, fucked up? Have they always been fucked up, and it just takes us until our own adulthood to figure that out?

That's me giving myself a tough-love speech. I'm going to start doing that more often, I've decided. One might as well put his inner monologue to good use.

After the age of about . . . what, sixteen? We're all damaged. Every single beautiful, stupid, precious one of us. Damaged, damaged, damaged." When

Better mend a fault than find a fault

The ultimate reason for meditating is to transform ourselves in order to be better able to transform the world.

You don't grow up, she reasoned now, until you begin to evaluate yourself, to recognize your good traits and acknowledge that you have a few faults.

We're growing up, Betsy said aloud. She wasn't even sure she liked it. But it happened, and then it wasn't irrevocable. There was nothing you could do about it except try and see that you grew up into the kind of human being you wanted to be. I'd like to be a fine one, Betsy thought quickly and urgently.

She had always thought applying to college would be exciting. Living away from home, meeting so many new people, Learning new things, making a few poor life desicisons....

Stevie had never put these Stevies together to assemble a portrait of herself—her choices had not been failures. They had been choices. It was all one Stevie, and that Stevie was worthwhile.

What greater wealth is there than to own your own life and to spend it on growing?

We wish nothing, save to be alone and to learn, and to feel as if with each day our sight were growing sharper than the hawk's and clearer than rock crystal.

What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend it on growing? Every living thing must grow. It can't stand still. It must grow or perish.