166 Reflection Quotes and Sayings

Have you ever spent some time looking at yourself in the mirror and described what you see? Self-reflection is important to assess whether or not you’re life and your heart is in the right place. Are you doing what’s best for you and the people you love? Have you been a good role model for the people around you? These reflection quotes we compiled will help you think about what you can do better and what are the things or the people you are grateful for in this lifetime.

Reflection Quotes

1. Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. – Charles Dickens  

2. If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways. – Michel de Montaigne

3. Sometimes, you have to look back in order to understand the things that lie ahead. – Yvonne Woon

4. Each person you meet is an aspect of yourself, clamoring for love. – Eric Micha’el Leventhal

5. Living in a way that reflects one’s values is not just about what you do, it is also about how you do things. – Deborah Day

6. Learning without reflection is a waste. Reflection without learning is dangerous. – Confucius

7. There is no future without a past because what is to be cannot be imagined except as a form of repetition. – Siri Hustvedt

8. Sometimes it’s hard to look at a flower when your dying inside. – Anthony Liccione

9. You are a mirror of yourself in others. Whatever you want, give. Be the best reflection of yourself. – Karen A. Baquiran

10. Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people. – Albert Einstein

11. Time and reflection change the sight little by little ’til we come to understand. – Paul Cezanne

12. Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. – Leo Tolstoy

13. Your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. – T. Harv Eker

14. People of the world don’t look at themselves, and so they blame one another. – Rumi

15. Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults. – Benjamin Franklin

16. It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done. – Samuel Johnson

17. Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

18. One can not reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others. – Lao Tzu

19. Everyone and everything that shows up in our life is a reflection of something that is happening inside of us. – Alan Cohen

20. If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it. – Rev. Jesse Jackson

21. If you don’t know what you are doing wrong, you can never know what you are doing right. – Chen Xinhua

22. Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. – Mark Twain

23. Sometimes you have to take a half step back to take two forward. – Vince McMahon

24. Who apart from ourselves, can see any difference between our victories and our defeats. – Christopher Fry

25. If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values that all reality hinges on moral foundations, and that all reality has spiritual control. – Martin Luther King Jr.

26. Study the past if you would define the future. – Confucius

27. All that we are is the result of what we have thought. – Buddha

28. We always see our worst selves. Our most vulnerable selves. We need someone else to get close enough to tell us we’re wrong. Someone we trust. – David Levithan

29. All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking. – Friedrich Nietzsche

30. Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. – Charles Dickens

31. Some nights are made for torture, or reflection, or the savoring of loneliness. – Poppy Z.Brite

Reflection Quotes

32. When you love someone and had to let them go, there will always be that small part of yourself that whispers. What was it that you wanted and why didn’t you fight for it?. – Shannon L. Alder

33. Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be. – Charles Bukowski

34. Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you’re just a reflection of him. – Bill Watterson

35. One of the saddest things in life is the things one remembers. – Agatha Christie

36. If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways. – Michel de Montaigne

37. The writer’s curse is that even in solitude, no matter its duration, he never grows lonely or bored. – Criss Jami

38. Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again. – Gautama Buddha

39. Sometimes, you have to look back in order to understand the things that lie ahead. – Yvonne Woon

40. Sorry, always sorry. What in the world can you buy with an apology?. – Marie Lu

41. Beauty is not who you are on the outside, it is the wisdom and time you gave away to save another struggling soul like you. –  Shannon L. Alder

42. The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection. – Thomas Paine

43. As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart. – Proverb

44. Self-reflection is a humbling process. It’s essential to find out why you think, say, and do certain things then better yourself. – Sonya Teclai

45. What we focus on the outside is a reflection of what we feel inside.

46. Everything in your life is a reflection of a choice you have made. If you want a different result, make a different choice.

