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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"Self-awareness is one of the rarest of human commodities. I don't mean self-consciousn ess where you're limiting and evaluating yourself. I mean being aware of your own patterns."
"When you believe it, it becomes self fulfilling."
"Here's the thing, you're not really ready for love until you have enough self-respect that if you met your exact self but in a guy you would totally, completely, absolutely want to be with him."
"It is remarkable how a man cannot summarize his thoughts in even the most general sort of way without betraying himself completely, without putting his whole self into it, quite unawares, presenting as if in allegory the basic themes and problems of his life."
"I have always thought of poems as stepping stones in one's own sense of oneself. Every now and again, you write a poem that gives you self-respect and steadies your going a little bit farther out in the stream. At the same time, you have to conjure the next stepping stone because the stream, we hope, keeps flowing."
"You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self."
"The great artist Michelangelo claimed that his sculptures were already present in the stone, and all he had to do was carve away everything else. Our understanding of identity is often similar: Beneath the many layers of shoulds and shouldn’ts that cover us, there lies a constant, single, true self that is just waiting to be discovered."
"Never appeal to a man's 'better nature.' He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage."
"The basic of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to individual."
"May I consider the wise man rich, and may I have such wealth as only the self-restrained man can bear or endure."
"Have respect for yourself and no one can take away your self respect."
"Self-discipline is the No. 1 delineating factor between the rich, the middle class and the poor."
"excessive fear and self-doubt that were the greatest detractors of personal genius."
"The main cause of poverty is self-inflicted fear and ignorance."
"The personal power that comes from principle-centered living is the power of a self-aware, knowledgeable, proactive individual, unrestricted by the attitudes, behaviors, and actions of others or by many of the circumstances and environmental influences that limit other people."
"One could say: "The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary." The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE."
"Give a man or woman back his self-respect, and in most cases-not all, but most-you also give back that person's ability to think with at least some clarity."
"To be true to ourselves, however, is not an easy task. We must break free of the seductions of society and live life on our own terms, under our own values and aligned with our original dreams. We must tap our hidden selves; explore the deep-seated, unseen hopes, desires, strengths and weaknesses that make us who we are. We must understand where we have been and where we are going."
"Invincibility depends on one's self; the enemy's vulnerability on him."
"Like Thornton Wilder said, time is not a river, but rather a landscape that you step in and out of. I've always found that true of creative work, and I've heard so many songwriters and writers in general say the same thing... When you're going into the realms of your self and trying to tap into the mystery of this creative source, linear time kind of falls away."
