Top 100 Introspective Quotes
#1. I love medieval cities; they do not clamor for attention; they possess their souls - their riches - in quiet; formal, courteous, they reveal themselves slowly, stone by stone, garden by garden; hidden treasures wait calmly to be loved and yield to introspective wandering.
Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
#2. The attempt at introspective analysis ... is in fact like seizing a spinning top to catch its motion, or trying to turn up the gas quickly enough to see the darkness.
William James
#3. It is great to be introspective, self analysis can be useful, but only if it results in action.
Joe Sacco
#4. And what does a person with such romantic temperament seek in the study of the classics?
If by romantic you mean solitary and introspective, I think romantics are frequently the best classicists.
Donna Tartt
#5. Anyone who is considered funny will tell you, sometimes without even your asking, that deep inside they are very serious, neurotic, introspective people.
Wendy Wasserstein
#7. Our ethics and systems of justice, our entire moral order, are founded on the notion of society as a collective of individual selves-- autonomous, introspective, accountable agents. If this self-reflective, moral agent is revealed to be illusory, what then?
Paul Broks
#8. I am thinking of the onion again ... Not self-righteous like the proletarian potato, nor a siren like the apple. No show-off like the banana. But a modest, self-effacing vegetable, questioning, introspective, peeling itself away, or merely radiating halos like ripples.
Erica Jong
#9. Periods of silent solitude spent in introspective reflecting are sacred and a source of great strength and comfort. We can learn from listening to the rhythms of nature and from appreciating the eternal hush of the cosmos.
Kilroy J. Oldster
#10. If there is one thing to do, it is to do introspective soul searching to find your passion.
Winston Damarillo
#11. I have to remind myself constantly to not be antisocial, because I stay to myself a lot. I'm a lot more introspective than my characters.
Katee Sackhoff
#12. Cold completely introspective logic places a philosopher on the road to the abstract. Out of this empty, artificial act of thinking there can result, of course, nothing which bears on the relation of man to himself, and to the universe.
Albert Schweitzer
#14. I was a very, I think, lonely kid, very introspective. I felt very much at odds with my environment and my culture ... Probably a genetic flaw. I can't really explain it.
Maxine Kumin
#15. I'm a Gemini and I have a lot of different moods. Sometimes I'm very serious and introspective and pensive, but other times I'm completely goofy and girlie. So, I like my songs to cover all my moods.
Jewel
#16. To exercise at or near capacity is the best way I know of reaching a true introspective state. If you do it right, it can open all kinds of inner doors.
Al Oerter
#17. I like performing because it's direct contact with live people. I write a good deal of the time but that's introspective creation rather than interaction.
Oliver
#18. Spoken language clearly differentiates Homo sapiens from all other creatures. None but humankind produces a complex spoken language, a medium for communication and a medium for introspective reflection.
Richard Leakey
#19. He could not change his nature, could not help being cautious, deliberate, introspective, not traits to be scorned by any means, but traits that seemed dull, bland - even to him - when compared with Davydd's hell-for-leather dazzle.
Sharon Kay Penman
#20. But generally speaking, I tend to be quiet and introspective.
Rowan Atkinson
#21. Once you're done being president, you tend to want to defend your record more than plumb your inner feelings. I find it hard to imagine Obama going home at night and writing sensitive, introspective journal entries about his meeting with John Boehner.
Gail Collins
#22. As education becomes inclusive, introspective, cosmic, promoting whole populations to power and privilege, it enthrones a vast, invisible, personal rule over the common mind.
Amos Bronson Alcott
#23. The study of thinking machines teaches us more about the brain than we can learn by introspective methods. Western man is externalizing himself in the form of gadgets.
William S. Burroughs
#24. Was he smart enough? Introspective enough? Was it just enough to love him, or should I attach myself to someone who seemed farther ahead of me, someone smarter and more ambitious than me, who'd be sure to carry me along into the version of adulthood I thought I should be striving for?
Caroline Knapp
#25. Why shouldn't I be introspective? We dont' make sense."
"Neither do Chocolate and Peanut Butter, but it somehow works." He says "Somehow the mixture of two things is genius.
Simone Elkeles
#26. I actually wasn't really the class clown growing up. The class clown was always the mean guy who walked up and was like, 'You're fat. You're gay. I'm outta here!' I was always more kind of awkward and introspective.
Mike Birbiglia
#27. Successful journals break the deadlock of introspective obsession
Alexandra Johnson
#28. My goats are not contemplative, accepting, or introspective. They are the Greek chorus of my farm, sometimes of my life. They watch me closely and remind me that I am foolish.
Jon Katz
#29. The trouble with getting introspective when you're pregnant is that you never know who you might run into.
Carrie Fisher
#30. He wasn't the best coder or the most introspective human being, and you must know that it takes the best coder and the most human human to produce the best droid in this age. (Douglas Parsley
Alan Chains
#31. Take a yoga class, study different forms of self-discovery. Some people are crazy and fanatical, avoid them. People who are balanced and calm and introspective, associating with them will raise your energy level.
