Self discovery should be an important goal for everyone. Some people go through life playing a role to mask who they really are. Inspirational self-discovery quotes will make you look at life differently and help you live a meaningful life.
If you’re searching for best quotes about happiness and encouraging freedom quotes that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of famous this too shall pass quotes, inspiring better days quotes and powerful good luck quotes.
Most Famous Self-Discovery Quotes
We have stories to tell, stories that provide wisdom about the journey of life. What more have we to give one another than our ‘truth’ about our human adventure as honestly and as openly as we know how? — Rabbi Saul Rubin
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. — Aristotle
I wasn’t searching for something or someone…. I was searching for me. — Carrie Bradshaw
…all serious daring starts from within. — Eudora Welty
When I discover who I am, I’ll be free. — Ralph Ellison
The longest journey is the journey inward. — Dag Hannarskjold
We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become. — Ursula K. Le Guin
The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them. ― Thomas Merton
Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle. — Lewis Carroll
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
Each man’s life represents a road toward himself. — Herman Hesse
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. — Mahatma Gandhi
We can’t be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don’t have something better. — C. JoyBell C.
Life is a school where you learn how to remember what your soul already knows. — Anonymous
People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something that one finds. It is something that one creates. — Thomas Szasz
Sometimes you have to kind of die inside in order to rise from your own ashes and believe in yourself and love yourself to become a new person. — Gerard Way
Find out who you are and do it on purpose. — Dolly Parton
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. — Henry David Thoreau
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. — C.G. Jung
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
The story ends up being a journey of self-discovery. — Elijah Wood
Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves. — Henry David Thoreau
There is no satisfaction that can compare with looking back across the years and finding you’ve grown in self-control, judgment, generosity, and unselfishness. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox
And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself? ― Rumi
If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are. — Kristin Hannah
Discovering who you are today is the first step to being who you will be tomorrow. — Destiny’s Odyssey
It is the individual who knows how little they know about themselves who stands the most reasonable chance of finding out something about themselves before they die. — S. I. Hayakawa
Bottom line is, even if you see ’em coming, you’re not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So, what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can’t help that. It’s what you do afterwards that counts. That’s when you find out who you are. — Joss Whedon
You’ll never be able to find yourself if you’re lost in someone else. — Colleen Hoover
When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young. — Maya Angelou
There is more to myself than anyone has so far discovered. — Anonymous
The greatest explorer on this earth never takes voyages as long as those of the man who descends to the depth of his heart. — Julien Green
There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. — Nelson Mandela
It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. — E.E Cummings
I think somehow, we learn who we really are and then we live with that decision. — Eleanor Roosevelt
It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters. — Amit Ray
Discover Thy-self. — Anonymous
A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it. — Jean De La Fontaine
The only journey is the one within. — Rainer Maria Rilke
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
The journey toward self-discovery is life’s greatest adventure. — Arianna Huffington
Who am I? Ask and start your journey within. — Anonymous
What you discover on your own is always more exciting than what someone else discovers for you-it’s like the marriage between romantic love and an arranged marriage. — Terrence Rafferty
When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself. — Bob Marley
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes but in having new eyes. — Marcel Proust
Man never knows what he wants; he aspires to penetrate mysteries and as soon as he has, he wants to reestablish them. Ignorance irritates him and knowledge cloys. — Henri Frederic Amiel
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self. — Aristotle
It is easier to live through someone else than to complete yourself. The freedom to lead and plan your own life is frightening if you have never faced it before. It is frightening when a woman finally realizes that there is no answer to the question ‘who am I’ except the voice inside herself. — Betty Friedan
The greatest discovery in life is self-discovery. Until you find yourself you will always be someone else. Become yourself. — Myles Munroe
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. — Friedrich Nietzsche
Falling in love is very real, but I used to shake my head when people talked about soul mates, poor deluded individuals grasping at some supernatural ideal not intended for mortals but sounded pretty in a poetry book. Then, we met, and everything changed, the cynic has become the converted, the sceptic, an ardent zealot. — E.A. Bucchianeri
I was once afraid of people saying Who does she think she is? Now I have the courage to stand and say, This is who I am. — Oprah Winfrey
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. — Carl Jung
I suffer from life and from other people. I can’t look at reality face to face. Even the sun discourages and depresses me. Only at night and all alone, withdrawn, forgotten and lost, with no connection to anything real or useful — only then do I find myself and feel comforted. — Fernando Pessoa
You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level. — Eckhart Tolle
The more one forgives himself-by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love-the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. — Viktor Frankl
To venture causes anxiety, but not to venture is to lose one’s self…. And to venture in the highest is precisely to be conscious of one’s self. — Søren Kierkegaard
