Identity quotes
1.2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside identity — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"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."
"They can romanticize us so, mirrors, and that is their secret: what a subtle torture it would be to destroy all the mirrors in the world: where then could we look for reassurance of our identities?"
"It comes down to this: black people were stripped of our identities when we were brought here, and it's been a quest since then to define who we are."
"And I sit here without identity: faceless. My head aches."
"The present age is demented. It is possessed by a sense of dislocation, a loss of personal identity, an alternating sentimentality and rage which, in an individual patient, could be characterized as dementia."
"We are hidden in ourselves, like a truth hidden in isolated facts. When we know that this One in us is One in all, then our truth is revealed."
"I do believe, separate and apart from any particular election or movement, that we are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude sort of nationalism or ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an us and a them."
"When things fall apart in your life, you feel as if your whole world is crumbling. But actually it’s your fixed identity that’s crumbling. And as Chögyam Trungpa used to tell us, that’s cause for celebration."
"We hear a lot about identity theft when someone takes your wallet and pretends to be you and uses your credit cards. But the more serious identity theft is to get swallowed up in other people's definition of you."
"For Filipino Americans, it's a battle for recognition, for identity in a culture where, for the mainstream, Asians tend to fade into a monochromatic racialized 'other.'"
"I suppose I have a highly developed capacity for self-delusion, so it's no problem for me to believe that I'm somebody else."
"Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue."
"I don't need to worry about identity theft because no one wants to be me."
"If you dont love, youve lost your distinction, definition, uniqueness, and identity."
"We become full human agents, capable of understanding ourselves, and hence of defining our identity, through our acquisition of rich human languages of expression."
"It is clear that we must embrace struggle. Every living thing conforms to it. Everything in nature grows and struggles in its own way, establishing its own identity, insisting on it at all cost, against all resistance."
