Quotes about yourself
page 40

“Conflict is an opportunity to become clear about yourself and your values and beliefs and desires. Conflict is the perfect breeding ground for authenticity. Every time a conflict arises, we can see it as an alarm bell that tells us… Here is an opportunity to really know yourself.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Time, Perfection

“I have been a vegetarian for more than 40 years and, five years ago, I became a vegan. There are many wonderful gifts that have come out of this way of life. First, not only is it easier to maintain your ideal weight, but physical exercise turns out to be much more joyful, while raising metabolism and in turn making it easier to achieve your desired figure. Most importantly, your zest for life is enhanced … You have more energy, which makes you feel more at ease and puts you in a better mood. … Above all, it is a huge relief to get rid of the misery and torment of the slaughtered animals you otherwise would have eaten and to experience yourself in a free and peaceful manner. … We can meditate and pray for peace, and we can also eat peace. One does not exclude the other; on the contrary, a balanced vegetarian diet promotes deeper meditation which again enhances inner peace which, in my opinion, is a mandatory requirement for external peace.”

Ruediger Dahlke (1951) German physician and writer

" "Peace-Food – Eating Peace" https://www.dahlke.at/images/buecher/PeaceFood_eng_2015.pdf (2015) from his official website.

Life, Making love, Peace, Way

“We have been raised in a primitive society that thinks of destiny in these terms: What SHOULD I do with my life? It is time that we graduate to higher understanding. The higher understanding is that "should" is not a concept which exists within this universe. Your destiny is instead encoded in these words: What do I WANT to do with my life? What fills me with PASSION? What causes me to feel JOY? Answer these questions for yourself and you've started on the path of your destiny.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

instagram

Life, Feeling, Understanding, Question

“I really love Thijs Maris and his works possess for me a peculiar charm.. .You will certainly love Thijs Maris yourself and then you know.. ..how lovely it is to walk along in his childlike ardour.”

Jan Mankes (1889–1920) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek

(original Dutch: citaat van Jan Mankes, in het Nederlands:) Ik houd van Thijs Maris en zijn dingen bezitten voor mij een eigenaardige bekooring.. .U zult zelf zeker van Thijs Maris houden en dan weet u.. ..hoe heerlijk het is mee te leven in zijn [Thijs!] kinderlijke innigheid.

In his letter to artist and art-critic Augustine Obreen, 16/19 June 1915; as cited in Jan Mankes – in woord en beeld, ed. Sjoerd van Faassen; Museum Bèlvédère, Heerenveen, 2015 ISBN 1877-0983, n. 22, p. 26
1915 - 1920

Love, Making love

“You are a beautiful person, Doctor. Clearheaded. Strong. But you seem always to be dragging your heart along the ground. From now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. If you devote all of your future energy to living, you will not be able to die well. You must begin to shift gears, a little at a time. Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

"Thailand", from After the Quake (1999)

Death, Beauty, Sense, Strong

“I think the biggest challenge for people is to understand still that we are result of 500 years of enslavement. And that the process of education has been one to erase us. And it can erase you intellectually and convince you that you don’t exist. So it doesn’t matter the color you are phenotypically, you don’t see yourself. And the challenge is for us to see ourselves as rooted in one experience…”

Marta Moreno Vega (1942) Author, professor, arts administrator, expert in Yoruba culture, education and cultural activist on the African …

On the challenges facing a diaspora community in “The boundaries of how we think of the Global African Diaspora: AN INTERVIEW WITH Dr. Marta Moreno Vega” https://africasacountry.com/2018/04/the-boundaries-of-how-we-think-of-the-global-african-diaspora in Africa is a County (2018 Apr 5)

People, Education, Color, Understanding

“It’s the journey of digging deep into yourself and the things you discover if you only dare to dig deep into your memories, your relationship, and your thoughts. It’s been such an incredible journey, but thank goodness I was not alone in it. So many people feeding me, listening to me, editing, hosting me—so it’s not been alone.”

Clemantine Wamariya (1988) Rwandan-American activist and author

On her book The Girl Who Smiled Beads in “A Conversation with Clemantine Wamariya https://www.readitforward.com/author-interview/clemantine-wamariya/” in Read it Forward (2017)

People, Memory

“The first thing that begins to happen when you begin taking yourself seriously as a writer is this imaginary writer’s block that people talk about, but I never really suffered from. But there’s this barrier between the spoken word and the written word, once you set something down in writing it’s supposed to be set in stone or you take on this funny attitude that writing is unnatural…”

Frank Chin (1940) American writer

On the writing process in ““FRANK CHIN: HIS OWN VOICE” https://resisters.com/by-frank-abe/frank-chin-his-own-voice/ in the Bloombury Review (September 1991)

People, Suffering

“I found that being pregnant was different from how I thought it would be…It shares a lot in common with writing in a way. You have an imaginary version of yourself pregnant, and an imaginary baby, an imaginary idea of yourself as a mother…”

Jackie Kay (1961) Poet and novelist

On correlating motherhood with writing in “Jackie Kay: Interview” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7800799/Jackie-Kay-Interview.html in The Telegraph (2010 Jun 5)

Way, Idea, Baby

“They’re supposed to be the people who support you, who love you no matter what, and the reality is they’re the first people who teach you to cast doubt on yourself, they’re the first people who sometimes don’t have your back…”

Laila Lalami (1968) American writer

On families not always being a bedrock of support in “Migrant State of Mind: A Q&A With Novelist Laila Lalami” https://www.thenation.com/article/laila-lalami-interview-the-other-americans/ in The Nation (2019 Apr 23)

Love, People, Making love, Support

“Critical Path is a way to dig yourself out from all that misinformation.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Buckminster Fuller Talks Politics (1982)

Way

“I think it means where the artist doesn’t necessarily have a full understanding of something, but they have deep empathy. They have some kind of amazing empathy with the characters in the world. I just think it means being openhearted and generous. I think that to be a conscious person is to sort through stuff in order to understand not just yourself but how you feel in the world.”