47. Since everything is a reflection of our minds, everything can be changed by our minds. – Buddha

48. People who have had little self-reflection live life in a huge reality blind spot. – Bryant McGill

49. You attract what you are, not what you want. So if you want it then reflect it. – Tony Gaskins

50. To achieve the happiness I advocate four major principles. The principles of love, wisdom, self-reflection, and progress. – Ryuho Okawa

51. Reflection is one of the most underused yet powerful tools for success. – Richard Carlson

52. Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful. – Margaret J. Wheatley

Reflection Quotes

53. Your life is a reflection of your thoughts. If you change your thinking, you change your life. – Brian Tracy

54. Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it. – Ernest Holmes

55. I am a reflection of my own soul.

56. Be a reflection of what you’d like to receive. If you want love, give love. If you want the truth, be truthful. What you give out will always return. – Kristen Butler

57. Reflective thinking turns the experience into insight. – John C. Maxwell

58. It seems the great advantage of people who annoy us is motivation to engage in reflection. – Auliq Ice

59. Everyone and everything that shows up in our life is a reflection of something that is happening inside of us. – Alan Cohen

60. Self-reflection is the school of wisdom. – Baltasar Gracian

61. The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind. – Wayne Dyer

62. It’s a beautiful thing for mind, body, and spirit to take some time daily for reflection.

63. People are too quick to pass judgment and too slow to self-reflect.

64. Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect. – Mark Twain

65. Living in a way that reflects one’s values is not just about what you do, it is also about how you do things. –  Deborah Day

66. Time spent in self-reflection is never wasted – it is an intimate date with yourself. – Dr. Paul TP Wong

67. By three methods we may learn wisdom. First, by reflection, which is noblest. Second, by imitation, which is easiest and third by experience which is bitterest. – Confucius

68. Self-reflection entails asking yourself questions about your values, assessing your strengths and failures, thinking about your perceptions and interactions with others, and imagining where you want to take your life in the future. – Robert L. Rosen

69. The beauty you see in me is a reflection of you. – Rumi

Reflection Quotes

70. The way we reflect the world around us is the direct reflection of the world within us.

71. Your soul needs time for solitude and self-reflection. In order to love, lead, heal, and create, you must nourish yourself first. – Louise Hay

72. Self-reflection is necessary to dig beneath our own layers and visit the inner crevices of our heart and mind to develop an understanding of life.

73. In a mirror is where we find a reflection of our appearances, but in a heart is where we find a reflection of our soul.

74. Life is only a reflection of what we allow ourselves to see and be. – Trudy Symeonakis Vesotsky

75. The journey into self-love and self-acceptance must begin with self-examination until you take the journey of self-reflection, it is almost impossible to grow or learn in life. – Iyanla Vanzant

76. If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. – Marcus Garvey

77. If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. – Marcus Garvey

78. Women need real moments of solitude and self-reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away. – Barbara De Angelis

79. There is one art of which people should be masters  the art of reflection. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

80. Friendship with one’s self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world. – Eleanor Roosevelt

81. The people accusing me of being productive don’t know how hard it is for me to just bend my elbow sometimes. – Lena Dunham

82. Self-reflection entails asking yourself questions about your values, assessing your strengths and failures, thinking about your perceptions and interactions with others, and imagining where you want to take your life in the future.- Robert L. Rosen

83. Emotions are there to enjoy life, but they are not used in self-reflection because they inhibit a proper reflection. They gunk us up. –  Frederick Lenz

84. Difficulty creates the opportunity for self-reflection and compassion. – Suzan-Lori Parks

85. Self-reflection is the gateway to freedom. It also brings greater appreciation and enjoyment. We begin to enjoy spending time with our own mind, and we enjoy reflecting on our experience of the teachings. Like the sun emerging from behind the clouds, the teachings of the dharma become clear. – Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

86. A worldview is probably an expression of self. – Michael Leunig

87. Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know myself, to know it completely.  – Kahlil Gibran

88. Two things fill the heart with renewed and increasing awe and reverence the more often and the more steadily that they are meditated on the starry skies above me and the moral law inside me. – Immanuel Kant

89. The unexamined life is not worth living. – Socrates

90. Nature is the greatest teacher and I learn from her best when others are asleep. – George Washington Carver

91. Before anything else, preparation is the key to success. – Alexander Graham Bell

92. He that knows himself, knows others. – Charles Caleb Colton

93. Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.

