We who are like senseless children
Shrink from suffering,
But love its causes.
We hurt ourselves;
Our pain is self-inflicted!
Why should others
Be the object of our anger?

~ Shantideva

You speak of doing good to the world. Is the world such a small thing? And who are you, pray, to do good to the world? First realise God, see Him by means of spiritual discipline. If He imparts power you can do good to others; otherwise not.

~ Sri Ramakrishna

The significance of that 'absolute commandment', know thyself — whether we look at it in itself or under the historical circumstances of its first utterance — is not to promote mere self-knowledge in respect of the particular capacities, character, propensities, and foibles of the single self. The knowledge it commands means that of man's genuine reality — of what is essentially and ultimately true and real — of spirit as the true and essential being.

~ Hegel

Myth is neither right nor wrong, logical nor contradictory. It has its birth in another sphere where consistency, truth, and reality are measured by other standards. This sphere is intuition and experience. . . . [which] does not mean that myth is ambiguous, equivocal, or deceptive. The incompatibility of contradictory meanings is characteristic of logic and reason, not of intuition and experience. The myth conceals many meanings, the interrelations of which may vary and appear difficult to understand. This is due to the fact that the myth stems from strata of the soul deeper than consciousness and therefore beyond the reach of our thought.

~ Ruth Nanda Anshen