Hilton Als (1961) writer, critic

On how he defines “soulful” in “Hilton Als on What It Means to Be Hopeful, Despite the World” https://lithub.com/hilton-als-on-what-it-means-to-be-hopeful-despite-the-world/ in LitHub (2015 Dec 16)

World, Feeling, Understanding, Thinking

“She accepted that—not reconciled: accepted-- as though there is a breathing-point in outrage where you can accept it almost with gratitude since you can say to yourself, Thank God that is all; at least I know it all.”

William Faulkner book Absalom, Absalom!

Absalom, Absalom! (1936)

God, Gratitude

“Do not try to irritate me. I am but the instrument of a higher Power, used to enlighten you. Insult fate and it will revenge itself, well knowing how. I merely interpret its moves. Do not fling at me the wrath which will recoil on yourself, for you can not visit on me the woes of which I am the sinister herald.”

Alessandro Cagliostro (1743–1795) Italian occultist

Balsamo the Magician (or The Memoirs of a Physician) by Alex. Dumas (1891)

Fate, Revenge

“When it comes to bodies, there is violence done every day. I did not think of body horror as a sub-genre when writing it, but I think the body is a source of great anxiety to each of us. So you shave (legs, armpits, or chin), taking a blade to yourself; perhaps you exercise, causing yourself pain; perhaps you fast or diet, denying yourself; perhaps your job means you have to stay awake. If you think about it, life itself consists of low-levels of body horror all the time. To write fiction, we just exaggerate some of what happens naturally…”

Tade Thompson British science fiction writer

On body horror in “Interview: Tade Thompson” http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-tade-thompson/ in Lightspeed Magazine (October 2017)

Life, Pain, Exercises, Nature

“Time was when men of Horse Watson’s profession typically never slept sober, and died with their livers eroded. It must have been fun to watch the literate swashbucklers make fools of themselves in the frontier saloons, indulging in horsewhippings and shoot-outs with rival journalists and their partisans. But who stopped to think what it was to have the power of words and publication, to discover that an entire town and territory would judge, condemn, act, reprieve and glorify because of something you had slugged together the night before? Because of something you had handset into type, smudging your fingertips with metal poisons that inexorably began their journey through your bloodstream? For the sake of the power, you turned your liver and kidneys into spongy, irascible masses; you tainted the tissue of your brain with heavy metal ions until it became a house haunted by stumbling visions. Alcohol would temporarily overcome the effect. So you became an alcoholic, and purchased sanity one day at a time, and made a spectacle of yourself. It was neither funny nor tragic in the end—it was simply a fact of life that operated more slowly on the mediocre, because the mediocre could turn themselves off and go to sleep whether they had done the night’s job to their own satisfaction or not.”

Algis Budrys book Michaelmas

Source: Michaelmas (1977), Chapter 3 (pp. 36-37)

Life, Men, Alcohol, Making love

“Shrimati Sonia Gandhi also issued an appeal a few days ago. Is it a coincidence that your appeal is reinforcing exactly the same? Can you vouch it for yourself and the other signatories that none has ever been a beneficiary of Congress’s alms? And that none of you have any vested interest, no political agenda? And no one is firing from your shoulders? If not, where was the need to get organized and send an appeal in such a hurry? Did you send this mail to all listed film professionals or just to those who you knew will sign blindly?”

Vivek Agnihotri (1973) director

Urban Naxals (2018)

“There are never any occasions when you need think yourself safe because you wield the weapons of Fortune; fight with your own! Fortune does not furnish arms against herself; hence men equipped against their foes are unarmed against Fortune herself.”

Posidonius (-135–-51 BC) ancient greek philosopher

As quoted in Epistulae morales ad Lucilium by Seneca, Epistle CXIII (trans. R. M. Gummere)

Men, Thinking, Fight

“This self-analysis is one of the most important magic preliminaries. Many of the occult systems have neglected it, and that is why they did not achieve good results. This psychic preliminary work is indispensable to obtain the magic equilibrium, and without it, there is no regular progress of the development to be thought of. Therefore you ought to devote some minutes’ time to self-criticism in the morning and at night. If you have got the chance of some free moments during the day, avail yourself of them and do some intensive thinking...”

Franz Bardon book Initiation Into Hermetics

Source: Initiation Into Hermetics (1956), p. 36

Thinking, Chance, Time, Self-confidence

“In the first days of psychic training, let us deal with the practical part of introspection or self-knowledge. Arrange for a magic diary and enter all the bad sides of your soul into it. This diary is for your own use only, and must not be shown to anybody else. It represents the so-called control book for you. In the self-control of your failures, habits, passions, instincts and other ugly character traits, you have to observe a hard and severe attitude towards yourself. Be merciless towards yourself and do not embellish any of your failures and deficiencies. Think about yourself in quiet meditation, put yourself back into different situations of your past and remember how you behaved then and what mistakes or failures occurred in the various situations. Make notes of all your weaknesses, down to the finest nuances and variations. The more you are discovering, all the better for you. Nothing must remain hidden, nothing unrevealed, however insignificant or great your faults or frailties may be...”