Frederick Lenz
#32. In my circle of friends, I've always been loud and funny and talkative. But as soon as I step out of that circle, I get very quiet and introspective. I don't want the spotlight on me.
Rosie Perez
#33. There's nothing worse than an introspective drunk.
Tom Sharpe
#34. The Johnny Depp generation has this kind of brooding, weighty, introspective quality, very James Deanish. Which is nice, great for a lot of characters.
Todd Haynes
#35. I'm an introspective person. I'm not an extrovert.
John Thaw
#36. No INSECURITY makes us sociopathic; too much makes us paranoid; but a little keeps us humble and introspective-a good thing...
J.R. Wirth
#37. I'm not harmful, just introspective. You can probably think I'm weird, but it's not harmful weird.
Henry Rollins
#38. Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it.
Eudora Welty
#39. I'm very introspective, and I mostly don't talk to people. I get into a real quiet, meditative place.
Roseanne Barr
#40. Apparently I'm introspective ... levelheaded ... but at the same time, absolutely insane.
Ellie Goulding
#41. There's always the cliche of the choir shouting and clapping. OK, you have to do that, but there's also introspective parts, parts where you just follow someone that's preaching. There's lots of different emotions and moods that a service requires.
Wynton Marsalis
#42. I just turned 30 so I got really introspective as you do, questioning my life. And when I stopped and sort of looked back at the past decade, I realized I had done more work than I thought I had done.
Sheryl Lee
#43. Complexity can be a trap. You can have a ball developing a phrase, inverting it, playing it in different keys and times and all. But it's really more introspective than communicative. Like a crossword puzzle compared to a poem.
Paul Desmond
#44. title from the second album of the introspective beat group Joy Division, Closer
Graham Saunders
#45. E-readers are changing the way we read, and the author is now required to get out there and be a kind of showman, an unlikely role for introspective people used to working in their pajamas!
Caroline Leavitt
#46. It is not love that keeps us stuck in the past. Love fades over time. What introspective hearts seek is simply unanswered questions about why terrible things can happen to very good people. Closure never comes from reflection. It only comes from God's guidance and promptings.
Shannon L. Alder
#47. Oh, I had my gothy phase, but I was never a troublemaker or anything like that. I was a little bit introspective, a little bit morbid. I was small for my age, so I was bullied and that kind of stuff.
Ariel Pink
#48. He may gain consciousness and feel like talking. I could leave a nurse here but their damned professional cheeriness depresses introspective men. Talk to him if he feels like it, and if he wants a doctor call me on this.
Alasdair Gray
#49. Become slower in your journey through life. Practice yoga and meditation if you suffer from 'hurry sickness.' Become more introspective by visiting quiet places such as churches, museums, mountains and lakes. Give yourself permission to read at least one novel a month for pleasure.
Wayne Dyer
#50. Our minds are all different and I believe cultivating a keen introspective sensitivity is absolutely essential in discovering our potential.
Joshua Waitzkin
#51. At the very core of my relationship to learning is the idea that we should be as organic as possible. We need to cultivate a deeply refined introspective sense, and build our relationship to learning around our nuance of character.
Joshua Waitzkin
#52. The films that I do are deep, introspective, brooding roles that you're in this heavy headspace all the time.
Vin Diesel
#53. I just put out a hardcore double album. Next I'm gonna put out an introspective album.
Tupac Shakur
#54. There is ... a tendency to think of the spiritual life as primarily introspective, divorced from the concerns of everyday life ... Faith that does not translate into actions is no faith at all.
Dalai Lama
#55. I'm a lot more introspective than one would believe.
Tasha Smith
#56. The music had an ambitious, virtuoso structure, but at the same time it was beautifully introspective. It honestly and delicately expressed, in a full, tangible way, what it meant to be alive. A crucial aspect of the world that could only be expressed through the medium of music.
Haruki Murakami
#57. I think I've written 40 books, and none of them have been heavy on action. I'm an introspective person.
Lois Lowry
#58. Death
some form of termination
is the universal ending of all living things; but only man, by virtue of his verbally reportable introspective life, can conceptualize his own cessation.
Edwin S. Shneidman
#59. As long as any adult thinks that he, like the parents and teachers of old, can become introspective, invoking his own youth to understand the youth before him, he is lost.
Margaret Mead
#60. Reflecting on myself - it can be introspective, depending on if I'm standing in front of a mirror at that moment or not.
Jarod Kintz
#61. Man never reasons so much and becomes so introspective as when he suffers; since he is anxious to get at the cause of his sufferings, to learn who has produced them, and whether it is just or unjust that he should have to bear them.
Luigi Pirandello
#62. I'm a very analytical person, a somewhat introspective person; that's the nature of the work I do.
Joni Mitchell
#63. We really can't afford to live our lives walking in some sort of introspective darkness as if the darkness is the only thing that we can walk in.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
#65. If you get into introspective blues or something where you're stretching out a bit, large audiences don't respond to this, so you have to give them what they want, basically.
Van Morrison
#66. Filmmaking is incredible introspective. It forces you to sort of examine yourself in new ways.
