Quotes about self

page 53

“I call special attention to the fact that it is only our universal suicide which would prove a panacea for all the ills our ' flesh is heir to j individual suicides can do little or no good, save to the individuals themselves; Thus true philosophers may rationally and generously deny themselves the luxury of self-murder, because their death must leave the human average still worse than it is; and, besides, death’s coming is so certain and (at farthest) so near, that it is scarcely worth while to put one’s self out of breath hastening to meet him.”

“[Nature] only keeps us alive by a complicated system of the most shameful illusions, falsifying beyond rectification life, death, and after-death. Having made us take part in this poor puzzling game of life, she has taken care that all the rules shall be unfavourable to us: the cards are marked, the dice are loaded, we are always swindled. Thus years of hard work; and self-denial are frequently lost by a slip or chance, but seldom or never saved by a chance. Our health may be ruined by a pin-prick, but never doubled by an accident. We fall seriously ill in a moment, and take weeks or months to recover; lose a limb by some sudden mishap, but never by a good hap regain it. We cannot reach even a low degree of wisdom or knowledge without long hard study, while to be ignorant and foolish is the easiest and most natural thing in the world for us. Our sorrows are real and enduring; our joys deceptive and transient; our prizes of victory are not to be compared with our forfeits of defeat.”

“The word ‘violence’ is being systematically remade to conform to their worldview. Looting and arson aren’t violence, they argue. And yet physical violence directed at their opponents is also not violence but rather ‘self-defense.’”

“What is rare is not raw talent, skill, or even confidence, but humility, diligence, and self-awareness.”

“A true student is like a sponge. Absorbing what goes on around him, filtering it, latching on to what he can hold. A student is self-critical and self-motivated, always trying to improve his understanding so that he can move on to the next topic, the next challenge. A real student is also his own teacher and his own critic. There is no room for ego there.”

“Ours is a culture where we wear our ability to get by on very little sleep as a kind of badge of honor that symbolizes work ethic, or toughness, or some other virtue—but really, it’s a total profound failure of priorities and of self-respect.”

“Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result. It is vulnerability that breeds with self-doubt and then is escalated, often deliberately, by fear”

“You felt something huge and marvelous of which you are part, and in the moments you described, you forgot yourself for you were one with your world and with the sky above it, and even the stars looking down. There is nothing larger or more wonderful than that. Still, there are those who would prefer self. They will accept any belief, no matter how foolish, if it guarantees them personal immortality. I know people like that. But there are others who know themselves well enough to realize how limiting that is.”

“To act out of desperation is to act out of instinct. To let oneself get to that point however, is to ignore self-preservation.”

“We are surrounded by darkness and are afraid to venture out. Unless we do, however, we will not find God, because it is only by leaving what is safe and comfortable to pierce the darkness that we will find the light of God. This is a fitting metaphor for the spiritual pilgrimage that all of us have to make out of our self-contained comfort zone into the wide world of God and God’s people in the Catholic Church.”

“The eye of the soul cannot be led astray when its veil, by which I mean the body, is refined to near-transparency through self-control.”

“One side of the soul is carried away by the passionate part in man, and we are then captivated by the good things of this life, but the other side of the soul frequently delights in the activity of the intellect and, as a result, when we practice self-restraint, the intellect longs to pursue heavenly beauty.”

“Spiritual discourse always keeps the soul free from self-esteem, for it gives every part of the soul a sense of light, so that it no longer needs the praise of men.”

“Writing is, therefore, both a form of compulsive behavior and, I frequently tell people, a self-induced form of mental illness. Those few writers who don’t start off by being a little nuts soon get that way as a direct result of their vocation.”

“A hundred years from now, when people look back at this period, they will marvel at the stupidity of it all: the stress, the motion sickness, and the self-neglect we put ourselves through. So we have two choices. We can be among the last people caught up in the “more bubble” when it bursts, or we can see the madness for what it is and join the growing community of Essentialists and get more of what matters in our one precious life.”

“Pride to me is a celebration of self. It is a celebration of being fully aware of and proud of your existence. And it's also historically a major monumental moment for the queer community. It was started by a black trans woman. And the movement is still around because we are still looking to feel empowered and still looking for visibility for all of our members.”