Franz Bardon book Initiation Into Hermetics

Source: Initiation Into Hermetics (1956), p. 35

Bad luck, Books, Making love, Soul

“We keep acting without thinking and you think the solution is to do it one more time. You have allied yourself with stupid, violent men, and you are trying to convince yourself that being stupid and violent will work. That makes you stupid too. I will never help you. I’ll fight you now.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Abaddon's Gate (2013), Chapter 39 (p. 404)

Men, Stupidity, Making love, Thinking

“There’s no diploma in the world that declares you as an artist. It’s not like becoming a doctor or something. You can declare yourself an artist and then figure out how to be an artist.”

Kara Walker (1969) African American artist

On becoming an artist in “‘There’s No Diploma in the World That Declares You an Artist’: Watch Kara Walker Lay Out Her Advice for Art Students” https://news.artnet.com/art-world/watch-kara-walker-art-21-1316030 in artnetnews (2018 Jul 12)

World

“For in truth it is life that gives unto life-while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.”

Khalil Gibran book The Prophet

The Prophet (1923)

Life, Truth

“If you can give someone the pleasure of not liking you, maybe that’s as valid as the pleasure of liking you, some people want to assert themselves by showing the things they don’t like. It’s a form of positioning yourself. We all do that. I get it. But I’m more focused on the people who do like what we do, and there’s a few of them. I like hanging out with those people. If you ever liked Coldplay, then we’re going to really deliver on our promise over the next year or so. It’s not guarded music. It’s about very open things and that might not resonate with some people. But I don’t want to obscure our music behind coolness or cynicism just to avoid criticisms. Because for some people it really connects, and I need it, too.”

Chris Martin (1977) musician, co-founder of Coldplay

On interview with Wall Street Journal, 2015. source http://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/coldplay-and-chris-martin-open-up-for-new-album-1447868383

People, Pleasure, Music

“Everybody pick us for sixth place this year. The best way to prove to yourself this wrong is for Pirates to bounce back—to fight hard. I know something inside me explode when things are tough so I can do better.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Speaking with reporters on April 9, 1962 at F.O.E.'s Welcome Home Dinner; as quoted in "Sidelights on Sports" by Al Abrams, in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Wednesday, April 11, 1962), p. 24
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>

Way, Fight

“All across the world, humanity knows you’re the enemy. We’re gonna get you assholes, just know that. It doesn’t mean we’re perfect but we’re not out to screw women and children and hurt people. You understand that, assholes? You hate humanity because you project your own hatred of yourself on us, assholes. You want to kill us, how about you die?! Kill your fucking selves you fucking globalists!… Fuck yeah, fuck them! I’m sick of their shit, I don’t fucking care anymore!”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

"Alex Jones' Profanity Laced Rant, Loses $5M. Response to Being Banned from AdRoll, Google!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSEnb8d7igk, Studious Dunce, February 21 2017 2017

Women, Hate, Children, People

“You know, yourself—Walter Johnson. The only way you could hit him was to poke the ball. I used to wait for his curve. Used to kid him by standing up straight with the bat leaning against my hip.”

Joe Jackson (1887–1951) American baseball player

When asked to name the best pitcher he ever faced; as quoted in "Twelve Years After White Sox Scandal..."

Way, Waiting

“One of the big features of living alone was that you could talk to yourself all you wanted and address imaginary audiences, running the gamut of emotion.”

Mary McCarthy book The Group

Source: The Group (1963), Ch. 8

“Loyalty to a side, he said, had been instilled in him by his southern mother, but he now thought you had to be loyal to all sides, to the truth as you saw it, which, when you came down to it, meant being loyal to yourself.”

Mary McCarthy book A Charmed Life

Warren in Ch. 2, pp. 535–536
A Charmed Life (1955)

Truth, Loyalty

“Look upon and treat others as you do your own hands, your own eyes, your very heart and soul—with infinite care and compassion—as suffering and enjoying members of the same Great Being with yourself. This is the spirit of the ideal universe—the spirit of your own being. It is this alone that can redeem this world, and give to it the peace and harmony for which it longs.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

"Conclusion", p. 327
The Universal Kinship (1906), The Ethical Kinship

World, Peace, Soul, Suffering

“And what is it to act upon others as you would that others would act upon you? It is to put yourself in the place of others. It is consideration of others as ardent as consideration of self. It is the balancing of abilities, supplementation, the social ideal.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Social Ideal, p. 164

Self-confidence

“Our democracy is not in peril—we do not live in a democracy. The image of our democracy is in peril. The deep state—the generals, bankers, corporatists, lobbyists, intelligence chiefs, government bureaucrats and technocrats—is intent on salvaging the brand. It is hard to trumpet yourself as the world’s guardian of freedom and liberty with Donald Trump blathering on incoherently about himself, inciting racist violence, insulting our traditional allies along with the courts, the press and Congress, tweeting misspelled inanities and impulsively denouncing or sabotaging bipartisan domestic and foreign policy.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

"The Enemy Within" (2019)

World, Democracy, Intelligence, Freedom

“Of course, the only way to recognize development, especially in yourself, is to see results.”