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly. — Henri Bergson
I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves. — E.M. Forster
It’s only in drugs or death we’ll see anything new, and death is just too controlling. — Chuck Palahniuk
Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart give yourself to it. — Buddha
A wise man travels to discover himself. — James Russell Lowell
He not busy being born is busy dying. — Bob Dylan
You have no need to travel anywhere. Journey within yourself, enter a mine of rubies and bathe in the splendor of your own light. — Rumi
Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in. — Alan Alda
Love, like everything else in life, should be a discovery, an adventure, and like most adventures, you don’t know you’re having one until you’re right in the middle of it. — E.A. Bucchianeri
Finding your passion isn’t just about careers and money. It’s about finding your authentic self. The one you’ve buried beneath other people’s needs. — Kristin Hannah
Self-observation is the first step of inner unfolding. — Amit Ray
If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place. Primary reality is within; secondary reality without. — Eckhart Tolle
Once you’ve started down that road to self-discovery, no matter how treacherous the path before you, you can’t turn back. The universe doesn’t allow it. — Lisa Unger
First find the man in yourself if you will inspire manliness in others. — Amos Bronson Alcott
The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours – it is an amazing journey – and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins. — Bob Moawad
Self-discovery often happens when we move out of our comfort zone and change the norm. — Fola O’Martins
The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action. — John Dewey
Outside, the ocean was crashing, waves hitting sand, then pulling back to sea. I thought of everything being washed away, again and again. We make such messes in this life, both accidentally and on purpose. But wiping the surface clean doesn’t really make anything neater. It just masks what is below. It’s only when you really dig down deep, go underground, that you can see who you really are. — Sarah Dessen
To find yourself, think for yourself. — Socrates
Observe all men; thy self-most. — Benjamin Franklin
We often need to lose sight of our priorities in order to see them. — John Irving
When you know yourself you are empowered. When you accept yourself you are invincible. — Tina Lifford
It is wisdom to know others; It is enlightenment to know one’s self. — Lao-Tzu
Courage doesn’t happen when you have all the answers. It happens when you are ready to face the questions you have been avoiding your whole life. — Shannon L. Alder
Know thyself. — Socrates
If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful, and we prefer the pleasures of illusion. — Aldous Huxley
Each man had only one genuine vocation – to find the way to himself…. His task was to discover his own destiny – not an arbitrary one – and to live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else was only a would-be existence, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one’s own inwardness. — Herman Hesse
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. — Gandhi
We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here now with the power to shape your day and your future. — Steve Maraboli
If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation. — Jiddu Krishnamurti
In suffering we find our truest selves. — Jesie Burton
It’s OK if you mess up, that’s how you get wiser. Give yourself a break. And don’t give up! Good things take time, and you’re getting there. — Marc Chernoff
Your inner strength is your outer foundation. — Allan Rufus
We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. — T.S. Elliot
Someone’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality. — Les Brown
Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed. — Stanisław Lem
At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want. — Lao Tzu
If you learn only methods, you’ll be tied to your methods but if you learn principles you can devise your own methods. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
The deeper I go into myself the more I realize that I am my own enemy. — Floriano Martins
And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?” Rumi
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. — Albert Einstein
Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave. — G.I. Gurdjieff
Be careful – the darkness you see in another’s heart might just be a reflection of that which is in your own heart. — Teachings of the Temple
The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you. — Eckhart Tolle
The unexamined life is not worth living. — Socrates
When I step out on stage in front of thousands of people, I don’t feel that I’m being brave. It can take much more courage to express true feelings to one person. […] In spite of the risks, the courage to be honest and intimate opens the way to self-discovery. It offers what we all want, the promise of love. ― Michael Jackson
Little by little, through patience and repeated effort, the mind will become stilled in the Self. — Bhagavad Gita
It was like discovering that some part of you wasn’t yours at all. And it made me wonder what else I couldn’t claim. — Sarah Dessen
The best dreams happen when you’re awake. — Cherie Gilderbloom
Before you can be anything, you have to be yourself. That’s the hardest thing to find. — E.L. Konigsburg
The secret of concentration is the secret of self-discovery. You reach inside yourself to discover your personal resources, and what it takes to match them to the challenge. — Arnold Palmer
I think that’s the real loss of innocence: the first time you glimpse the boundaries that will limit your potential. — Steve Toltz
The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself. — Anna Quindlen
People say you’re born innocent, but it’s not true. You inherit all kinds of things that you can do nothing about. You inherit your identity, your history, like a birthmark that you can’t wash off. … We are born with our heads turned back, but my mother says we have to face into the future now. You have to earn your own innocence, she says. You have to grow up and become innocent. — Hugo Hamilton
It takes courage to endure the sharp pains of self-discovery, rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsiousness that would last the rest of our lives. — Marianne Williamson
Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it’s who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals, that can give you the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment. — Anthony Robbins
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.