“I feel the world is the way it is because we don’t talk about ourselves ever. We don’t talk about how we feel, we don’t talk about how we experience things. And not knowing yourself is when you project your insecurities and your fears and your bullshit onto other people. And so that just kind of creates a whole collective where nobody’s aware of themselves, and if you don’t have self-awareness then how can we have collective awareness?”

“I think it's something that I had to teach myself because growing up wasn't always a barrel of laughs. I was insecure and I had a lot of self-doubts, which is why I tell myself I can do it and that I earned it. I think you kind of become your own best cheerleader. I mean, obviously, my mom and my grandmother were big cheerleaders of mine, but at the end of the day, you have to be your own cheerleader—every day. Otherwise, it's not going to work out if you don't believe in yourself. I think a lot of it, too, is looking around and saying 'Why not me?' You know, 'Why not me?'”

“I respect what is repectable," Tan'elkoth replied. "To ask for respect where none has been earned is childish maundering.And what is repectable, in the end, save service? Even your idol Jefferson is, in the end, measured by how well he served the species. The prize of individualism--its goal--is self-actualization, which is only another name for vanity. We do not admire men for achieving self-actualization; we admire self-actualization when its end result is a boon to humanity.”

“To be enlightened is to obliterate all self-consciousness. What need is there to make others understand? This shows precisely that he has not yet attained real awakening and final enlightenment.”

“A strong, positive self – image is the best possible preparation for success”

“Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.”

“You'll say I'm self-destructive —
I constructed all this tragedy.
Go tell them all it's all my fault
You'll tell them I was crazy.
And anyway it's over now
Nothing left to say.”

“It is the universal hope of rising in the social scale which is the key to much of the superiority that is visible in this country. It accounts for the orderly self-respect which is the great characteristic of the masses in the United States. ... All this tends to the argument that the political condition of a people is very much dependent on its economical fate.”

“We do not have to make self- sacrifice a necessary element of altruism. We can regard people as altruists because of the kind of interests they have rather than because they are sacrificing their interests.”

“‘Mandatory’ means forced—at gunpoint, if necessary. When we force people to do things, for their own good or the good of others, we violate their right of self-determination. Libertarians respect the rights of others to choose their own path—that’s what liberty is all about. If community service is such a good deal, we should have no trouble persuading people to do it voluntarily. If we can’t convince others that our way is best, maybe we should humbly consider the possibility that it isn’t.”

“A society that says we are defined exclusively by the bar and the nightclub, by self-indulgence and our sense of entitlement, cannot be said to have deep roots or much likelihood of survival. But a society which holds that our culture consists of the cathedral, the playhouse and the playing field, the shopping mall and Shakespeare, has a chance.”

“Where (as today) problems of transportation and communication do not constitute effective limitations on the size of the geographical regions over which self-propagating systems operate, natural selection tends to create a world in which power is mostly concentrated in the possession of a relatively small number of global self-propagating systems.”

“In the short term, natural selection favors self-propagating systems that pursue their own short-term advantage with little or no regard for long-term consequences.”

“Happiness is the indication that man has found the answer to the problem of human existence: the productive realization of his potentialities and thus, simultaneously, being one with the world and preserving the integrity of his self. In spending his energy productively he increases his powers, he "burns without being consumed.“”

“Alone I am a kind of Bukowski cutting the self.”

“So long as a person is capable of self-renewal they are a living being.”

“Self-trust is the first secret of success.”

“A friend is, as it were, a second self.”

“Do not be embarrassed by your mistakes. Nothing can teach us better than our understanding of them. This is one of the best ways of self-education.”

“By going beyond your own problems and taking care of others, you gain inner strength, self-confidence, courage, and a greater sense of calm.”

“With the realization of ones own potential and self-confidence in ones ability, one can build a better world.”

“True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.”

“There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth.”

“Whatever we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Democracy's premise rests on the notion that the collective wisdom of the majority will prove right more often than it's wrong; that given sufficient opportunity in the pursuit of happiness, your population will develop its talents, its intellect, its better judgment; that over time its capacity for discernment and self-correction will be enlarged.”

