Ego quotes
1.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside ego — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure."
"Without struggle, there is no progress. There has to be struggle in your life. You have to grow in experience to control your ego. Cause, you know, an ego can be crushed, it can be killed, it can be smashed, but it comes back. It never dies. That's the thing about the ego: it never dies."
"The true measure of a man is the degree to which he has managed to subjugate his ego."
"Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual who is a member of a neurotic culture against the facts of the matter. And culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable."
"Egotism is the source and summary of all faults and miseries."
"As if to build a fence around the fatal emptiness inside her, she had to create a sunny person that she became. But if you peeled away the ornamental egos that she had built, there was only an abbys of nothingness and the intense thirst that came with it. Though she tried to forget it, the nothingness would visit her periodically - on a lonely rainy afternoon, or at dawn when she woke up from a nightmare. What she needed at such times was to be held by someone, anyone."
"I don't mean I'd mind being rich and famous. That's very much on my schedule, and someday I'll try to get around to it; but if it happens, I'd like to have my ego tagging along. I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany's."
"One of the most interesting and harmful delusions to which men and nations can be subjected is that of imagining themselves special instruments of the Divine Will."
"Knowledge and ego are directly related. the less knowledge, the greater the ego"
"You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire; you build egos the size of cathedrals; fiber-optically connect the world to every eager impulse; grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green, gold-plated fantasies, until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own God... and where can you go from there?"
"Always keep your ego in check and not be afraid to listen. Listening is a great art form."
"Seriousness is a disease of the ego"
"The ego says, ‘I shouldn’t have to suffer,’ and that thought makes you suffer so much more. It is a distortion of the truth, which is always paradoxical. The truth is that you need to say yes to suffering before you can transcend it."
"The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego."
"Non-reaction to the ego in others is one of the most effective ways not only of going beyond ego in yourself but also of dissolving the collective human ego."
"My ego only needs a good rhythm section"
"If there is anything besides the Self there is reason to fear? Who sees the second? First, the ego arises and sees objects as external. If the ego does not rise, the Self alone exists and there is no second."
"The human mind has a primitive ego defense mechanism that negates all realities that produce too much stress for the brain to handle. It’s called Denial."
"If the ego is not regularly and repeatedly dissolved in the unbounded hyperspace of the Transcendent Other, there will always be slow drift away from the sense of self as part of nature’s larger whole. The ultimate consequence of this drift is the fatal ennui that now permeates Western Civilization."
"I keep calling it the I-thought. It's a thought. There is no I. This gives you a clue."