Jakub Tencl (1978) Czech clinical hypnotherapist and writer

Source: The mystery of life : you are the light, and that's indestructible truth, Tencl, Jakub,, 9781512399882, [United Kingdom? https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/914353319,, 914353319]

Way

“Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance

World

“Clean yourself off, take a shower!”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

“Dry yourself off, clean yourself off!”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

“The desire to continue to feel yourself guilty arguably finds its endpoint in modern European liberal societies: the first societies in human history who, when they are hit, ask what they did to deserve it. Unassuageable historical guilt carries over into the present.”

Douglas Murray (1979) British political commentator and far-right activist

The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (2017)

Feeling, History

“At the end of the day, nothing matters more than protecting our way of life - one that features being the captain of your own life, being free to choose your own faith, being free to express yourself, and being free from coercion.”

Hsu Szu-chien Taiwanese politician

Hsu Szu-chien (2019) cited in " Dr. Szu-chien Hsu Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Republic of China (Taiwan) Remarks https://www.csis.org/analysis/dr-szu-chien-hsu-deputy-minister-foreign-affairs-republic-china-taiwan-remarks" on Center for Strategies & International Studies, 10 June 2019.

Life, Faith, Way

“You and I are One — Whoever, whatever, wherever you are, tread the divine water of cleanliness which is detachment. I have not come to teach you anything new. Be honest to yourself, sincere to yourself, and be detached. This method is so simple, so sweet, it is free from religions, ideologies, politics. It makes one experience who one is. Fulfill your role, yet be free.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Maitreya's Teachings - The Laws of Life (2005)

Making love, Religion, Water, Sincerity

“For too long, gentlemen by way of abuses that one can never too strongly accuse of having taken pace because of our lack of underrstanding and ignorance - for every long time, I say - we have been victims of your greed and your avarice. Under the blows of your barbarous whip we have accumulated for you the treasures you enjoy in this colony; the human race has suffered to asee with what barbarity you have treated men like yourself…”

Toussaint Louverture (1743–1803) Leader of the Haitian Revolution

Letter to the General Assembly (1792)

Men, Way, Suffering, Time

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

The Writing Life (1989)

Peace, Time

“Arrest each unloving thought; stamp out each critical action, and teach yourself to love all beings - not in theory but in deed and in truth.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: "Discipleship in the New Age" (1944), p. 475

Love, Truth, Making love

“We have become victims of our own art. We touch people on the outsides of their bodies, and they us, but we cannot get at their insides and cannot reveal our insides to them. This is one of the great tragedies of our interiority—it is utterly personal and unrevealable. Often we want to say something unusually intimate to a spouse, a parent, a friend, communicate something of how we are really feeling about a sunset, who we really feel we are—only to fall strangely and miserably flat. Once in a great while we succeed, sometimes more with one person, less or never with others. But the occasional breakthrough only proves the rule. You reach out with a disclosure, fail, and fall back bitterly into yourself.”

Ernest Becker (1924–1974) American anthropologist

Source: The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man (1962), p. 27

People, Art, Feeling, Communication

“In Philistia to make literature and to make trouble for yourself are synonyms,… the tumblebug explained.”

James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) American author

I know, for already we of Philistia have been pestered by three of these makers of literature. Yes, there was Edgar, whom I starved and hunted until I was tired of it: then I chased him up a back alley one night, and knocked out those annoying brains of his. And there was Walt, whom I chivvied and battered from place to place, and made a paralytic of him: and him, too, I labelled offensive and lewd and lascivious and indecent. Then later there was Mark, whom I frightened into disguising himself in a clown's suit, so that nobody might suspect him to be a maker of literature: indeed, I frightened him so that he hid away the greater part of what he had made until after he was dead, and I could not get at him. That was a disgusting trick to play on me, I consider. Still, these are the only three detected makers of literature that have ever infested Philistia, thanks be to goodness and my vigilance, but for both of which we might have been no more free from makers of literature than are the other countries.…
The Judging of Jurgen (1920)

Making love, Literature

“What gays and lesbians have to teach other Americans is that morality is how you live and how you conduct yourself, not what you happen to be.”

Michael Nava (1954) American writer

Source: Non-fiction, Created equal: Why gay rights matter to America (1994), p.142

“Neglect not your time, nor use it haphazardly; on the contrary, you should bring yourself to account. Structure your litanies and other practices during each day and night. This is how to bring about spiritual blessing in each period. If each of your breaths is a priceless jewel, be not like the deceived fools who are joyous because of each day their wealth increases while their life grows ever shorter.”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

Life, Fools, Time, Night

“Clothe yourself with a hero’s courage, and withdraw for a little space from the opinions of the common man. Form a proper conception of the image of virtue, a thing of exceeding beauty and grandeur; this image is not to be worshipped by us with incense or garlands, but with sweat and blood.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXVII: On Ill-Health and Endurance of Suffering

Beauty, Courage, Clothes

“For what else are you busied with except improving yourself every day, laying aside some error, and coming to understand that the faults which you attribute to circumstances are in yourself?”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter L: On Our Blindness and Its Cure

Error, Understanding, Business

“I don’t usually talk much about this, Chester, because my grandfather dinned it into me as a child that it doesn’t make any difference who you’re descended from unless you can do something yourself to match what your ancestors did to gain their own notoriety.”

