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Reflection Quotes

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Reflection Quotes

“There is, however, no advantage in reflections on the past further than may be of service to the present. For the future we must provide by maintaining what the present gives us and redoubling our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the fruit of labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should have a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that what was won in want should be lost in plenty.”

Want Giving Should May Past Winning Lost Wealth Effort Virtue Habit Reflection Resources Advantage Should Have Fruit Plenty Labour Maintaining Hereditary

Book:The Peloponnesian War

Source: The Peloponnesian War

“The light of common sense is fundamentally the same light as that of science, that is to say, the natural light of the intellect. But in common sense this light does not return upon itself by critical reflection, and is not perfected by what we shall learn to know as a scientific habit.”

Knows Doe Light Natural Common Return Habit Reflection Critical Intellect Common Sense Not Perfect Natural Light Critical Reflection

Book:An EPZ Introduction to Philosophy

Source: An EPZ Introduction to Philosophy

“Our imagination so magnifies this present existence, by the power of continual reflection on it, and so attenuates eternity, by not thinking of it at all, that we reduce an eternity to nothingness, and expand a mere nothing to an eternity; and this habit is so inveterately rooted in us that all the force of reason cannot induce us to lay it aside.”

Thinking Reason Force Imagination Existence Habit Reflection Eternity Lays Mere Rooted Nothingness

Book:Thoughts on Religion and Other Subjects

Source: Thoughts on Religion and Other Subjects

“I think that if I get into the habit of writing a bit about what happens, or rather doesn't happen, I may lose a little of the sense of isolation and desolation which abides with me. My circumstances allowing of nothing but the ejaculation of one-syllabled reflections, a written monologue by that most interesting being, myself, may have its yet to be discovered consolations.”

“Thinking is the great enemy of perfection. The habit of profound reflection, I am compelled to say, is the most pernicious of all the habits formed by civilized man.”

Thinking Men Enemy Habit Reflection Perfection Profound Civilized Compelled Pernicious

Author:Constantine the Great

“Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart”

Men Heart Understanding Animal Grief Sadness Serious Habit Reflection Misery Grieving

Book:John Adams: Writings from the New Nation, 1784-1826

Source: John Adams: Writings from the New Nation, 1784-1826

“If one develops good habits and routines, it is possible to be a responsible educator most of the time; and to marshal the special energies and reflection for those times, when the correct course of action is not clear, or when one is weighing one wrong against another wrong.”

Ifs Action Courses Energy Clear Special Habit Reflection Responsible Educator Weighing Good Habits

Author:Howard Gardner

“The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.”

People World Religious Subjects Policy Habit Worship Reflection Concerned Philosopher Various Enlightened Mutual Senate Indulgence Emperor Superstitious Toleration Magistrates

Author:Edward Gibbon

“The words are clear as in the reflection of the world on the water. Therefore write the Word at once, everywhere, from now till your hand is paralyzed, for THERE will be your work for GOD, since you can not work for God in other ways, and would not, & don't know how, or bend that way, from habit, & from talent in the use & signification & arrangement of the Word.”

Knows World Way Writing Use Hands Water Know How Clear Talent Habit Reflection Arrangements Can Not Paralyzed

Author:Jack Kerouac

“Habit rules the unreflecting herd.”

Habit Reflection Herds Peer Pressure

Author:William Wordsworth

“He lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glances. He had an odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the third person and a verb in the past tense.”

Source: The Complete Works of James Joyce: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Poetry, Essays & Letters: Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Finnegan’s Wake, Dubliners, The Cat and the Devil, Exiles, Chamber Music, Pomes Penyeach, Stephen Hero, Giacomo Joyce, Critical Writings & more

“The loved object is simply one that has shared an experience at the same moment of time, narcissistically; and the desire to be near the beloved object is at first not due to the idea of possessing it, but simply to let the two experiences compare themselves, like reflections in different mirrors. All this may precede the first look, kiss, or touch; precede ambition, pride, or envy; precede the first declarations which mark the turning point—for from here love degenerates into habit, possession, and back to loneliness.”

Source: The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea

“It is too bad if you have to do everything upon reflection and can't do anything from early habit.”

Ifs Habit Reflection

Author:Georg C. Lichtenberg

“The individual (no matter how well-meaning he might be, no matter how much strength he might have, if only he would use it) does not have the passion to rip himself away from either the coils of Reflection or the seductive ambiguities of Reflection; nor do the surroundings and times have any events or passions, but rather provide a negative setting of a habit of reflection, which plays with some illusory project only to betray him in the end with a way out: it shows him that the most clever thing to do is nothing at all.”