“Where the self is conceived as prior to its ends, independent of the roles it may occupy at any given time, reputation cannot be a matter of honor in the traditional sense. For the unencumbered self, not honor but dignity is the basis of respect―the dignity that consists in the capacity of persons as autonomous agents to choose their ends for themselves. Unlike honor, which ties respect for persons to the roles they inhabit, dignity resides in a self antecedent to social institutions, and so is invulnerable to injury by insult alone. For selves such as these, reputation matters, not intrinsically, as a matter of honor, but only instrumentally, as a business asset for example.”

“Unlike utilitarianism, republican theory does not take people's existing preferences, whatever they may be, and try to satisfy them. It seeks instead to cultivate in citizens the qualities of character necessary to the common good of self-government. Insofar as certain dispositions, attachments, and commitments are essential to the realization of self-government, republican politics regards moral character as a public, not merely private, concern. In this sense, it attends to the identity, not just the interests, of its citizens.”

“To put the point another way, the republican sees liberty as internally connected to self-government and the civic virtues that sustain it.”

“Diplomacy which does not rest on force is the most feeble and futile of weapons, and except for bare self-defence, we have not the force.”

“Old gods sometimes do that in their retirement. They become galactic social workers, self-appointed do-gooders.”

“Well, it was healthy to miss once in a while. It kept self-confidence balanced at a point safely short of arrogance.”

“How dare you depend only on formal education when you can quadruple your results through constant self-education?”

“Philosophers who function within analytic traditions tend to reflect on the self in a way that unwittingly impoverishes and objectifies self.”

“In this wicked and selfish world, with no essential values… being asshole is self-defense.”

“Armed with Marxist-Leninist theory and ideology, the Communist Party of China has brought a new style of work to the Chinese people, a style of work that essentially entails integrating theory with practice, forging close links with the masses and practicing self-criticism.”

“Apply yourself fully to the introspection offered here. It is good for all seekers... This self-inquiry is your internal work. Internal work – eternal satisfaction. Internal work revealing timeless Self.”

“Self-inquiry begins by looking to discover whether the personal identity, with all its conditioning and idiosyncrasies, is who we truly are. And it ends as a mirror in which the timeless is reflected.”

“Here you are invited into the direct experience of that timeless reality through the method of self-inquiry, which forms the essence of this book.”

“Spirituality is the search for perfect understanding, for Self-discovery, for Truth, and it must take place right where you are. The Truth that you are searching for must already be right here, for it is timelessly present.”

“Our party’s experiences and our revolutionary realities have demonstrated that whenever we firmly maintain a spirit of independence and self-reliance we are able to be creative in our development of policies and directions, and we achieve success.”

“The resilience of democracy lies in its self-cleansing effect. Control and correction are the cleansing agents of democracy. Where they are lacking, democracy dies a silent death.”

“'Our kingdom go' is the necessary and unavoidable corollary of 'Thy kingdom come.' For the more there is of self, the less there is of God.”

“What does the Lord save us from? Sickness, problems, daily life concerns, difficult circumstances that each of us face! These all are part of the salvation because salvation is ultimate and comprehensive. It touches upon the inner self.”

“A good place to start is with yourself. See if you can give yourself gifts that may be true blessings, such as self-acceptance, or some time each day with no purpose. Practice feeling deserving enough to accept these gifts without obligation—to simply receive from yourself, and from the universe.”

“My life it's self is a movie that I must tell through the lens before I die - Edy kasawuli”

“3 Things I Fear The Most:
The fear of losing my self-confidence, fear of losing my prestige and fear of emptiness.”

“Criticism and self-criticism is a kind of method. It is a method of resolving contradictions among the people and it is the only method.”

“Those who have a spark of self-respect left, prefer open defiance, prefer crime to the emaciated, degraded position of poverty.”

“We have become aware of the responsibility for our attitude towards the dark pages in our history. We have understood that bad service is done to the nation by those who are impelling to renounce that past. Such attitude leads to a moral self-destruction.”

“History as inspiration and ideology has a built-in tendency to become self-justifying myth. Nothing is a more dangerous blindfold than this, as the history of modern nations and nationalisms demonstrates.”