John Brunner book Timescoop

Source: Timescoop (1969), Chapter 2 (p. 18)

Making love

“Jungs! Opfert euch nicht! Der krieg ist doch scheiße, Hitler ist ein idiot! (message in a pro-allied propaganda broadcast) Translation: Boy! Do not sacrifice yourself! The war is but shit, Hitler is an idiot!”

Marlene Dietrich (1901–1992) German-American actress and singer

Marlene Dietrich: Life and Legend https://books.google.com/books?id=MahIKu7q9X0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Marlene+Dietrich:+Life+and+Legend&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-8OTo5P3YAhUMIcAKHbcdBp4Q6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

War, Boy

“ICELANDER: Thus I reply to you. I am well aware you did not make the world for the service of men. It were easier to believe that you made it expressly as a place of torment for them. But tell me: why am I here at all? Did I ask to come into the world? Or am I here unnaturally, contrary to your will? If however, you yourself have placed me here, without giving me the power of acceptance or refusal of this gift of life, ought you not as far as possible to try and make me happy, or at least preserve me from the evils and dangers, which render my sojourn a painful one? And what I say of myself, I say of the whole human race, and of every living creature.”

Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837) Italian poet, philosopher and writer

Essays and Dialogues (1882), Dialogue between Nature and an Icelander

Life, Men, Pain, Happiness

“You should not remain in your comfort zone; if you want to make it big, you must challenge yourself, get out of your comfort zone, and succeed in doing well outside of your comfort areas.”

Rohit Sharma (1987) Indian cricketer

I am strong enough to bounce back, says Rohit Sharma, NDTV Sports, 4 December 2012 https://sports.ndtv.com/cricket/i-am-strong-enough-to-bounce-back-says-rohit-sharma-1544263,

Making love

“Be something, be yourself; if not, ]then] throw your palette in the fire. Form a school if you wish, but it must come from the inside of you, but you yourself may not belong to any school.”

Paul Gabriël (1828–1903) painter (1828-1903)

translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek version in original Dutch / citaat van Paul Gabriël, in Nederlands: Wees wat, weest U zelve, zoo niet gooi uw palet in ’t vuur. Vormt een school zoo ge wilt, maar het moet uit U komen, maar gij zelve mag tot geen school behooren. In a letter of Gabriël, Brussel (14 Oct. 1879), to his student then Willem Bastiaan Tholen; in Gabriël, P.J.C, ed. Jeltes, H.F.W.; Gebroeders Binger, Amsterdam 1926; as cited in an excerpt of RKD Archive, The Hague https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/136 1860's + 1870's

School

“In Spain there are countless thousands of mothers like yourself who never had a fair shake in life. Their whole existence has been one of trying to get enough food to stay alive for another day. One day these people did something about that. They got together and elected a government that really gave some meaning to their lives and promised to make it so that the millions of mothers like you would never again have to bend their knees and beg to exist in a world that had plenty for everyone.”

Bill Bailey (Spanish Civil War veteran) (1910–1995) American labor activist

The Kid from Hoboken: An Autobiography by Bill Bailey (1993)

Life, People, World, Making love

“I know there are people in this room who go to school every day and get treated like shit for no reason. Or you go home and you feel like you can’t tell your parents the whole truth about yourself. Beyond putting yourself in one box or another, you worry about the future. About college or work or even your physical safety. Trying to create that mental picture of your life—of what on earth is going to happen to you—can crush you a little bit every day. It is toxic and painful and deeply unfair.”

Ellen Page (1987) Canadian actress

Coming Out Speech (2014)

Life, Pain, People, Truth

“You have to pinch yourself to remember how young he is, to be honest, because in the way he presents himself, the way he drives the car and then tells you about the car in his feedback in the debriefs and so forth, he has a much older pair of shoulders on him than is apparent.”

Sebastian Vettel (1987) German racing driver in Formula 1

Adrian Newey http://www.espn.co.uk/formula1/sport/story/17810.html
About Sebastian

Cars, Way

“A doctor must work eighteen hours a day and seven days a week. If you cannot console yourself to this, get out of the profession.”

Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962) American university teacher (1879-1962)

Fischerisms (1944)

“The danger, I suppose, of using pseudonyms is that it interferes with that desirable process—the unification of the personality. Goethe said that even the writing of plays, dividing the imagination up among different fictional personalities, damaged what he valued — the mind’s wholeness. I wonder what he meant exactly, since he also described his mode of thinking as imagined conversations with various people. Maybe the pseudonyms, like other personalities conjured up in a dramatic work, can be a preliminary stage of identifying and exploring new parts of yourself. Then the next stage would be to incorporate them in the unifying process. Accept responsibility for them. Maybe that’s what Yeats meant by seeking his opposite. The great Sufi master Ibn el-Arabi described the essential method of spiritual advancement as an inner conversation with the personalities that seem to exist beyond what you regard as your own limits... getting those personalities to tell you what you did not know, or what you could not easily conceive of within your habitual limits. This is commonplace in some therapies, of course.”

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) English poet and children's writer

The Paris Review interview

People, Imagination, Thinking, Parting

“I’ve been travelling a lot. My boyfriend and I, we just went to Santa Fe. You know, the one named after the gay saint. Has anybody ever been to Santa Fe? …did you know it was a desert? I didn’t know it was a desert. Hated it! People had been telling me for years, if you’re an artist, a non-conformist, come to Santa Fe! I mean, it’s the place you can be yourself! The light, the light, you can paint here! You can live here, the space, the sky! – The fucking dust! I was doing an AIDS benefit there – like what else do I do with my life?”

