Jack Kornfield Quotes

Unraveling external selves and coming home to our real identity is the true meaning of soul work.

Be what it is that you are seeking.

Most of us remain strangers to ourselves, hiding who we are, and ask other strangers, hiding who they are, to love us.

If you're open to it, New Orleans will teach you about yourself, but if you want to hide from who you really are, the city will help you do that, too.

Knowing yourself and expressing it is hip. I think knowing yourself is the real journey, for me anyway.

To know what that true self is without social pressure is to know your true nature.

It took a lot of time and practice for me to realise that there's no point trying to be something you're not.

Getting in touch with your true self must be your first priority.

The only journey is the one within.

The truth is that you shouldn't match your insides to other people's outsides. Life is an inside job, and we just have to do our best.

I don't think you can do something wrong with your identity if you're living in your authenticity.

Perhaps we've got so involved in the false selves we project on social media that we've forgotten that our real selves, our private selves, are different, are worth saving.

I'm trying to know who I am and be honest about it.

We must at times search our own souls and discover what we really are. Our real character, much as we would wish, cannot be hidden.

The road to enlightenment is paved with authenticity, not imitation.

How can I be sincere if I am constantly changing my mind to conform with the shadow of what I think others expect of me?

You can't build a future if you do not know who you are. You can't become who you are meant to be if you can't tell the truth about who you are, what you have, and everything about your life. The truth is the absolute essence to your success, while lies are the absolute essence to your failures.

It's so easy and comfortable to lie to yourself. Success is to become who you are. I think Hollywood thinks in a totally different way. But I think that as a human being, and not only an actress, that's really how you lead a successful life.

The state of self-realization, as we call it, is not attaining something new or reaching some goal which is far away, but simply being that which you always are and which you always have been.

I want to show my true self, not how I want to be seen by others.

Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself.

Awareness is something that is very important. And you say that it looks impossible to become what we really are, to be authentic, to be ourselves again. But I will tell you that it is much more difficult to try to be what we are not.

Maybe there is no peace in this world. I don't know ... But I know as long as we live we must stay true to ourselves.

One thing is certain: you can never become anything other than yourself, and unless you become yourself you cannot be happy. Happiness happens only when a rosebush grows roseflowers; when it flowers, when it has its own individuality. You may be a rosebush and trying to flower as lotus flower - that is creating insanity. Erase the mind. And the way to erase it is not by fight: the way to erase it is just to become aware.

I am never more myself than in my self-betrayals.