Quotes about self
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“Learn from the mistakes of others you won't have time to make them all your self”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Simply Irresistible

“So, using his pride like a shield against despair, dejection, and-most important—
self-pity, Raoden raised his head to stare damnation in the eyes.”

Brandon Sanderson Elantris

Source: Elantris

Despair

“What was the self-sacrifice?"
I jettisoned half of a much-loved and I think irreplaceable pair of shoes."
Why was that self-sacrifice?"
Because they were mine!" said Ford, crossly.
I think we have different value systems."
Well mine's better.”

Douglas Adams book Mostly Harmless

Source: Mostly Harmless

Love, Shoe, Thinking

“The truth is that creative activity is one that involves the entire self - our emotions, our levels of energy, our characters, and our minds.”

Robert Greene book Mastery

Source: Mastery

Truth

“Culture is shared meaning. Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture.”

David Bohm (1917–1992) American theoretical physicist

Changing Consciousness (1991)
Context: Culture is shared meaning. Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture. <!-- p. 185

“There's good self-consciousness, and then there's toxic, paralyzing, raped-by-psychic-Bedouins self-consciousness.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

“The degree that the individual maintains a show before others that he himself does not believe, he can come to experience a special kind of alienation from self and a special kind of wariness of others.”

Erving Goffman book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

Source: 1950s-1960s, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 1959, p. 229

“Self-preservation isn't worth it if you can't live with the self you're preserving”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

“Now we're in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated. But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Katniss and Plutarch Heavensbee (p. 379)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)
Context: “Are you preparing for another war, Plutarch?” I ask.
“Oh, not now. Now we’re in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated,” he says. “But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We’re fickle, stupid beings with a great gift for self-destruction. Although who knows? Maybe this will be it, Katniss.”
“What?” I ask.
“The time it sticks. Maybe we are witnessing the evolution of the human race. Think about that.“

Stupidity, Thinking, Memory

“Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and importance, although
difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Personality

“Luckily, even as a young man not yet become himself, John Bridgens had two things besides indecision that kept him from self-destruction - books and a sense of irony.”

Dan Simmons book The Terror

Source: The Terror

Books, Sense, Indecision

“Knock your bad self out.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Bullet

Source: Bullet

“Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything good in the world.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

World

“Twas the night before Thanksgiving.
All the food's in the oven.
And I'm in the bedroom performin' self lovin'.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

Food, Night

“Have you ever had that feeling—that you’d like to go to a whole different place and become a whole different self?”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Feeling

“More gold had been mined from the mind of men than the earth it self”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

Men

“As for myself, I always willingly acknowledge my own self as the principal cause of every good and of every evil which may befall me; therefore I have always found myself capable of being my own pupil, and ready to love my teacher.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

Memoirs (trans. Machen 1894), book 1, Preface http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/c/casanova/c33m/preface2.html <br class="br">Referenced <br class="br">Source: Geschichte Meines Lebens

Love, Teachers, Evil

“Aloneness and selfness are too important to betray for company.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

“The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Feeling, Sense

“The greatest tales, well told, awaken the fears and longings of the listeners. Each man hears a different story. Each is touched by it according to his inner self. The words go to the ear, but the true message travels straight to the spirit.”

Juliet Marillier book Son of the Shadows

Source: Son of the Shadows

Fear, Travel

“The two biggest self-deceptions of all are that life has a 'meaning'and each of us is unique.”

David Byrne (1952) Scottish alternative rock musician and promoter of world music

Life

“Your self esteem is like a notch below Kafka's.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Source: Manhattan

“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am -- not stuck in the middle, but hovering above the entire farcical spectrum, weeping as I behold my fellow man's devotion to political illusion and self-destruction.”

Robert Higgs (1944) economist

“For the few little successes I may seem to have, there are acres of misgivings and self-doubt.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Success

“Listen up—there’s no war that will end all wars,’ Crow tells me. ‘War breeds war. Lapping up the blood shed by violence, feeding on wounded flesh. War is a perfect, self-contained being. You need to know that.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

War, Perfection

“Lose the pessimism, Ms. Lane. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Source: Darkfever

“A lie twice believed is self decieved”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: A World Without Heroes

Lie

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

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

“When he sat alone in the darkness and cried and was done, all done with it, nothing had changed. His leg still hurt, it was still dark, he was still alone and the self-pity had accomplished nothing.”

Gary Paulsen book Hatchet

Source: Hatchet

Change, Hurt

“The underlying point held; experience as well as common sense indicated that the most reliable method of avoiding self-extinction was not to equip oneself with the means to accomplish it in the first place.”

