Rafael Sabatini Quotes

It is, I fear, but a vain show of fulfilling the heathen precept, ''Know thyself,'' and too often leads to a self- estimate which will subsist in the absence of that fruit by which alone the quality of the tree is made evident.

Normally I don't watch myself, because I'm not very objective.

I've always been a very self-aware person.

To learn to know oneself, to judge oneself with truth and impartiality, must be the great objects of one's exertion; they are only attainable by constant and cool self-examination.

I think I'm pretty self-aware.

My knowledge of myself is direct, synthetic, from within outwards; my knowledge of other persons is indirect, analytical, from outside inwards. My knowledge of myself starts at the core; that of others at the crust.

I'm really good at judging and observing other people, but not myself.

My character - and for that matter my worst habits - could only be described by someone else. You can't open a box with the crowbar inside it.

Little mirrors were attached to the front of their cars, at which they glanced to see where they had been; then they stared ahead again. I had thought that only beetles had this delusion of Progress.

Some people think humility is thinking lowly of yourself. Some people think it's not thinking about yourself. But, to me, the best definition of humility is radical self-awareness from a distance, seeing themselves from a distance and saying, what's my problem?

And he who does not know himself does not know others, so it may be said with equal truth, that he who does not know others knows himself but very imperfectly.

I'd discovered you never know yourself until you're tested and that you don't even know you're being tested until afterwards, and that in fact there isn't anyone giving the test except yourself.

I have never for one instant seen clearly within myself. How then would you have me judge the deeds of others?

Since we think about ourselves so much of the time, it is comforting to assume ... that we really know the score.... [But] this is not an easy assignment. [As] Santayana wrote, 'Nothing requires a rarer intellectual heroism than willingness to see one's equation written out.'

I'm my own biggest critic. I'm the one who has to go home and look at myself in the mirror.

When you talk yourself, you think how witty, how original, how acute you are; but when another does so, you are very apt to think only - What a crib from Rochefoucauld!

Who teach the mind its proper face to scan, And hold the faithful mirror up to man.

You have to attempt to be objective about yourself.

Testing of self is a regular part of our own lives, so it seems natural to make it a part of the lives of my characters, as well, albeit on a much different level.

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.

I'm not good at watching myself.

No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.

I feel like I have a kind of mirror blindness where it's hard for me to characterize or analyze my own work. I suspect I'm not unique in this regard.

It's hard to talk about yourself.

Observe all men, thyself most.