Realization Quotes

“It's disconcerting to realize how little you have to say to someone who once occupied such a prominent place in your bed.”
― Sue Grafton, J is for Judgment

“Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realizes himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“In much of the rest of the world, rich people live in gated communities and drink bottled water. That's increasingly the case in Los Angeles where I come from. So that wealthy people in much of the world are insulated from the consequences of their actions."

[Why Societies Collapse, ABC Local, July 17, 2003]”
― Jared Diamond

“I have seen myself backward.”
― Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly

“Freedom is realizing you have a choice.”
― T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence

“Was that what was so painful: that nobody had ever come so close to me- nobody had ever seen me, and come right up to me, and kept going, and looked into my eyes so seriously, with so little fear?”
― Elif Batuman, Either/Or

“How could I have ever thought she was what was wrong in my life? She was the only thing that made any sense, and when she was broken and hurting, so was I.”
― ella frank, Veiled Innocence

“The flesh would shrink and go, the blood would dry, but no one believes in his mind of minds or heart of hearts that the pictures do stop.”
― Saul Bellow

“He sat watching the people go by, wondering how a thing of this sort could have come about, I must have let myself get mixed up in something horrible, he thought ... Probably she's the one who did it; I have no control of myself or anything that's happened. So now I'm waking up. I'm awake, he thought ... I've been destroyed and now that I'm awake all I can do is realize it ... The shock of getting up there and telling that account made me see. Mixture of lies and bits of truth. Woven together. Unable to see where each starts.”
― Philip K. Dick

“She knew there were only small joys in life--the big ones were too complicated to be joys when you got all through--and once you realized that, it took a lot of the pressure off.”
― Lorrie Moore, Like Life

“We both have a lot of growing-up to do... A lot of the world to see & figure out on our own." -- Leo”
― Emily Giffin, Love The One You're With

“All matters being spiritual; man or woman can only find peace when peace is realized from within.”
― T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence

“They're the ones inside a soap bubble. Not me.”
― Antonia Michaelis, The Storyteller

“And the view was suddenly clear to me. The world opened out to its grim beyonds and I realized that, at forty, one must learn the rigors of acceptance. Capitalize it: Acceptance. I needed to accept what was put before me--be it a watery grave in Ireland's only natural fjord, or a return to the city and its grayer intensities, or a wordless exile in some steaming Cambodian swamp hole, or poems or no poems, or children or not, lovers or not, illness or otherwise, success or its absence. I would accept all that was put in my way, from here on through until I breathed my last.”
― Kevin Barry

“Oh my God ... YOU are real.
Oh my God ... You ARE real.
OH MY GOD ... You are REAL!
Oh my God ... You're really real!”
― Pattie Mallette, Nowhere But Up: The Story of Justin Bieber's Mom

“There is nothing like ‘within’ or ‘without.’ Both mean either the same thing or nothing.”
― Ramana Maharshi

“Life is a bitch; you get used though, or you kill yourself. Either way, you're winning.”
― Ahmed Mostafa

“Global betterment is a mental process, not one that requires huge sums of money or a high level of authority. Change has to be psychological.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“she drew me. But not who I see in the mirror. Nia saw the Oscar i keep hidden. And she put him on paper.
Nobody sees the real me.”
― Pam Bachorz, Candor

“When you walk alone in nature and you are angry, you realize that you brought the bullshit with you.”
― Freequill

“In suicidal people, the fear of death is replaced by realizing death is freedom.”
― Steven Magee

“And I didn't tell mom what happened. She'd already warned me that bad things could hide in the most unlikely places.”
― Lorraine Zago Rosenthal, Other Words for Love

“So what did it matter where she came from? Who-or what-her parents were? Everyone's family was messed up in some way including my own. And she was still the same Ariane.”
― Stacey Kade, The Rules

“My spiritual high naturally dissipated. At some point you've got to come out of the clouds and live real life. Again, it's just like falling in love. The feeling of euphoria is only temporary.”
― Pattie Mallette, Nowhere But Up: The Story of Justin Bieber's Mom

“Maybe what River had meant was that time itself was like a river, moving steadily forward, and you got to be in a new river every day, every hour. All my life I'd felt like a lake. A lake where everyhting was contained, forever. All my experiences, all the different people I'd been, everything I'd had, everything I'd lost...I carried them around with me, all the time”
― Cate Tiernan, Immortal Beloved

“the pleasures of the damned
are limited to brief moments
of happiness:
like eyes in the look of a dog,
like a square of wax,
like a fire taking city hall,
the county,
the continent,
like fire taking the hair
of maidens and monsters;
and hawks buzzing in peach trees,
the sea running between their claws,
Time
drunk and damp,
everything burning,
everything wet,
everything fine.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Four men killed that day. The phrase sat up in Willie's head like a rat and made a nest for itself there”
― Sebastian Barry, On Canaan's Side

“All desires originate to seek betterment unconsciously.
In awareness, the same desires dissolve into realization.”
― Gian Kumar

“We preserve ourselves as if that were important, and always at the expense of others. We hoard ourselves. We succeed if they fail, we are wise if they are foolish, and we go onward, clutching, until there is no one—we are left with no companion save God. In whom we do not believe. Who we know does not exist.”
― James Salter, Light Years

“The Buddhist teachings move along a graduated path: first the stages of calm abiding and then the stages of deep insight. Through such gradual practices, lamas of the past gave birth to realization in their mental continuum and discovered primordial wisdom. All the qualities that the great masters found, we can attain as well. It all depends on our own efforts, our diligence, our deeper knowing, and our correct motivation. – 17th Karmapa”
― Ogyen Trinley Dorje, Music in the Sky: The Life, Art, and Teachings of the 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje