Alain de Botton quote: “Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.”

“We have a side to our character that we are generally unaware of—our social personality, the different person we become when we operate in groups of people. In the group setting, we unconsciously imitate what others are saying and doing. We think differently, more concerned with fitting in and believing what others believe. We feel different emotions, infected by the group mood. We are more prone to taking risks, to acting irrationally, because everyone else is. This social personality can come to dominate who we are. Listening so much to others and conforming our behavior to them, we slowly lose a sense of our uniqueness and the ability to think for ourselves. The only solution is to develop self-awareness and a superior understanding of the changes that occur in us in groups. With such intelligence, we can become superior social actors, able to outwardly fit in and cooperate with others on a high level, while retaining our independence and rationality.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 14 : Resist the Downward Pull of the Group
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

“Stop giving a s— what other people think of you. We make decisions too often based on that…When we start to live for ourselves, and be a little bit more selfish, I think we’ll lead more fulfilling lives. So I think what we need to do, is stare at ourselves in the mirror a little bit longer, and really own who we are and not try to be what we think others want us to be.”

Lena Waithe (1984) American actress, producer, and screenwriter

On how women should embrace their true selves in “Lena Waithe's Message to Women: 'Stop Giving a S--- What Other People Think'” https://variety.com/video/lena-waithe-message-to-women-variety-cover-shoot/ in Variety Magazine

“I don't think everyone wants to create the great American novel, but we all have a dream of telling our stories-of realizing what we think, feel, and see before we die. Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate.”

Natalie Goldberg (1948) American writer

Source: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Thinking and self-creating are inseparable. When we become aware of all the fantasies in which we see ourselves in the future, pilot ourselves this way or that, this becomes obvious.”

Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist

Source: The Courage to Create (1975), Ch. 5 : The Delphic Oracle as Therapist, p. 99
Context: The self is made up, on its growing edge, of the models, forms, metaphors, myths, and all other kinds of psychic content which give it direction in its self-creation. This is a process that goes on continuously. As Kierkegaard well said, the self is only that which it is in the process of becoming. Despite the obvious determinism in human life — especially in the physical aspect of ones self in such simple things as color of eyes, height relative length of life, and so on — there is also, clearly, this element of self-directing, self-forming. Thinking and self-creating are inseparable. When we become aware of all the fantasies in which we see ourselves in the future, pilot ourselves this way or that, this becomes obvious.

“It is no small pity, and should cause us no little shame, that, through our own fault, we do not understand ourselves, or know who we are.”

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint

First Mansions, Ch. 1, as translated by E. Allison Peers (1961) p. 18
Interior Castle (1577)
Context: It is no small pity, and should cause us no little shame, that, through our own fault, we do not understand ourselves, or know who we are. Would it not be a sign of great ignorance, my daughters, if a person were asked who he was, and could not say, and had no idea who his father or mother was, or from what country he came? Though that is a great stupidity, our own is incomparably greater if we make no attempt to discover what we are, and only know that we are living in these bodies and have a vague idea, because we have heard it, and because our faith tells us so, that we possess souls. As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or who dwells within them, or how precious they are — those are things which seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul's beauty. All our interest is centred in the rough setting of the diamond and in the outer wall of the castle – that is to say in these bodies of ours.

“We all have different aspects of ourselves, and who we are to different people in our lives, at different stages of our lives.”

Lulu Wang (1983) Asian-American filmmaker

As quoted in "The Farewell writer-director Lulu Wang on the joys of laughing at human nature" in The Verge (17 July 2019) https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/17/20696611/the-farewell-writer-director-lulu-wang-interview-awkwafina

“In a world religion class, everyone was complicating life and existence by over-thinking. I had this sense it's right here, right now. It's who we are and what we feel.”

Edie Brickell (1966) singer from the United States

On her inspiration for the song "What I Am" in "Edie Brickell, New Bohemians Return to The Fillmore" in San Francisco Bay Times (12 October 2006) http://www.sfbaytimes.com/index.php?sec=article&article_id=5601
Context: In a world religion class, everyone was complicating life and existence by over-thinking. I had this sense it's right here, right now. It's who we are and what we feel. It's not this tangled web of psychology and philosophy. I was driving to band practice and started singing that song. I wanted to be real, not adopt some philosophy or role. Instinct is our driving force.

“The tales we tell ourselves about ourselves makes us who we are.”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Source: Second Helpings

“Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Mark Twain's Notebook (1935)

“I wish everyone would shut up, so that we could hear ourselves think”

Rose Macaulay (1881–1958) English novelist and writer

Potterism (1921) p.196. https://books.google.com/books?id=9tDSm2WzQxsC&pg=PA196
Context: Jane: What do you think of his book Arthur?
Gideon: I don't think of it. I've had no reason to, particularly. I've not had to review it.... I'm afraid I'm hopeless about novels just now, that's the fact. I'm sick of the form—slices of life served up cold in three hundred pages. Oh, it's very nice; it makes nice reading for people. But what's the use? Except, of course, to kill time for those who prefer it dead. But as things in themselves, as art, they've been ruined by excess. My critical sense is blunted just now. I can hardly feel the difference, though I can see it, between a good novel and a bad one. I couldn't write one, good or bad, to save my life, I know that. And I've got to the stage when I wish other people wouldn't. I wish everyone would shut up, so that we could hear ourselves think...

“Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.”

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