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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"After having been lost in the world, suddenly, through the pressure of suffering, the realization comes that the answers may not be found out there in worldly attainment and in the future. That's an important point for many people to reach. That sense of deep crisis-when the world as they have known it, and the sense of self that they have known that is identified with the world, become meaningless."
"So, the path of the co-creator is to be awakened spiritually within, which then turns into your own deeper life purpose, which then makes you want to reach out and touch others in a way that expresses self and really evolves our communities and our world. Certainly, we can't do that unless we activate ourselves first. That's why, for me, emergence is the shift from ego to essence. That is so important."
"...and there I suddenly found my articulate self in a dazzling land of smiling, jostling people wearing and not wearing all sorts of costumes and doing all sorts of clever things. And that's when I knew! What other life could there be but that of an actor?"
"I am learning to understand rather than immediately judge or to be judged. I cannot blindly follow the crowd and accept their approach. I will not allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowled"
"Perhaps the greatest mistake we can make, which causes loss of self-respect, is making the opinions of others more important than our own opinion of ourselves. You'll find no shortage of opinions directed at you. If you allow them to undermine your self-respect, you're seeking the respect of others over your own, and you're abdicating yourself."
"For talking monkeys to speak of truth is hubris of the highest degree. Where is it writ large that talking monkeys should be able to model the cosmos? If a sea urchin or a racoon were to propose to you that it had a viable truth about the universe, the absurdity of that assertion would be self-evident, but in our case we make an exception."
"That's the person I plan on being for a very long time: someone who stands up, someone who is an advocate for people, [even if it's for] something that some people think is only hair. I think it's more than just that. I want to be a spokesperson for self-love and for diversity."
"My true Self is free. I cannot be contained."
"Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away."
"The question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us."
"There are friendships merely for pleasure, some for the exchange of ideas. Rarest are those friends of one's inmost self."
"Never stop working on your statue until the divine glory of virtue shines out on you, until you see self-mastery enthroned upon its holy seat."
"I have grown weary of literature: silence alone comforts me. If I continue to write, it’s because I have nothing more to accomplish in this world except to wait for death. Searching for the word in darkness. Any little success invades me and puts me in full view of everyone. I long to wallow in the mud. I can scarcely control my need for self-abasement, my craving for licentiousness and debauchery. Sin tempts me, forbidden pleasures lure me. I want to be both pig and hen, then kill them and drink their blood."
"The one human quality that must be developed is self discipline for success. The will power to force yourself to do what you know you should do when you should do it, whether you like it or not, whether you feel like it or not. Success is tons of discipline."
"I discovered for myself and by myself that there is no self to realize -- that's the realization I am talking about. It comes as a shattering blow. It hits you like a thunderbolt. You have invested everything in one basket, self-realization, and, in the end, suddenly you discover that there is no self to discover, no self to realize -- and you say to yourself "What the hell have I been doing all my life?!" That blasts you."
"Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the Beloved."
"Life is merely terrible; I feel it as few others do. Often — and in my inmost self perhaps all the time — I doubt whether I am a human being."
"That’s what existence means: draining one’s own self dry without the sense of thirst."
"I believe I know the only cure, which is to make one’s center of life inside of one’s self, not selfishly or excludingly, but with a kind of unassailable serenity—to decorate one’s inner house so richly that one is content there, glad to welcome anyone who wants to come and stay, but happy all the same when one is inevitably alone."
"Self-centered indulgence, pride and a lack of shame over sin are now emblems of the American lifestyle."
