Persius Quotes

In other men we faults can spy,/ And blame the mote that dims their eye;/ Each little speck and blemish find;/ To our own stronger errors blind.

I have never dissected my personal life. What sense would it make?

I just want to live each moment, but it's kind of hard to do that when you are asked to analyze yourself constantly. But it's also good in that you are forced to think about things that you don't ordinarily think about. I think it's strange.

None are so ready to find fault with others as those who do things worthy of blame themselves.

That inner narrative - the desire to understand the way I am - never really switches off.

Writing on 'Love' is so steeped in self-analysis. The writer's room can feel like therapy.

Every man has a bag hanging before him, in which he puts his neighbour's faults, and another behind him in which he stows his own.

Instead of clearing his own heart the zealot tries to clear the world.

From childhood I was compelled to concentrate attention upon myself. This caused me much suffering, but to my present view, it was a blessing in disguise for it has taught me to appreciate the inestimable value of introspection in the preservation of life, as well as a means of achievement.

The fiction writer has to engage in a continual examination of conscience. He has to be aware of the freak in himself.

That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one's own soul. It is more fascinating than history, as it is concerned simply with oneself. It is more delightful than philosophy, as its subject is concrete and not abstract, real and not vague. It is the only civilized form of autobiography.

It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God's face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.

By all means use sometimes to be alone. Salute thyself: see what thy soul doth wear. Dare to look in thy chest; for 'Tis thine own: And tumble up and down what thou findst there. Who cannot rest till he good fellows find, he breaks up house, turns out of doors his mind.

There's so much hate that we direct externally that we forget we have our own psychos. But that's the role of the satirist - you have to examine your own country and say, 'look!'

There is more to be pondered in the grain and texture of life than traditional fiction allows. The work of essayists is vital precisely because it permits and encourages self-knowledge in a way that is less indirect than fiction, more open and speculative.

I had to examine myself very thoroughly to find the right path personally.

In truth, to know oneself seems to be the hardest of all things. Not only our eye, which observes external objects, does not use the sense of sight upon itself, but even our mind, which contemplates intently another's sin, is slow in the recognition of its own defects.

We can all afford to do a little soul-searching about the choices we make and the way we live our lives, but sometimes searching one's soul doesn't provide the answers we seek.

I think a lot of Magnum was me.

Usually, autobiography is such an indulgence of the ego.

The more I talk about things, the more I understand myself.

Don't you think it's something strange that you rarely look at yourself in the mirror, except to do things like stand and ponder? I mean, in Shakespeare's day, it was thought that the mirror would reveal something, that it is trying to tell you something - not just to tidy your hair, but something more.

It may be that the deep necessity of art is the examination of self-deception.