"The experience of the self is always a defeat for the ego."
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Self quotes
Self
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Self quotes (page 24 of 626)
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"You don't have to burn books, you don't have to rebel against teachers to rebel; to rebel is to truly own your own self."
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"The Perennial Philosophy is expressed most succinctly in the Sanskrit formula, tat tvam asi ('That art thou'); the Atman, or immanent eternal Self, is one with Brahman, the Absolute Principle of all existence; and the last end of every human being, is to discover the fact for himself, to find out who he really is."
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"Eros is an issue of boundaries. He exists because certain boundaries do. In the interval between reach and grasp, between glance and counterglance, between ‘I love you’ and ‘I love you too,’ the absent presence of desire comes alive. But the boundaries of time and glance and I love you are only aftershocks of the main, inevitable boundary that creates Eros: the boundary of flesh and self between you and me. And it is only, suddenly, at the moment when I would dissolve that boundary, I realize I never can."
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"Fidel Castro is a man with a great sense of self-criticism and respect for his political friends. He is not going to give me instructions, and I am not the type of man who would take them. That's not to say that I don't approve of what is happening in Cuba, but he would never send me a letter telling me what to do or not to do."
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"...there is power in self-sacrifice."
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"You may go on reading any number of books on Meditation. They can only tell you ‘Realize the Self’. The Self cannot be found in books. You have to find it for yourself in yourself."
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"Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil."
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"Everything is self-evident."
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"[To Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, on his return from self-imposed exile, occasioned by the embarrassing flatulence he had experienced in the presence of the Queen:] My Lord, I had forgot the fart."
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"All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture, is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make, as good money!"
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"Maturation is the development from environmental support to self-support."
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"We become just by the practice of just actions, self-controlled by exercising self-control, and courageous by performing acts of courage."
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"The necessary consequence of man's right to life is his right to self-defense. In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. All the reasons which make the initiation of physical force an evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative. If some "pacifist" society renounced the retaliatory use of force, it would be left helplessly at the mercy of the first thug who decided to be immoral. Such a society would achieve the opposite of its intention: instead of abolishing evil, it would encourage and reward it."
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"Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong - these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history."
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"The Popular Unity government represented the first attempt anywhere to build a genuinely democratic transition to socialism - a socialism that, owing to its origins, might be guided not by authoritarian bureaucracy, but by democratic self-rule."
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"The 'I' casts off the illusion of the 'I' and yet remains 'I'. Such is the paradox of Self-realization. The Realized do not see any paradox in it. Consider the case of the worshipper. He approaches God and prays to be absorbed in Him. He then surrenders himself in faith and by concentration. And what remains afterwards? In the place of the original 'I', self-surrender leaves a residuum of God in which the 'I' is lost. That is the highest form of devotion or surrender and the peak of detachment."
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"This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it."
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"Work on your stony qualities and become resplendent like the ruby. Practice self-denial and accept difficulty. Always see infinite life in letting the self die. Your stoniness will decrease; your ruby nature will grow. The signs of self-existence will leave your body, and ecstasy will take you over."
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"Though violence is not lawful, when it is offered in self-defense or for the defense of the defenseless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission. The latter befits neither man nor woman. Under violence, there are many stages and varieties of bravery. Every man must judge this for himself. No other person can or has the right."
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