Looking in the mirror is a powerful thing. How often do you actually notice what you see, or do you rarely look yourself in the eye? When we look in the mirror, we might only notice all of our flaws. What if, instead, we saw all of our strengths? Here are 70 powerful look in the mirror quotes to inspire you to take responsibility for yourself.
Why is looking in the mirror so powerful?
The mirror is the ultimate tool to determine our self worth. When we look in the mirror, we have nowhere to hide. We are met with our reflection, and all of our thoughts and feelings about ourselves.
You might notice your physical appearance first. How do you judge or criticize it? Listen to the voice in your head and determine whether it is a compassionate or cruel voice. Instead of noticing your flaws, you might notice things you like about yourself. If you do, that’s great, and you should work on cultivating more of that.
When we look ourselves in the eye, we also get the opportunity to judge our character. Do we see a morally upstanding, trustworthy, and accomplished person looking back at us? Or are we barely able to make eye contact with ourselves because of shame or guilt?
If looking in the mirror fills you with dread, don’t worry. These look in the mirror quotes will help you learn to love and accept yourself, no matter what you have experienced.
Look in the mirror quotes
- “The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.” – St. Jerome
- “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” – Edith Wharton
- “Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you’ll start to see a big difference in your life.” Yoko Ono
- “Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.” – Ernest Holmes
- “Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations.” – Earl Nightingale
- “I’m a mirror. If you’re cool with me, I’m cool with you, and the exchange starts. What you see is what you reflect. If you don’t like what you see, then you’ve done something. If I’m standoffish, that’s because you are.” – Jay-Z
- “See, when you drive home today, you’ve got a big windshield on the front of your car. And you’ve got a little bitty rearview mirror. And the reason the windshield is so large and the rearview mirror is so small is because what’s happened in your past is not near as important as what’s in your future.” – Joel Osteen
- “You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.” – George Bernard Shaw
- “For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” – Steve Jobs
- “Authenticity is everything! You have to wake up every day and look in the mirror, and you want to be proud of the person who’s looking back at you. And you can only do that if you’re being honest with yourself and being a person of high character. You have an opportunity every single day to write that story of your life.” – Aaron Rodgers
Reflection quotes
- “We only see what we want to see; we only hear what we want to hear. Our belief system is just like a mirror that only shows us what we believe.” – Don Miguel Ruiz
- “A mirror reflects what you see, and a black mirror shows the dark side of it.” – Madeline Brewer
- “True love brings up everything – you’re allowing a mirror to be held up to you daily.” – Jennifer Aniston
- “You know, I looked at my face in the mirror this morning, and I like being old. My face has more content and when I train in the gym now, I am not training to be strong or handsome – just better than I was yesterday. These days the race is just against myself.” – Jean-Claude Van Damme
- “Stop saying these negative things about yourself. Look in the mirror and find something about yourself that’s positive and celebrate that!” – Tyra Banks
- “A beautiful woman should break her mirror early.” – Baltasar Gracian
- “Hold up a mirror and ask yourself what you are capable of doing, and what you really care about. Then take the initiative – don’t wait for someone else to ask you to act.” – Sylvia Earle
- “The hardest thing for – not only an artist but for anybody to do is look themselves in the mirror and acknowledge, you know, their own flaws and fears and imperfections and put them out there in the open for people to relate to it.” – Kendrick Lamar
- “We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!” – Maya Angelou
- “Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.” – Samuel Butler
Keep looking quotes
- “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” – Wayne Dyer
- “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” – Albert Einstein
- “Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.” – Helen Keller
- “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau
- “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” – John F. Kennedy
- “Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you’re living?” – Bob Marley
- “Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – Carl Jung
- “For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.” – Audrey Hepburn
- “Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.” – Stephen Hawking
- “It’s better to look ahead and prepare, than to look back and regret.” – Jackie Joyner-Kersee
More look in the mirror quotes