Harvey Fierstein (1954) actor from the United States

and I said, look, I’m a guest here, you’re paying for the hotel, I don’t mean to insult nobody, but I got a little suggestion for you. If I was yaz, I’d take a hose, hook it up to Colorado, and water this fucking place!
This Is Not Going to Be Pretty, Live at the Bottom Line (1995)

Life, Hate, People, Travel

“When people are content, they are difficult to maneuver. We are perennially discontent and offered placebos as remedies. My intention in writing this book is to make you feel better, to offer you a solution to the way you feel. I am confident that this is necessary. When do you ever meet people that are happy? Genuinely happy? Only children, the mentally ill, and daytime television presenters. My belief is that it is possible to feel happier, because I feel better than I used to. I am beginning to understand where the solution lies, primarily because of an exhausting process of trial and mostly error. My qualification to write a book on how to change yourself and change the world is not that I’m better than you, it’s that I’m worse. Not that I’m smarter, but that I’m dumber: I bought the lie hook, line, and sinker. My only quality has been an unwitting momentum, a willingness to wade through the static dissatisfaction that has been piped into my mind from the moment I learned language. What if that feeling of inadequacy, isolation, and anxiety isn’t just me? What if it isn’t internally engineered but the result of concerted effort, the product of a transmission? An ongoing broadcast from the powerful that has colonized my mind? Who is it in here, inside your mind, reading these words, feeling that fear? Is there an awareness, an exempt presence, gleaming behind the waterfall of words that commentate on every event, label every object, judge everyone you come into contact with? And is there another way to feel? Is it possible to be in this world and feel another way? Can you conceive, even for a moment, of a species similar to us but a little more evolved, that have transcended the idea that solutions to the way we feel can be externally acquired? What would that look like? How would that feel—to be liberated from the bureaucracy of managing your recalcitrant mind. Is it possible that there is a conspiracy to make us feel this way?”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Happiness, Children, People, Lie

“How you would watch her, spaniel-like, to anticipate her slightest wish! How proud you were to do her bidding! How delightful it was to be ordered about by her! To devote your whole life to her and to never think of yourself seemed such a simple thing. You would go without a holiday to lay a humble offering at her shrine, and felt more than repaid if she only deigned to accept it.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Life, Thinking, Holiday

“Tattoos are cool because they don’t belong on your body, but you put it there to say something about yourself. Much like my rolls of fat. That shit does not belong on a human body. And I put it there to say something about me. I don’t like fruit. I don’t like it! Long bike ride? I’m out. Hot dog eating contest? I’m listening.”

Dave Attell (1965) comedian

"Skanks for the Memories"

Dogs, Tattoo

“The ki of the universe is absolute. There is no such thing as strong ki verses weak ki. Correctly speaking, ki is strong only because it is strongly extended, weak only when it is not extended strongly. There is no limit to how strong your ki can become if you train yourself to extend ki strongly.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

31
Ki Sayings (2003)

Strong, Universe, Training

“You are not here merely to prepare to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

“Ideals of College” http://books.google.com/books?id=_VYEIml1cAkC&pg=PA15&dq=%22You+are+not+here+merely%22, Swarthmore (25 October 1913) 1910s

World, Making love, Hope, Forgetting

“Peter Newman: Go fuck yourself. Thank you. Good night.”

Brian Mulroney (1939) 18th Prime Minister of Canada

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfGx39FnlJU

Night

“Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a fake messiah.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)

“Provide yourself with shrewdness.”

Erik Satie (1866–1925) French composer and pianist

Munissez-vous de clairvoyance.
Piano works

“All the energy that you spend, trying to hurt somebody else, that energy will turn around and slap you in the face. The same thing is true, Love, what I know is that the energy that put out everyday with the best of intentions that it would reach you where you really live in heart of yourself has come back to me from all of you in full force.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

So that what we've learnt on this show; You are responsible for your life and when you get that, everything changes, my friends. So don't wait for somebody else to fix you, to save you or complete you...
"Oprah Winfrey Show Finale" in CBS (25 May 2011)

Love, Making love, Heart, Hurt

“The only emotions that you can heal are the ones that you let yourself feel and express.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Feeling

“We like to tell the lie that when we love someone else, we are doing it for them. We aren't. Love is selfish. It is the most selfish act in the world. It is selfish because it is the most beneficial thing in the world to YOU. Because of this, it should not wait. Do not wait for someone to give you love, for you to love them. Be selfish and love people without reservation. Love makes you whole. Love fulfills you. Love will strike fear from the record of your soul. What a gift to allow yourself to become whole, fulfilled and fearless.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Love, People, Lie, World

“Don’t lie to yourself with affirmations. Don’t lie to the world by pretending to be who you want to be whilst rejecting who you are in this moment. You only want to be different than who you really are because long ago, someone rejected the truth of you and you have been trying to mold yourself into something false so as to be accepted ever since.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

tealswan.com/quotes

Truth, Lie, World, Falseness

“Don’t fool yourself that you are going to have it all. You are not. Psychologically, having it all is not even a valid concept. The marvelous thing about human beings is that we are perpetually reaching for the stars. The more we have, the more we want. And for this reason, we never have it all.”

