The Self Quotes

A man who has been the indisputable favorite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror.

Love in the form of longing and deprivation lowers the self regard.

All that a guru can tell you is: 'My dear Sir, you are quite mistaken about yourself. You are not the person you take yourself to be.'

Petty things become unimportant when people are impassioned about a purpose higher than self.

Commerce is a noble profession, and Jews should get over any self-hatred they might harbor from contemplating the capitalist spirit of diaspora Judaism.

Free will and consciousness is an illusion, and the self is a complex of memes.

Self-love is the first teacher of self-renunciation.

Self-judgment continues to arise - it's a strong habit - but the fact that I made a conscious commitment to recognize it has helped me stop feeding the story of being unworthy.

I never want to end up being a self-centered, vain human being.

Don't be curious of matters that don't concern you; never speak of them, and don't ask about them.

Today self-consciousness no longer means anything but reflection on the ego as embarrassment, as realization of impotence: knowing that one is nothing.

Self-denial is indispensable to a strong character, and the highest kind comes from a religious stock.

Not all of us are called to be hermits, but all of us need enough silence and solitude in our lives to enable the deeper voice of our own self to be heard at least occasionally.

The Bible makes it clear that self-righteousness is the premier enemy of the Gospel.

Just as surely as distress must follow self-deceit, healing must follow self-honesty.

The more one forgets one’s own self, the more human the person becomes.

Your higher self is always nudging you toward a resolution of the conflicts that you experience in your life, so that you will have room for serenity and harmony.

Confidence is the most important thing, more important than gold or currency.

Love's but the frailty of the mind, When 'tis not with ambition joined; A sickly flame, which if not fed expires; And feeding, wastes in self-consuming fires.

Just as much as we see in others we have in ourselves.

Poor and content, is rich and rich enough; But riches, fineless, is as poor as winter, To him that ever fears he shall be poor.

Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.

[I]n the end this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a Queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin.

You are the most influential person you will talk to all day.

In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.

What's right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity - intellect and resources - to do some thing about them.

What destroys us most effectively is not a malign fate but our own capacity for self-deception and for degrading our own best self.

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

If we are to know ourselves, philosophy needs to maintain an ongoing dialogue with the sciences of mind.

...friendship is something you do.

My self-confidence can be measured out in teaspoons mixed into my poetry, and it still always tastes funny in my mouth.

Success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know themselves - their strengths, their values, and how they best perform.

We don't realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme self who is eternally at peace.

If you want to change the fruits, you will first have to change the roots. If you want to change the visible, you must first change the invisible.

Letting ourselves be forgiven is one of the most difficult healings we will undertake. And one of the most fruitful. (79)

You don’t learn about yourself by being alone, you learn about yourself from other people.

The efficient man is the man who thinks for himself.

It is sometimes the man who opens the door who is the last to enter the room.

You are the handicap you must face. You are the one who must choose your place.

Compassion is even more powerful than courage. Sure, with courage you can conquer a world - but only with compassion can you heal and build it.

There is only one real misfortune: to forfeit one's own good opinion of oneself. Lose your complacency, once betray your own self-contempt and the world will unhesitatingly endorse it.

The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.

The library is seen as a force for self improvement and the pursuit of knowledge. I fear that in many cases this is no longer true, if it ever was.

Revenge is not a positive state of mind or energy to indulge your self in.

After all I've done for you' has alienated more children from their parents than any act of parent cruelty.

I like to reinvent myself — it’s part of my job.

I think....you still have no idea. The effect you can have.

Even if there were only two men left in the world and both of them saints they wouldn't be happy. One them would be bound to try and improve the other. That is the nature of things.

There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally.

The gift of willingness is the only thing that stands between the quiet desperation of a disingenuous life and the actualization of unexpressed potential.