Iain Banks book Consider Phlebas

Source: Culture series, Consider Phlebas (1987), Chapter 4 “Temple of Light” (p. 96).

Sense

“But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Variant: We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self destruction.
Source: Mockingjay

Stupidity, Thinking, Memory

“I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Dogs, Idea

“Remember, there is nothing wrong with a healthy sense of self-respect.”

Cressida Cowell book How to Steal a Dragon's Sword

Source: How to Steal a Dragon's Sword

Sense

“A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Adventures of Sally

Source: The Adventures of Sally (1922)

Life, Parting

“The self is only a threshold, a door, a becoming between two multiplicities”

Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) French philosopher

Source: A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia

“When you were the son of evil, there was little you couldn't do, own, or kill, and yet her mortal self was an elusive trophy he could touch, but not put on his shelf.

This made her rare. This made her precious.

This made him… love her.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Mine

Love, Evil

“Genuine self-acceptance is not derived from the power of positive thinking, mind games or pop psychology. IT IS AN ACT OF FAITH in the God of grace.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

God, Faith, Game, Thinking

“God, is this all it is, the ricocheting down the corridor of laughter and tears? Of self-worship and self-loathing? Of glory and disgust?”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

God, Tear, Laughter

“Self-sacrifice? But it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

“A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Section 1.10 
Source: The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)
Context: We do have to use our minds as far as they will take us, yet acknowledging that they cannot take us all the way.
We can give a child a self-image. But is this a good idea? Hitler did a devastating job at that kind of thing. So does Chairman Mao. … I haven't defined a self, nor do I want to. A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.

“With the knowledge of her aloneness came a rush of self-declaration: I will not be nothing.”

Robin McKinley Deerskin

Source: Deerskin

Knowledge

“There is joy in self-forgetfulness. So I try to make the light in others' eyes my sun, the music in others' ears my symphony, the smile on others' lips my happiness.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Happiness, Smile, Music, Light

“Finding your passion isn't just about careers and money. It's about finding your authentic self. The one you've buried beneath other people's needs.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Distant Shores

Money, People, Passion

“Can you imagine, finally showing your true self to your spouse, your soul mate, and having him not like you? So that's how the hating first began. I've thought about this a lot, and that's where it started, I think.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Hate, Soul, Imagination, Thinking

“How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

Rage

“The grandiose person is never really free; first because he is excessively dependent on admiration from others, and second, because his self-respect is dependent on qualities, functions, and achievements that can suddenly fail.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Source: The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

Dependency, Personality

“In order to deal with reality successfully - to pursue and achieve the values which his life requires - man needs self-esteem; he needs to be confident of his efficacy and worth.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism

Life, Confidence, Reality

“Self-consciousness kills communication.”

Rick Steves (1955) US travel writer

Communication

“You’re a human, you should understand self-obsession.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Understanding

“The deeper the Self-realization of a man, the more he influences the whole universe by his subtle spiritual vibrations, and the less he himself is affected by the phenomenal flux.”

Paramahansa Yogananda book Autobiography of a Yogi

Source: Autobiography of a Yogi

Universe

“No one is born fully-formed: it is through self-experience in the world that we become what we are.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

World

“In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves… self-discipline with all of them came first.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Men, Reading, Victory

“The Writer's Oath

I promise solemnly:

1. to write as often and as much as I can,

2. to respect my writing self, and

3. to nurture the writing of others.

I accept these responsibilities and shall honor them always.”

Gail Carson Levine (1947) American writer

Source: Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly

“I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.”

Daniel Kahneman book Thinking, Fast and Slow

"Bias, Blindness and How We Truly Think" (2011)
Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow
Context: An experiment about your next vacation will allow you to observe your attitude to your experiencing self: At the end of the vacation, all pictures and videos will be destroyed. Furthermore, you will swallow a potion that will wipe out all your memories of the vacation. How would this affect your vacation plans? How much would you be willing to pay for it, relative to a normally memorable vacation? My impression is that the elimination of memories greatly reduces the value of the experience.Imagine a painful operation during which you will scream in pain and beg the surgeon to stop. However, you are promised an amnesia-inducing drug that will wipe out any memory of the episode. Here again, my observation is that most people are remarkably indifferent to the pains of their experiencing self. Some say they don’t care at all. Others share my feeling, which is that I feel pity for my suffering self but not more than I would feel for a stranger in pain.I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.