Samuel Beckett Quotes

The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.

A matter that becomes clear ceases to concern us.--What was that god thinking who counseled, "Know thyself!" Did he perhaps mean,"Cease to concern yourself! Become objective!"--And Socrates?--And "scientific men"?

Humility is the doorway 2 truth & clarity of objectives... it's the doorway 2 learning.

Socrates told us, "the unexamined life is not worth living." I think he's calling for curiosity, more than knowledge. In every human society at all times and at all levels, the curious are at the leading edge.

If you want to know what you look like, look into a mirror. If you want to know how you think, you should write

Upon the whole, I am inclined to think that the far greater part, if not all, of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to our selves. That we have first raised a dust, and then complain, we cannot see.

I tell myself that I know you, and then when I think about it, I realize that I don't.

If one does not reflect, one thinks oneself master of everything; but when one does reflect, one realizes that one is master of nothing.

I don't write books because I have answers. I write books because I have questions. What we are is the questions that we ask, not the answers that we provide. It's all about the process of self-examination. I think that's what the best writing always contains.

Try to understand the ego. Analyze it, dissect it, watch it, observe it, from as many angles as possible. And don't be in a hurry to sacrifice it, otherwise the greatest egoist is born: the person who thinks he is humble, the person who thinks that he has no ego.

The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness. The remarkable thing is that the cessation of the inner dialogue marks also the end of our concern with the world around us. It is as if we noted the world and think about it only when we have to report it to ourselves.

We are not conscious of most things until we ask ourselves questions about them.

Before you ask more questions, think about whether you really want to know the answers.

Self-knowledge leads to wonder, and wonder to curiosity and investigation, so that nothing interests people more than people, even if only one's own person.

Since we think about ourselves so much of the time, it is comforting to assume ... that we really know the score.... [But] this is not an easy assignment. [As] Santayana wrote, 'Nothing requires a rarer intellectual heroism than willingness to see one's equation written out.'

Without the ability to think about yourself, to reflect on your life, there’s really no awareness, no consciousness. Consciousness doesn’t come automatically; it comes through being alive, awake, curious, and often furious.

One should be an enigma not just to others but to oneself too. I study myself. When I'm tired of that I light a cigar to pass the time, and think: God only knows what the good Lord really meant with me, or what He meant to make of me.

I think sometimes I get carried away, like I'm speaking to an imaginary audience rather than just trying to figure something out for myself. Ideally, I try to balance that - that I'm asking these questions of myself, how does this work, why does this happen, what's going on here.

This idea is more surely understood by interrogation; WHAT DO I KNOW? which I bear as my motto with the emblem of a pair of scales.

Our minds, bodies, feelings, relationships are all informed by our questions. What you ask is who you are. What you find depends on what you search for. And what shapes our lives are the questions we ask, refuse to ask, or never think of asking.

Self examination is the key to insight, which is the key to wisdom

The moment it begins to question itself, the mind becomes so clear that it starts working with itself rather than with the body's identification.

We easily forget our faults when no one knows them but ourselves.

What an odd, ruminating, noisy, self-interrupting conversation we conduct with ourselves from birth to death.

Many a time comes when we want to interpret our weakness and cowardice as forgiveness and renunciation.