Joyce Brothers (1927–2013) Joyce Brothers

The Successful Woman : How You Can Have a Career, a Husband, and a Family — and Not Feel Guilty About It (1988), p. 18

Fools, Star

“You like to imagine yourself in control of your fate, consciously planning the course of your life as best you can. But you are largely unaware of how deeply your emotions dominate you. They make you veer toward ideas that soothe your ego. They make you look for evidence that confirms what you already want to believe. They make you see what you want to see, depending on your mood, and this disconnect from reality is the source of the bad decisions and negative patterns that haunt your life. Rationality is the ability to counteract these emotional effects, to think instead of react, to open your mind to what is really happening, as opposed to what you are feeling. It does not come naturally; it is a power we must cultivate, but in doing so we realize our greatest potential.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 1 : Master Your Emotional Self
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Life, Fate, Bad luck, Making love

“The first step, then, is the most important: to realize you have a remarkable social tool that you are not cultivating. The best way to see this is to try it out. Stop your incessant interior monologue and pay deeper attention to people. Attune yourself to the shifting moods of individuals and the group. Get a read on each person’s particular psychology and what motivates them. Try to take their perspective, enter their world and value system. You will suddenly become aware of an entire world of nonverbal behavior you never knew existed, as if your eyes could now suddenly see ultraviolet light. Once you sense this power, you will feel its importance and awaken to new social possibilities.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 2 : Transform Self-love into Empathy
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

People, World, Way, Behavior

“People tend to wear the mask that shows them off in the best possible light—humble, confident, diligent. They say the right things, smile, and seem interested in our ideas. They learn to conceal their insecurities and envy. If we take this appearance for reality, we never really know their true feelings, and on occasion we are blindsided by their sudden resistance, hostility, and manipulative actions. Fortunately, the mask has cracks in it. People continually leak out their true feelings and unconscious desires in the nonverbal cues they cannot completely control—facial expressions, vocal inflections, tension in the body, and nervous gestures. You must master this language by transforming yourself into a superior reader of men and women. Armed with this knowledge, you can take the proper defensive measures. On the other hand, since appearances are what people judge you by, you must learn how to present the best front and play your role to maximum effect.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 3 : See Through People’s Masks
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Women, Men, Hostility, People

“Your task as a student of human nature is twofold: First, you must understand and accept the theatrical quality of life. You do not moralize and rail against the role-playing and the wearing of masks so essential to smooth social functioning. In fact, your goal is to play your part on the stage of life with consummate skill, attracting attention, dominating the limelight, and making yourself into a sympathetic hero or heroine. Second, you must not be naive and mistake people’s appearances for reality. You are not blinded by people’s acting skills. You transform yourself into a master decoder of their true feelings, working on your observation skills and practicing them as much as you can in daily life.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 3 : See Through People’s Masks
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Life, People, Making love, Feeling

“When choosing people to work and associate with, do not be mesmerized by their reputation or taken in by the surface image they try to project. Instead, train yourself to look deep within them and see their character. People’s character is formed in their earliest years and by their daily habits. It is what compels them to repeat certain actions in their lives and fall into negative patterns. Look closely at such patterns and remember that people never do something just once. They will inevitably repeat their behavior. Gauge the relative strength of their character by how well they handle adversity, their ability to adapt and work with other people, their patience and ability to learn. Always gravitate toward those who display signs of strength, and avoid the many toxic types out there. Know thoroughly your own character so you can break your compulsive patterns and take control of your destiny.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 4 : Determine the Strength of People’s Character
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

People, Behavior, Gauge, Learning

“Absence and presence have very primal effects upon us. Too much presence suffocates; a degree of absence spurs our interest. We are marked by the continual desire to possess what we do not have—the object projected by our fantasies. Learn to create some mystery around you, to use strategic absence to make people desire your return, to want to possess you. Dangle in front of others what they are missing most in life, what they are forbidden to have, and they will go crazy with desire. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Overcome this weakness in yourself by embracing your circumstances, your fate.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 5 : Become an Elusive Object of Desire
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Life, Fate, People, Making love

“It is in the animal part of your nature to be most impressed by what you can see and hear in the present—the latest news reports and trends, the opinions and actions of the people around you, whatever seems the most dramatic. This is what makes you fall for alluring schemes that promise quick results and easy money. This is also what makes you overreact to present circumstances—becoming overly exhilarated or panicky as events turn one direction or the other. Learn to measure people by the narrowness or breadth of their vision; avoid entangling yourself with those who cannot see the consequences of their actions, who are in a continual reactive mode. They will infect you with this energy. Your eyes must be on the larger trends that govern events, on that which is not immediately visible. Never lose sight of your long-term goals. With an elevated perspective, you will have the patience and clarity to reach almost any objective.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 6 : Elevate Your Perspective
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Money, People, Making love, Nature

“Your task as a student of human nature is to recognize and examine the dark side of your character. Once subjected to conscious scrutiny, it loses its destructive power. If you can learn to detect the signs of it in yourself (see the following sections for help on this), you can channel this darker energy into productive activity. You can turn your neediness and vulnerability into empathy. You can channel your aggressive impulses into worthwhile causes and into your work. You can admit your ambitions, your desires for power, and not act so guiltily and stealthily. You can monitor your suspicious tendencies and the projection of your own negative emotions onto others. You can see that selfish and harmful impulses dwell within you as well, that you are not as angelic or strong as you imagine. With this awareness will come balance and greater tolerance for others.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 9 : Confront Your Dark Side
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Angels, Imagination, Nature, Strong

