S. I. Hayakawa Quotes

What I use when I'm acting comes from what I learn about myself.

We never completely comprehend ourselves, but we can do far more than comprehend.

As a teacher I realize that what one learns in school doesn't serve for very much at all, that the only thing one can really learn is self-understanding, and this is something that can't be taught.

No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.

The delights of self-discovery are always available.

The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.

I think you just learn so much about yourself over the years.

Without understanding yourself, what is the use of trying to understand the world?

The feeling of self-discovery, for me, is perennial.

I just keep surprising myself, I guess.

I believe that self-discovery is an ongoing thing.

I'm still learning new things about myself every day.

To know ourselves, is agreed by all to be the most useful Learning; the first Lessons, therefore, given us ought to be on that Subject.

The outlines of the needed psychology of becoming can be discovered by looking within ourselves; for it is knowledge of our own uniqueness that supplies the first, and probably the best, hints for acquiring orderly knowledge of others.

One of the greatest moments in anybody's developing experience is when he no longer tries to hide from himself but determines to get acquainted with himself as he really is.

You don't find out who you are unless you work at it.

I say that virtue is really all about enjoying yourself, living fully; but of course it is far from obvious what living fully actually means.

Writing is a really good first step toward that goal of knowing yourself.

It's not an epitaph. I felt I could look back at my life and get a good story out of it. It's a picture of somebody trying to figure things out. I'm not trying to create some impression about myself. That doesn't interest me.

Personality is only ripe when a man has made the truth his own.

Life is the most versatile thing under the sun; and in the pursuit of life and character the author who works in a groove works in blinkers.

To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.

There is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves.

One of my problems is to find the self.

I got married before I found myself. People should find themselves before they get married.