"It seems that it is madder never to abandon one's self than often to be infatuated; better to be wounded, a captive and a slave, than always to walk in armor."
Read quote
6 likes
Self quotes
Self
12.5K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Self
Browse quotes that often appear alongside self — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Self quotes (page 112 of 626)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"It's the journey of self, I guess. You start with this kind of loner, outside guy, which a lot of people can relate to, and he goes out into the world."
Read quote
6 likes
"Το know how to profit by good advice, requires nearly as much ability as to know how to act for one'self."
Read quote
6 likes
"Men are inconsolable concerning the treachery of their friends or the deceptions of their enemies; and yet they are often very highly satisfied to be both deceived and betrayed by their own selves."
Read quote
6 likes
"If Democracy should fail, it would be because we had been so lacking in self-discipline that our personal problems had taken all our substance and energies, leaving us nothing of value to contribute to the commonwealth."
Read quote
6 likes
"The steadily inward look leads us all to death, nations as well as persons, and is equally infantile in them all. Perhaps the most useful thing I have learned in my lifetime is that the process of maturing gradually turns the mind away from the small-self to the greater-self that is only served by serving others."
Read quote
6 likes
"I suspect it is for one's self-interest that one looks at one's surroundings and one's self. This search is personally born and is indeed my reason and motive for making photographs."
Read quote
6 likes
"The unconscious self is the real genius. Your breathing goes wrong the moment your conscious self meddles with it."
Read quote
6 likes
"Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force. But even Capitalist cynicism will admit that however unconscionable we may be when our own interests are affected, we can be most indignantly virtuous at the expense of others."
Read quote
6 likes
"Religion is a self-conferred intellectual decision; it's not something you get at birth and is unchangeable. You're collusive with the religion when you accept it; you have a choice."
Read quote
6 likes
"It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self."
Read quote
6 likes
"For my part I am very sorry for him. It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self--never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardour of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dimsighted."
Read quote
6 likes
"We are on a perilous margin when we begin to look passively at our future selves, and see our own figures led with dull consent into insipid misdoing and shabby achievement."
Read quote
6 likes
"Strange, that some of us, with quick alternate vision, see beyond our infatuations, and even while we rave on the heights, behold the wide plain where our persistent self pauses and awaits us."
Read quote
6 likes
"For character too is a process and an unfolding. . . among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful. . . ."
Read quote
6 likes
"Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and predator alike, by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself - a barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future atrocities thus bred."
Read quote
6 likes
"An interesting piece of work, freely chosen, which has the virtue of inducing concentration rather than fatigue, adds to the child's energies and mental capacities, and leads him to self-mastery."
Read quote
6 likes
"The real preparation for education is the study of one's self."
Read quote
6 likes
"Freedom to learn is the first necessity of guaranteeing that man himself shall be self reliant enough to be free."
Read quote
6 likes
"A serf-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead no justification for the existence of child labor, no economic reason for chiseling workers' wages or stretching workers' hours."
Read quote
6 likes