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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"The universe is deathless; Is deathless because, having no finite self, it stays infinite. A sound man by not advancing himself stays the further ahead of himself, By not confining himself to himself sustains himself outside himself: By never being an end in himself he endlessly becomes himself."
"The True Person avoids extremes, self-indulgence, and extravagance."
"The transformation toward eternal life is gradual. The heavy gross energy of body, mind, and spirit must first be purified and uplifted. When the energy ascends... then self mastery can be sought."
"No, I don’t have to tell a soul about this, I promised myself. When you are a kid, you don’t know yet that a secret, like an animal, can evolve. Like an animal, a secret can develop a self-preserving intelligence. Shaglike, mute and thick, a knowledge with a fur: your secret."
"Mary Ocher gives me the chills, she frightens me with her feral soul. Her sound is of a true outsider artist, immaculately self possessed. Was this recorded this century? Or out of a basement that's she's been imprisoned all her life? Time to set her loose on the world. I'm so happy she exists. Set me free Mary!"
"I'm not a 21-year-old angsty self-destructive rapscallion anymore."
"The only way to reach the mountain peaks of life is to forget about self and help other people reach greater heights."
"The whole matter revolves around the self-respect of my people. How much satisfaction can I get from a court order for somebody toassociate with me who does not wish me near them?"
"I believe everyday your life speaks to you - through every experience, through the people you meet, and even through pain, fear and self-doubt."
"Go ahead: Live with abandon. Be outrageous at any age. What are you saving your best self for?"
"What I find powerful is a person with the confidence to be her own self."
"My business skills have come from being guided by my inner self - my intuition."
"The great leaders of business, industry and finance, and the great artists, poets, musicians and writers all became great because they developed the power of self-motivation ."
"Every time a man rises from defeat, he becomes mentally and emotionally stronger. Thus, in time, one may actually find his self - his true, inner self - through temporary defeat."
"Success is very largely a matter of adjusting one's self to the ever-varying and changing environments of life, in a spirit of harmony and poise."
"If your parents are billionaires, that might actually be an obstacle to your own happiness and self-development. If you go to Oxford or Harvard, that might actually thwart your desire to graduate with a science or math degree."
"Give us some separate territory in this country where our people can go and do something for ourselves. And provide us with everything that we need to keep that new territory going, until we are self-sufficient."
"I don't know - too much about Robert Williams tactics, but if he was trying to defend himself, he was within his God-given rights and within - and he was also within his natural right, because first law of nature is self-preservation."
"Here was one of the white man's most characteristic behavior patterns - where black men are concerned. He loves himself so much that he is startled if he discovers that his victims don't share his vainglorious self-opinion."
"I can't think of anybody...who knows the sum and substance of what I know and feel and cry about in my secret self all the time when I don't feel strong, the sorrows of time and personality, and can therefore on all levels make it all the way with me"