“There are four billion people in the world. A world that has grown so complex and uncaring with systems and brutalization of individuals because of the inertia produced by those systems’ perpetuation of self, that merely to live is to be assaulted daily by circumstances.”

“The world is, and has long been, in flames because races, nations and cultures are forced to violate their Nature ordained instincts for self-preservation.”

“In the spiritual world, it's only the self-conscious individual that is considered the greatest and not the conqueror of the world. In reality, conquering temptation is the toughest task among them all.”

“Instead of paying more attention upon self-improvement. Nowadays, people are spending their valuable time to pray for LOVE. These people are similar to children who're trying to hold water firmly into their hands. Which will prove impossible at the end of the day!”

“Self-realisation is the highest knowledge you can ever seek into your life—The rest are simply facts.”

“The policy of self-isolation and continuous silence are the greatest destroyers of marriage and relationship.”

“You must, therefore, know your limits of self-defence; so as not to cross the line of mercy and forgiveness.”

“All self-help authors are like babysitters. Because they have to lead and nurture us until we are mentally fit to accomplish anything in life.”

“I don't care who you are when it comes to self-defence.”

“It's impossible to become an inventor or a genius without self-talk. You just need to control it according to your needs. Explore your imagination.”

“Marriage is about learning to share and step out of your childish world of self-love.”

“Sunrise and sunset are all the same from an observer's point of view. As life is the same at birth and at death. The true Self continues.”

“The only disadvantage of life is to come in contact with someone who does not know when and how to put their self-interest behind the closed doors.”

“The result of a smile on your face is the blinking of the third eye inside. The Higher Self is satisfied.”

“The so-called third eye is not an eye in itself, but a gateway to infinity or self-realisation.”

“There is no inspiration without being armed with the ability of self-talk.”

“While the Father is self-dependent, the son is completely dependent upon the Father.”

“Nothing is more important than self-respect in our life. It hurts a lot if someone hurts our self-respect. It seems as if we have no value in their eyes, we are torn apart completely and we separate ourselves from the world, but still our self-respect does not allow us to live peacefully throughout life.”

“If you want to be respected by others the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.”

“We are all a beautiful jumble of layers, parts, and mixtures of experiences, but my most important part, and in my opinion everyone's most valuable part, is the one that chooses self-love instead of self-harm in the grand sweeping ways but also the little ways every single day.”

“The atonement requires constant self-immolation on the sinner's part.”

“The gift of oneself to God is always the gift of oneself to all; to give oneself to God − though it were hidden from all − is to give oneself to man, for this gift of self has a sacrificial value of an incalculable radiance.”

“Without fear of God as a basis, nothing is possible spiritually, for the absence of fear is a lack of self-knowledge.”

“Maitreya says 'To get rid of war is not so difficult. It's really very simple. You just have to have a change of heart. That's all. You just have to change your heart.' Send it out to be cleaned...dry cleaned heart... you have to look at life differently. You have to look at your self differently to understand what we're here, what we're here for, why we're in incarnation at all....”

“Beyond a given point man is not helped by more "knowing", but only by living and doing in a partly self-forgetful way.”

“We live in a self-defeating culture that pays lip service to heroic action in times of crisis, yet brutally punishes the very kind of snap judgments and instant security profiling that make such heroism possible in the first place.”

“Man is a self-conscious Nothing.”

“Charity should be self-sustainable. That is, it should create more wealth rather than perpetuating the cycle of poverty and dependence. In this sense, the best form of charity would be providing quality education for children and more importantly, building a good character in them.”

“Self-promotion is self-defeating. No matter how brilliant an individual, one becomes instinctively "leery" when he toots his own horn.”

“An action is morally good which aids or promotes this unfolding of self and it is morally bad if it inhibits or destroys the process. It, of course, goes without saying that this does not include one's own rise at the expense of another.”

“[C]osmetic surgery is slowly shifting from being a procedure that people gossip about to being a commonplace tool for self-improvement.”

“I think anybody who gets to that stage in reality is so beyond self-loathing. If you hate yourself, well, then you're going to turn some of that hatred on the world around you.”

“Losing the human form brings the freedom to remember your self. Losing the human form is like a spiral. It gives you the freedom to remember and this in turn makes you even freer.”