Action is about living fully. Inaction is the way that we deny life. Inaction is sitting in front of the television every day for years becuase you are afraid to be alive and to take the risk of expressing what you are. Expressing what you are is taking action. — Don Miguel Ruiz
[B]egin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while or the light won’t come in. — Alan Alda
Have love for your inner Self and everything else is done for you. — Amit Ray
The obstacle is the path. Face the problem, and in doing so, become more aware. See what is really happening with you. Learn about yourself. This is a valuable education. — Leo Babauta
I suppose the shock of recognition is one of the nastiest shocks of all. — Donna Tartt
As person abandons worn-out clothes and acquires new ones, so when the body is worn out a new one is acquired by the Self, who lives within. — Bhagavad Gita
I am proud that I defy your categories. I am proud that I don’t fit easily into any box. I am proud of all the things I am and all the things i can be. Question yourself every time you think you only see one thing in me. — David Levithan
It was the most amazing feeling in the world. to know that something right happened, and to know that it had happened not through luck or command but simply because it was right. — David Levithan
It’s not only the most difficult thing to know one’s self, but the most inconvenient. — Josh Billings
The buddhists say there are 149 ways to god. i’m not looking for god, only for myself, and that is far more complicated. — Jeanette Winterson
Look into the depths of your own soul and learn first to know yourself, then you will understand why this illness was bound to come upon you and perhaps you will thenceforth avoid falling ill. — Sigmund Freud
You find out who you are by figuring out who and what you’re not. — Kelly Cutrone
One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better. — Blaise Pascal
We make such messes in this life, both accidently and on purpose. But wiping the surface clean doesn’t really make anything any neater. It just masks what is below. It’s only when you really dig down deep, go underground, that you can see who you really are. — Sarah Dessen
You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need. — Jerry Gillies
Dig within. Within is the wellspring of Good; and it is always ready to bubble up, if you just dig. — Marcus Aurelius
You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you. — Sri Ram
Nin knew how much humans loved money, riches, and material things—though he never really could understand why. The more technologically advanced the human species got, the more isolated they seemed to become, at the same time. It was alarming, how humans could spend entire lifetimes engaged in all kinds of activities, without getting any closer to knowing who they really were, inside. — Jess C Scott
Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as in being able to remake ourselves. — Mahatma Gandhi
It’s daring to be curious about the unknown, to dream big dreams, to live outside prescribed boxes, to take risks, and above all, daring to investigate the way we live until we discover the deepest treasured purpose of why we are here. — Luci Swindoll
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. — Lao Tzu
If you want to fly on the sky, you need to leave the earth. If you want to move forward, you need to let go the past that drags you down. — Amit Ray
It is not how much you love someone, but who you are when you are with him. — Anne Tyler
The meaning of life is to find your gift, the purpose of life is to give it away. — Joy J. Golliver
Spending time looking for what is missing in your life is futile; if you fail to look within yourself. When we challenge everything we believe we are, we reveal that which we never knew about our own selves. — Nicolas G. Janovsky
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. — Carl Jung
If at first you don’t succeed, failure may be your style. — Quentin Crisp
