I looked at myself in the mirror and didn't like what I saw.

Just imagine living in a world without mirrors. You'd dream about your face and imagine it as an outer reflection of what is inside you. And then, when you reached forty, someone put a mirror before you for the first time in your life. Imagine your fright! You'd see the face of a stranger. And you'd know quite clearly what you are unable to grasp: your face is not you.

...But if a mirror ever makes
you sad

you should know
that it does
not know
you.

Look in the mirror and one thing is sure: what we see is not who we are.

Apologies aren't something you want to get in the habit of practicing in the mirror

There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors.

"If one cannot get along without a mirror, even in shaving oneself, how can one reconstruct oneself or one's life, without seeing oneself in the "mirror" of literature?"

When you are measuring life, you are not living it.

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

There's one problem with all psychological knowledge - nobody can apply it to themselves. People can be incredibly astute about the shortcomings of their friends, spouses, children. But they have no insight into themselves at all. The same people who are coldly clear-eyed about the world around them have nothing but fantasies about themselves. Psychological knowledge doesn't work if you look in a mirror. This bizarre fact is, as far as I know, unexplained.

Even a mirror will not show you yourself, if you do not wish to see.

The inventor of the mirror did few of us any favours: we must have been happier before we knew what we looked like.

I don’t look in mirrors anymore. It’s cheaper than surgery.

It’s very difficult to feel contempt for others when you see yourself in the mirror.