Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes

Rather than being taught to ask ourselves who we are, we are schooled to ask others. We are, in effect, trained to listen to others’ versions of ourselves.

Am I too fast, too facile? I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am.

No matter where you go, you always see yourself in the rearview mirror.

I'd take a look at my own self in the mirror and wonder how it was possible that anybody could manage such an enormous thing as being what he was.

Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret.

If you ask me to play myself, I will not know what to do. I do not know who or what I am.

People seem to know more about me than I do.

To every man in the world there is one person of whom he knows little: whom he would never recognize if he met him walking down the street, whose motives are a mystery to him. That is himself.

Who Am I? Or (Perhaps More Accurately) Who Else Could Be Me?

I think this is what college is all about: self-examination and dealing with those questions of "Who am I?"

when asked, most folks will gladly tell us about ourselves, who we are, what we're feeling, and where we should be heading. And if we don't honor ourselves by listening to our lives, we'll believe them.

I can't see my reflection in the waters, I can't speak the sounds that show no pain. I can't hear the echo of my footsteps, or can't remember the sound of my own name.

Do you ever wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and think, something's not accurate?

We exist for ourselves, perhaps, and at times we even have a glimmer of who we are, but in the end we can never be sure, and as our lives go on, we become more and more opaque to ourselves, more and more aware of our own incoherence. No one can cross the boundary into another – for the simple reason that no one can gain access to himself.

She avoids mirrors, and lifts a powerful telescope to find herself.

Should you really open your eyes and see, you would behold your image in all images. And should you open your ears and listen, you would hear your own voice in all voices.

Previously, even in Egypt, men had not learned to see straight. They fumbled in the dark, and didn't quite know where they were, or what they were. Like men in a dark room, they only felt their existence surging in the darkness of other creatures. We, however, have learned to see ourselves for what we are, as the sun sees us. The Kodak bears witness.

I've been living with myself all of my life, so I know all of me. So when I watch me, all I see is me. It's boring.

In a way, you kind of get caught up in whatever image of yourself you think is out there.

Much of the time, we're transfixed by all of the ways we can reflect ourselves into the world. And we can barely find the time to reflect deeply back in on our own selves.

For myself, I do not now know in any concrete human terms wherein my individuality consists. In my present human form of consciousness I simply cannot tell.

I am really puzzled to understand myself.

The only subject I know anything about is myself and I don't know that too clearly.

When I read profiles of myself, I sometimes think: 'I have spent my whole life struggling to understand my motivations and impulses, and I've never quite sorted them out.'

I feel like a mirror reflecting back everyone's perception of me.