Reflection Quotes

94. The outward freedom that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion to the inward freedom to which we may have grown at a given moment. And if this is a correct view of freedom, our chief energy must be concentrated on achieving reform from within. – Gandhi

95. Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. – William Faulkner

96. It’s not the plan that is important, it’s the planning. – Graeme Edwards

97. Like water which can clearly mirror the sky and the trees only so long as its surface is undisturbed, the mind can only reflect the true image of the Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed. – Indra Devi

98. The world is your mirror and your mind is a magnet. What you perceive in this world is largely a reflection of your own attitudes and beliefs. Life will give you what you attract with your thoughts think, act and talk negatively and your world will be negative. Think and act and talk with enthusiasm and you will attract positive results. – Michael LeBoeuf

99. The beauty you see in me is a reflection of you. – Vanna Bonta

100. Everything that happens to us is a reflection of who we are. – Deepak Chopra

101. Without reflection, we go blindly on our way. – Margaret J. Wheatley

102. The world you see outside of you will always be a reflection of what you have inside of you. – Cory Booker

103. Reflect upon your present blessings. – Charles Dickens

104. The mirror is a worthless invention. The only way to truly see yourself is in the reflection of someone else’s eyes. – Voltaire

105. Reflect on what’s best. Move on on what’s not.

106. The love you feel in life is a reflection of the love you feel in yourself. – Deepak Chopra

107. Everyone and everything that shows up in our life is a reflection of something that is happening inside of us. – Alan Cohen

108. There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. – Edith Wharton

109. It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly. – Claude Monet

110. A photograph must come from imagination and not be a reflection of what is. – Thierry Mugler

111. Study without reflection is a waste of time reflection without study is dangerous. – Confucius

112. Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you’re just a reflection of him. – Bill Watterson

113. Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. – Leo Tolstoy

114. Self-reflection is the school of wisdom. – Baltasar Gracian

115. O, happy the soul that saw its own faults. – Rumi

116. The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of the state of your mind. – Wayne Dyer

117. The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection. – Thomas Paine

118. Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful. – Margaret J. Wheatley

119. True self is non-self, the awareness that the self is made only of non-self-elements. – Nhat Nanh

120. Self-reflection is an important stage to diagnose, develop and strengthen your creativity. – Pearl Zhu

121. The ultimate mystery is one’s own self. – Sammy Davis

122. To realize the Self is to be still. – Ramana Maharshi

123. The self is only that which it is in the process of becoming. – Kirkegaard

124. Like water which can clearly mirror the sky and the trees only so long as its surface is undisturbed, the mind can only reflect the true image of the Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed. – Indra Devi

125. We cannot see our reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see. – Zen

Reflection Quotes

126. Reflection is the lamp of the heart. If it departs, the heart will have no light. – Abdullah ibn Alawi al-Haddad

127. Reflection on the infinite seems to call, almost by definition, for infinite reflection. – Daniel Taylor

128. Reflection is one of the most underused yet powerful tools for success. – Richard Carlson

129. Reflection can transform something familiar. – Diane L. Dunton

130. We have so committed ourselves in different ways that we have hardly any time for self-reflection, to observe, to study. – Jiddu Krishnamurti

131. Your greatest self has been waiting your whole life; don’t make it wait any longer. – Dr. Steve Maraboli

132. We do not learn from experience we learn from reflecting on experience. – John Dewey

133. No matter where you are in life right now, no matter who you are, no matter how old you are it is never late to be who you are meant to be. – Esther and Jerry Hicks

134. If you are not evolving, you are dying. – Marcus Lemonis

135. Unless you learn to face your own shadows, you will continue to see them in others, because the world outside you is only a reflection of the world inside you.