Drew Goddard
#67. I don't like talking about myself. I don't like talking about these introspective things.
George Allen
#68. As a person ... I'm a little more doubtful, introspective and analytical.
Russell Brand
#69. An introspective man who doesn't keep a diary consigns himself to a special hell
Tim Lucas
#70. Usually, when I do a soundtrack, the music from the movie doesn't have anything to do with me personally. It's music to enhance to the film. My own stuff is more introspective and about what's on going in my head.
Stanley Clarke
#71. I've always been pretty serious and introspective.
Donny Most
#72. I am haunted by interrupted acts,
introspective as a leper, enchanted
by a repulsive clew,
a gross and fugitive movement of the limbs.
Is this the love that shook the lights to flame?
Muriel Rukeyser
#73. One of the main focuses of my training sessions is to help individuals find their unique voices in the learning process. We all have our strengths, our weaknesses, our styles of learning, our personalities. Developing introspective sensitivity to these issues is critical to long-term success.
Joshua Waitzkin
#75. The most introspective of souls are often those that have been hurt the most.
Shannon L. Alder
#76. By rights, satire is a lonely and introspective occupation, for nobody can describe a fool to the life without much patient self-inspection.
Frank Moore Colby
#77. the most dreamless and introspective time of day, a sort of midnight of the daytime
Amit Chaudhuri
#78. I have made plenty of mistakes. The key to life is to learn from them. I have been a little too introspective, but I think that stemmed from insecurity or shyness. I took a long time to grow up.
Richard Gere
#79. There are different kinds of humor, some is sarcastic, some introspective. Introspective fit my personality better.
Rita Rudner
#80. I am really a loner after all; I am really not a social person. Because of my job, people think I am out every night, but I really hate all that. I am somebody who likes to be alone and see some close friends. I am a shy and introspective person.
Tom Ford
#81. It's not about the big deal you struck that day, it's not about the new car, it's not about the obvious stuff. It's about that little introspective moment you had in the middle of all that. Those are moments between the moments, and that's where life is.
Charlie Sheen
#82. If the heuristic and analytic power of science can be joined with the introspective creativity of the humanities, human existence will rise to an infinitely more productive and interesting meaning.
Edward O. Wilson
#83. Most women are introspective: "Am I in love? Am I emotionally and creatively fulfilled?" Most men are outrospective: "Did my team win? How's my car?"
Rita Rudner
#84. The most introspective of hearts tends to be the most sentimental. We cling to the smallest moments from our past because we fear that emotion will never come our way again.
Shannon L. Alder
#85. Above, in discussing the perceptive notions of Jesus, remarkable concepts of Plato or the highly introspective lessons of Gautama and Lao Tzu, it took considerable discussion to explore the meaning and relate it to How Life Works. Islam presents no such deep pool of thought to pierce.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
#86. I think a lot of great male comic actors are introspective, quiet personalities, which I really admire. But they are really able to turn it up when the camera's on.
Peter Dinklage
#87. My zoology thesis was a functional analysis of the thyroid gland of the three-toed sloth. I chose the sloth because its demeanour - calm, quiet and introspective - did something to soothe my shattered self.
Yann Martel
#88. Many science fiction writers are literary autodidacts who focus on the genre primarily as a literature of ideas rather than as a pure art form or a tool for the introspective examination of the human condition. I'm not entirely at ease with that self-description.
Charles Stross
#90. I always have been introspective, since I was a little kid, since I could remember, I was sitting in a closet trying to write out the meaning of the universe. That's been my whole life.
Jim Carrey
#91. You just have to let yourself go and not be worried about what other people are going to say or the things that might come out ... Just jump right in full force and be as silly and stupid and adolescent and introspective as you want to be.
Amy Ray
#92. He looked up at Mathis to see how bored he was getting with these introspective refinements of what, to Mathis, was a simple question of duty. Mathis smiled back at him.
Ian Fleming
#93. They lyrical content has grown more introspective and less abstract. I don't know if that's good or bad ... Sometimes it feels a little raw to be putting so much of myself out there.
Mark Edwards
#94. I am to a fault an introspective person. But I am not a reflective person - except for a big mistake, and then I really think about it.
Ellen Barkin
#95. This is why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an airplane pilot, and why in generality, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant extroverts, and helicopter pilots are brooding introspective anticipators of trouble. They know if something bad has not happened it is about to.
Harry Reasoner
#96. I was always a relatively quiet and introspective kid.
Charles M. Blow
#97. As a first-order approximation, I would say that phenomenality is "availability for introspective attention": Consciousness is a property of all those mental contents to which you can in principle direct your attention.
Thomas Metzinger
#98. I don't spend that much time being introspective, believe it or not. All I know is that I grew up not questioning God because that's how you are. God was there like the birds and the wind.
Jane Goodall
#99. Newspapers are being read all around. The point is not, of course, to glean new information, but rather to coax the mind out of its sleep-induced introspective temper.
Alain De Botton
#100. I think it takes an introspective person to want to go into the theater and see the dark side of themselves.
Anne Heche
