Ego quotes
1.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside ego — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Learn to get in touch with the innermost essence of your being. This true essence is beyond the ego. It is fearless; it is free; it is immune to criticism; it does not fear any challenge. It is beneath no one, superior to no one, and full of magic, mystery, and enchantment."
"The ego relies on the familiar. It is reluctant to experience the unknown, which is they very essence of life."
"The problem is that we have allowed our egos, the part of us which believes that we are separate from God and separate from each other, to dominate our lives."
"The more you prune a plant, the more it grows. So too the more you seek to annihilate the ego, the more it will increase. You should seek the root of the ego and destroy it."
"One of the ego's favorite paths of resistance is to fill you with doubt."
"Behind everyone's learned behaviors and odd eccentricities lurks a soul, ready to make contact if only coaxed out through a crack in the ego."
"Pathology has made us acquainted with a great number of states in which the boundary lines between the ego and the external world become uncertain or in which they are actually drawn incorrectly. There are cases in which parts of a person's own body, even portions of his own mental life - his perceptions, thoughts and feelings -, appear alien to him and as not belonging to his ego; there are other cases in which he ascribes to the external world things that clearly originate in his own ego and that ought to be acknowledged by it."
"It is easy to see that the ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world."
"Towards the outside, at any rate, the ego seems to maintain clear and sharp lines of demarcation. There is only one state -- admittedly an unusual state, but not one that can be stigmatized as pathological -- in which it does not do this. At the height of being in love the boundary between ego and object threatens to melt away. Against all the evidence of his senses, a man who is in love declares that "I" and "you" are one, and is prepared to behave as if it were a fact."
"Ego is a social fiction for which one person at a time gets all the blame."
"In everything we do, the serpent ego is rising up."
"I long to escape the prison of my ego and lose myself in You."
"Apology is only egotism wrong side out."
"There's only one critic whose opinion I really value, in the final analysis: Johnny Carson. I have never needed any entourage standing around bolstering my ego. I'm secure. I know exactly who and what I am. I don't need to be told. I make no apologies for being the way I am."
"How to get rid of ego as dictator and turn it into messenger and servant and scout, to be in your service, is the trick."
"I measure what's going on, and I adapt to it. I try to get my ego out of the way. The market is smarter than I am so I bend."
"Suffering cracks open the shell of ego, and then comes a point when it has served its purpose. Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary."
"The ego says, I shouldn't have to suffer, and that thought makes you suffer so much more."
"Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego."
"Intake is everything. And that is, that's where you start to realize your ego has no business in our business. Once you think you know everything, it's only a matter of time. So I will forever remain a student."