136. People who have had little self-reflection live life in a huge reality blind-spot. – Bryant McGill

137. You’re always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company. – Diane von Furstenberg

138. I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death. – Leonardo da Vinci

139. Reflection is a necessity. If it wasn’t, you won’t be who you are today.

140. I thank God for my failures. Maybe not at the time but after some reflection. I never feel like a failure just because something I tried has failed. – Dolly Parton

141. The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. – William Makepeace Thackeray

142. Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him. – John Locke

143. It took a lot of years of me on my own, coaching myself, to look in the mirror and love the reflection. – Alyssa Edwards

144. I learned a few years ago that balance is the key to a happy and successful life, and a huge part of achieving that balance is to instill rituals into your everyday life a nutritious balanced diet, daily exercise, time for yourself through meditation, reading, journaling, yoga, daily reflection, and setting goals.  – Gretchen Bleiler

145. We all strive for balance, often moving to extremes to find ourselves somewhere in the middle where we can sustainably exist in optimal inspiration. Working toward balance takes a lot of ingredients. We need courage, reflection, attention, action, and a push-and-pull relationship between effort and relaxation. – Tara Stiles

146. We experience happiness as a series of pleasing moments. They come and go like clouds, unpredictable, fleeting, and without responsibility to our desires. Through honest self-work, reflection, and meditation, we begin to string more of these moments together, creating a web-like design of happiness that drapes around our lives. – Tara Stiles

Reflection Quotes

147. Change comes from reflection. – Genesis P-Orridge

148. Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost. – John Quincy Adams

149. It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

150. You know, it’s funny how songs continue to grow and evolve and become a new and deeper reflection of your life. – Gloria Estefan

151. But the first differentiation of its reflection in the manifested World is purely Spiritual, and the Beings generated in it are not endowed with a consciousness that has any relation to the one we conceive of. – Helena Blavatsky

152. You don’t wake up one morning and say, ‘Today is going to be a comedy day.’ And the next day, ‘Today’s going to be a drama day.’ Things happen in life that are fun and light, and things happen that are heavier. You just have to move your way through life, and I think ‘BoJack’ is a good reflection of that. – Will Arnett

153. Philosophical reflection could not leave the relation of mind and spirit in the obscurity which had satisfied the needs of the naive consciousness. – Wilhelm Wundt

154. When we were shooting ‘The Book Thief,’ I was keeping all these journals. And I remember talking to my mom, really trying to verbalize all the experiences I was having. And I remember my mom saying, ‘Ben, reflection is a retroactive process. When you’re going through it, that’s the time to just let it wash over you. – Ben Schnetzer

155. There is an idea of, you know, informing people about some emerging things. And part of that is just a reflection of my own interest, following different areas and saying, you know, look what they’re doing now. – Michael Crichton

156. I think there’s a terrible price to be paid when your exterior life is not an honest reflection of your interior life. – Gene Robinson

157. A moment’s reflection shows that Liberalism is entirely negative. It is not a formative force, but always and only a disintegrating force. – Francis Parker Yockey

158. I am a reflection of my mother. – Kartik Aaryan

159. We face a conflict between civilisation and culture, which used to be on the same side. Civilisation means rational reflection, material well being, individual autonomy and ironic self-doubt; culture means a form of life that is customary, collective, passionate, spontaneous, unreflective and irrational. – Terry Eagleton

160. Perhaps many of the perplexing problems of the new music could be put into a new light if we were to reintroduce the ancient idea of music being a reflection of nature. – George Crumb

161. The premise of anything you do whether it’s writing a song or any business is ultimately that it hinges heavily on your belief in the thing that you’re doing and promoting and selling. It’s a reflection of who you are in a very deep way. – Isaac Hanson

162. I think the way you dress is a direct reflection out of what you will get out of your day; you make the effort, people will notice. You’ll feel better, and those around you will feel better. – Nick Wooster

163. As we continue to become a society of tweets, shorter and shorter messages, there’s great value in the contemplation and reflection that comes from reading a long body of work. – Elizabeth Berg

164. We too, through lack of knowledge and of sufficiently mature reflection, mistook the visible outward appearance of the phenomenon for the phenomenon itself. – Leon Jouhaux

165. You can’t take people’s opinions personally. Usually what people say about it is a reflection of them own issues. – Terrence J

166. Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something. – Eric Hoffer

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