Self Quotes

It is the mystery of the creative act that something other than our conscious self takes over.

The goal of art was the vital expression of self.

If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.

Basins of attraction, of self organization, show up as well in our complex social environment, in human organizations. Here again, while we cannot predict the result of any given input, we can say that it will likely fall within one of several areas.

We will live with racism for ever. But senses of self, senses of belonging, senses of us and of others? Those are up for grabs.

You think you can go into all those auditions not knowing who you are? The work came after I found my sense of self - when I wasn't so manic and desperate.

The completely solitary self: that's where poetry comes from, and it gets isolated by crisis, and those crises are often very intimate also.

I didn't think I could be my imperfect self. I pretended I was Marcia, so I was always playing this role. I became her, but yet I wasn't. It's strange.

Love is union with somebody, or something, outside oneself, under the condition of retaining the separateness and integrity of one's own self.

It is true that the poet does not directly address his neighbors; but he does address a great congress of persons who dwell at the back of his mind, a congress of all those who have taught him and whom he has admired; they constitute his ideal audience and his better self.

Tears shed for self are tears of weakness, but tears shed for others are a sign of strength.

I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I've become. If I had, I'd have done it a lot earlier.

Whether happiness may come or not, one should try and prepare one's self to do without it.

I had gotten to a place where I truly believed everything I was called: 'not sexy,' 'not funny,' 'too intense,' desperate.' All those labels they gave me, I took them because there wasn't a trace of my true self left.

All along we find that social life - religion, politics, art - reflects the stages reached in the development of the knowledge of self; it shows the social uses made of this knowledge.

I realized that I needed to be anonymous on the street and somebody else on the stage. I had tried to put my street self on the stage, but what they want is an actor on stage.

My best male friend is my best friend until he crosses me. We're all protective of the self.

A day wasted on others is not wasted on one's self.

That's what fame does to you. You acquire another self.

To be able to throw one's self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman's smile - that is happiness.

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.

No day-to-day mishaps or indignities can really compromise your sense of self after you've survived a deep tragedy.

On the basis of biological, sociological, and historical knowledge, we should recognize that the individual self is subject to death or decay, but the sum total of individual achievement, for better or worse, lives on in the immortality of The Larger.

I think there is something a little too self conscious about enjoying being an outsider.

It is easier to do one's duty to others than to one's self. If you do your duty to others, you are considered reliable. If you do your duty to yourself, you are considered selfish.

The self is hateful.

Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image, but thee who destroys a good book, kills reason its self.

Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.

If people could understand how much pleasure they could have by themselves, I think everyone would be a lot saner. I think that people really need a dose of quality time with one's self.

The self is just not a worthy enough vehicle to worship.