- “I look in the mirror and see a few scars, but I like myself.” – Steven Adler
- “Conscience is the mirror of our souls, which represents the errors of our lives in their full shape.” – George Bancroft
- “My life is like driving down a road. I occasionally glance in the rearview mirror, but I’m not focused on the past or looking back anymore.” – Scott Hall
- “I know, ultimately, I want to help effect change; otherwise, I would look at myself in the mirror every day and think, ‘What in the world am I doing with my life?’” – Yara Shahidi
- “I don’t care what people think about me. When I look in the mirror, I wanna like what I see.” – Kat Von D
- “I’m really just using the mirror to summon something I don’t even know until I see it.” – Cindy Sherman
- “The mirror is a powerful tool because it forces you to deal with yourself on a deeper level. Conceptually, paintings are like mirrors. They’re an expression from the artist: “This is how I view the world – I’m presenting it to you.” – Mickalene Thomas
- “Life is a mirror and you get back what you give out.” – Tess Daly
- “Confidence literally starts from yourself. You have to go look in the mirror at yourself. If you don’t like what you see, you’re going to give off that energy.” – Megan Thee Stallion
- “To this day, the first thing that I do every morning is look in the mirror. I’ll tell myself, “Look at your skin. Look at your teeth and your smile. You are beautiful.” – Khoudia Diop
Accountability quotes
- “Accountability breeds response-ability.” – Stephen Covey
- “Maybe you’re not perfect, but you’re willing to actually look at yourself and take some kind of accountability. That’s a change. It might not mean that you can turn everything around, but I think there’s something incredibly hopeful about that.” – Brie Larson
- “No one is the same, and we all have different life experiences. It’s not my place to judge them or for them to judge me. We should all be accountable for our own lives.” – Joanna Krupa
- “I’m going to be humble, I’m going to be accountable, do it with a smile on my face, make other people around me better.” – Jason Witten
- “I must be responsible and accountable for my actions.” – Jason Williams
- “I was always the type of person that whenever I started something I finished it. And, I was always held accountable for my actions.” – Victor Cruz
- “I believe life is a parenthesis between two nothings. I’m an atheist. I believe in a personal God, which is conscience, and that’s what we must be accountable to every day.” – Mario Benedetti
- “I try to work hard, be professional, be fun to work with, and be accountable.” – Molly Qerim
- “The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.” – John Stuart Mill
- “If I’m running on my own, no one’s holding me accountable, so I will stop and walk.” – Hannah Bronfman
The power of the mirror quotes
- “If you’re searching for that one person that will change your life, look in the mirror.” – Unknown
- “And if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself, get a better mirror.” – Shane L. Koyczan
- “I love mirrors. They let one pass through the surface of things.” – Claude Chabrol
- “Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.” – Jean Cocteau
- “And you say you are broken, but broken mirrors like you create the most beautiful patterns of light.” – Nikita Gill
- “Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.” – Ernest Holmes
- “To live in prison is to live without mirrors.” – Margaret Atwood
- “Nobody really knows what they look like. The mirror shows you only what you want to see.” – Terry Wogan
- “Whatever may be their use in civilised societies, mirrors are essential to all violent and heroic action.” – Virginia Woolf
- “As you live deeper in the heart, the mirror gets clearer and cleaner.” – Rumi
Perception quotes
- “My job has always been to hold a mirror up to nature.” – Tom Hanks
- “If art reflects life, it does so with special mirrors.” – Bertolt Brecht
- “Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter?” – Pablo Picasso
- “I know that mirrors give us a false sense of confidence. I continued. The reflection that we see every day has nothing to do with how others see us. The glass lies.” – Rasmenia Massoud
- “Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow.” – W.H. Auden
- “The world is a great mirror. It reflects back to you what you are.” – Thomas Dreier
- “There’s nothing more, nothing better in life to wake up in the morning, look at yourself in the mirror, and feel comfortable with yourself and who you are.” – Caitlyn Jenner
- “Mirrors are ice which do not melt: what melts are those who admire themselves in them.” – Paul Morand
- “Everything in your life, every experience, every relationship is a mirror of the mental pattern that is going on inside of you.” – Louise Hay
- “The best mirror is an old friend.” – George Herbert
Look in the mirror quotes: final thoughts
Looking in the mirror is a powerful tool for self reflection, accountability, and acceptance. Hopefully these quotes have helped you see the power of looking in the mirror and will inspire you to make positive changes in your life. As we learn to accept what we see in the mirror, we learn to accept all aspects of ourselves.