Self quotes
12.5K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside self — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"I like making sure that I've got a decent haircut, my beard's a decent length. I trim it once a week and that's all I need to do. Also, shoes polished. Just put yourself together properly. It's about self-respect, but it's also about having a bit of respect for the people you're interacting with on a daily basis."
"I don't think public life in and of itself can destroy you. I think it's the way people react to it, and some people are more sturdy than others... I don't think any one faction can be blamed for a person's self destruction - a certain amount of that has to be innate."
"I knew people were independently publishing, and I buy books on Amazon. I began seriously considering it when Amanda Hocking was in the news about her self-publishing success."
"Of course, people say maybe there are some self-published books out there that shouldn't be out there. Well, it's the same with conventional publishing."
"Long periods of recession, which tend to be self-perpetuating, are usually ended by war, or by preparations for it."
"Walking is magic. Can't recommend it highly enough. I read that Plato and Aristotle did much of their brilliant thinking together while ambulating. The movement, the meditation, the health of the blood pumping, and the rhythm of footsteps...this is a primal way to connect with one's deeper self."
"Teacher preparation should go beyond the technical preparation of teachers and be rooted in the ethical formation both of selves and of history."
"I came to realize that I was always looking for myself in the women I loved. I looked at their lovely, clean faces, and saw myself reflected in them. They, on the other hand, looked at me and saw the dirt on my face and, however intelligent and self confident they were, they ended up seeing themselves reflected in me and thinking that they were worse than they were. Please don't let that happen to you."
"if a book isn't self-explanatory, then it isn't worth reading."
"Being preoccupied with our self-image is like being deaf and blind. It's like standing in the middle of a vast field of wildflowers with a black hood over our heads. It's like coming upon a tree of singing birds while wearing earplugs."
"It becomes increasingly clear that we won’t be free of self-destructive patterns unless we develop a compassionate understanding of what they are."
"There's something delicious about finding fault with something. And that can be including finding fault with one's self, you know?"
"The howl of self-interest is loud ... but the heart is black which throbs solely to its note."
"I cannot endure the horror, the evil, which comes to self in solitude."
"Think ye by gazing on each other's eyes To multiply your lovely selves?"
"If anyone comes to the gates of poetry and expects to become an adequate poet by acquiring expert knowledge of the subject without the Muses' madness, he will fail, and his self-controlled verses will be eclipsed by the poetry of men who have been driven out of their minds."
"You could love your crazy people, even admire them, instead of resenting that they're not self-sufficient."
"Mom is losing, no doubt, because our vegetables have come to lack two features of interest: nutrition and flavor. Storage and transport take predictable tolls on the volatile plant compounds that subtly add up to taste and food value. Breeding to increase shelf life also has tended to decrease palatability. Bizarre as it seems, we've accepted a tradeoff that amounts to: "Give me every vegetable in every season, even if it tastes like a cardboard picture of its former self.""
"The master not only governs the slave without his consent, but he governs him by a set of rules altogether different from those which he prescribes for himself. Allow ALL the governed an equal voice in the government, and that, and that only, is self-government."
"It is easiest to "be all things to all men," but it is not honest. Self-respect must be sacrificed every hour in the day."
