Identity quotes
1.2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
"The Negro wants to be everything but himself... He wants to integrate with the white man, but he cannot integrate with himself or with his own kind. The Negro wants to lose his identity because he does not know his own identity."
"...it's my hypothesis that the individual is not a pre-given entity which is seized on by the exercise of power. The individual, with his identity and characteristics, is the product of a relation of power exercised over bodies, multiplicities, movements, desires, forces."
"Royalty is my identity. Servanthood is my assignment. Intimacy with God is my life source."
"In all cultures, the family imprints its members with selfhood. Human experience of identity has two elements; a sense of belonging and a sense of being separate. The laboratory in which these ingredients are mixed and dispensed is the family, the matrix of identity."
"There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender... identity is performatively constituted by the very 'expressions' that are said to be its results."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside identity — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"If our identity is in our work, rather than Christ, success will go to our heads, and failure will go to our hearts."
"Globalisation, which benefits only multi-national companies and takes away all sense of local or national pride and identity, is the biggest threat facing all the member states of the EU."
"If I perceive in another person mainly the surface, I perceive mainly the differences,that which separates us. If I penetrate to the core, i perceive our identity, the fact of our brotherhood. This relatedness from center to center - instead of that from periphery to periphery - is 'central relatedness'."
"There are Muslims of all kinds. The idea of closing them into a single identity is wrong."
"Demagoguery enters at the moment when, for want of a common denominator, the principle of equality degenerates into the principle of identity."
"the identity of an individual is essentially a function of her choices, rather than the discovery of an immutable attribute"
"My identity is in Christ, not in basketball."
"My identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn't, couldn't end there. At least that's what I would choose to believe."
"Perfume is a mark of female identity and the final touch of her style"
"Religion: 'My identity is built on being a good person.' Gospel: 'My identity is not built on my record or my performance but on Christ's.'"
"Our stories come from our lives and from the playwright's pen, the mind of the actor, the roles we create, the artistry of life itself and the quest for peace."
"An un-named song is like an un-named child, it has no identity."
"God is love, I said, but art's the possibility of forms, and shadows are the source of identity."
"One of the most wonderful things in nature is a glance of the eye; it transcends speech; it is the bodily symbol of identity."
"Nations which don't find their national identities will be preyed upon by other nations."
"When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while holding me by the hand, … Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom, I am silent, I require nothing further, I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of identity beyond the grave, But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied, He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me."
"An awareness of our past is essential to the establishment of our personality and our identity as Africans."
"Violence is fomented by the imposition of singular and belligerent identities on gullible people, championed by proficient artisans of terror."
"Identity is not inherent. It is shaped by circumstance and sensitivity and resistance to self-pity."
"Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you."
