Bertolt Brecht Quotes

No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.

There's only one person who knows me - and that's me.

If I know better than you know what I am up to, it is only because I spend more time with myself than you do.

I think over time you learn to know a bit more about yourself - you develop a certain amount of self-insight and self-awareness, and you know what you can absorb, and what you cannot; what gets to you and what doesn't.

But what do I have? The things I'm told and the things I tell, that's all. And as far as I know, that never yet made anyone fly.

To know one’s own state is not a simple matter. One cannot look directly at one’s own face with one’s own eyes, for example. One has no choice but to look at one’s reflection in the mirror. Through experience, we come to believe that the image is correct, but that is all.

You can't wait for people to tell you; you have to know yourself.

If a man really knew himself he would utterly despise the ignorant notions others might form on a subject in which he had such matchless opportunities for observation.

Every one is least known to himself, and it is very difficult for a man to know himself.

Man is so constituted that he then only excels other things when he knows himself.

Inner Nature, when relied on, cannot be fooled. But many people do not look at it or listen to it, and consequently do not understand themselves very much. Having little understanding of themselves, they have little respect for themselves, and are therefore easily influenced by others.

Self-knowledge is essential not only to writing, but to doing almost anything really well. It allows you to work through from a deep place - from the deep, dark corners of your subconscious mind.

I'm increasingly realising our consciousness and subconsciousness are extremely different, and our subconsciousness motivates us, but so far, I don't know what drove or motivates me.

Not all those who know their minds know their hearts as well.

At the end of the day, you know yourself best.

I've always known why I do what I do. I didn't need to be psychoanalysed to find that out.

We are very far from always knowing our own wishes.

We're not the best about knowing what's the most interesting about ourselves.

I see myself as a professional feeler.

People seem to know more about me than I do.

Self knowledge begins with the neighbor, the mirror, and just the same with true self-love; that goes from the mirror to the matter.

The better you understand yourself the less cause you will find to love yourself.

Self knowledge is always bad news.

We are not strangers to ourselves, we only try to be.

The great chastisement of a knave is not to be known, but to know himself.