“We humans are naturally compelled to compare ourselves with one another. We are continually measuring people’s status, the levels of respect and attention they receive, and noticing any differences between what we have and what they have. For some of us, this need to compare serves as a spur to excel through our work. For others, it can turn into deep envy—feelings of inferiority and frustration that lead to covert attacks and sabotage. Nobody admits to acting out of envy. You must recognize the early warning signs—praise and bids for friendship that seem effusive and out of proportion; subtle digs at you under the guise of good-natured humor; apparent uneasiness with your success. It is most likely to crop up among friends or your peers in the same profession. Learn to deflect envy by drawing attention away from yourself. Develop your sense of self-worth from internal standards and not incessant comparisons.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 10 : Beware the Fragile Ego
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Friendship, People, Feeling, Nature

“We humans have a deep need to think highly of ourselves. If that opinion of our goodness, greatness, and brilliance diverges enough from reality, we become grandiose. We imagine our superiority. Often a small measure of success will elevate our natural grandiosity to even more dangerous levels. Our high self-opinion has now been confirmed by events. We forget the role that luck may have played in the success, or the contributions of others. We imagine we have the golden touch. Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last. Look for the signs of elevated grandiosity in yourself and in others—overbearing certainty in the positive outcome of your plans; excessive touchiness if criticized; a disdain for any form of authority. Counteract the pull of grandiosity by maintaining a realistic assessment of yourself and your limits. Tie any feelings of greatness to your work, your achievements, and your contributions to society.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 11 : Know Your Limits
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Bad luck, Making love, Feeling, Imagination

“Your task is the following: After any kind of success, analyze the components. See the element of luck that is inevitably there, as well as the role that other people, including mentors, played in your good fortune. This will neutralize the tendency to inflate your powers. Remind yourself that with success comes complacency, as attention becomes more important than the work and old strategies are repeated.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 11 : Know Your Limits
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Bad luck, People, Success

“All of us have masculine and feminine qualities—some of this is genetic, and some of it comes from the profound influence of the parent of the opposite sex. But in the need to present a consistent identity in society, we tend to repress these qualities, overidentifying with the masculine or feminine role expected of us. And we pay a price for this. We lose valuable dimensions to our character. Our thinking and ways of acting become rigid. Our relationships with members of the opposite sex suffer as we project onto them our own fantasies and hostilities. You must become aware of these lost masculine or feminine traits and slowly reconnect to them, unleashing creative powers in the process. You will become more fluid in your thinking. In bringing out the masculine or feminine undertone to your character, you will fascinate people by being authentically yourself. Do not play the expected gender role, but rather create the one that suits you.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 12 : Reconnect to the Masculine or Feminine Within You
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Hostility, People, Sex, Way

“On the surface, the people around you appear so polite and civilized. But beneath the mask, they are all inevitably dealing with frustrations. They have a need to influence people and gain power over circumstances. Feeling blocked in their endeavors, they often try to assert themselves in manipulative ways that catch you by surprise. And then there are those whose need for power and impatience to obtain it are greater than others. They turn particularly aggressive, getting their way by intimidating people, being relentless and willing to do almost anything. You must transform yourself into a superior observer of people’s unsatisfied aggressive desires, paying extra attention to the chronic aggressors and passive aggressors in our midst. You must recognize the signs—the past patterns of behavior, the obsessive need to control everything in their environment—that indicate the dangerous types. They depend on making you emotional—afraid, angry—and unable to think straight. Do not give them this power. When it comes to your own aggressive energy, learn to tame and channel it for productive purposes—standing up for yourself, attacking problems with relentless energy, realizing great ambitions.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 16 : See the Hostility Behind the Friendly Façade
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

People, Making love, Way, Behavior

“You are born into a generation that defines who you are more than you can imagine. Your generation wants to separate itself from the previous one and set a new tone for the world. In the process, it forms certain tastes, values, and ways of thinking that you as an individual internalize. As you get older, these generational values and ideas tend to close you off from other points of view, constraining your mind. Your task is to understand as deeply as possible this powerful influence on who you are and how you see the world. Knowing in depth the spirit of your generation and the times you live in, you will be better able to exploit the zeitgeist. You will be the one to anticipate and set the trends that your generation hungers for. You will free your mind from the mental constraints placed on you by your generation, and you will become more of the individual you imagine yourself to be, with all the power that freedom will bring you.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 17 : Seize the Historical Moment
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Hunger, World, Way, Imagination

“One of the most painful things about this path is to recognize things about yourself that aren’t “as they should be”. And the reason you think things should be a certain way is because you’ve been taught that they should. Every spiritual tradition, just like greater society, comes complete with all kinds of values, expectations and beliefs. These all add up to one thing: A SHOULD STANDARD. This is how you should be. This is how you should feel. This is what you should think. This is the reality you should perceive. And the reality is, you will always fall short of that should standard.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Pain, Way, Feeling, Thinking

“If you take responsibility for telling people the truth at the same time as taking responsibility for making people feel good, you will often find yourself stuck in a serious contradiction.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

People, Truth, Making love, Feeling

“Most people think that love is to feel intensely positive towards something or someone. This is not the case. That is the byproduct of love. To love something is to take it as a part of yourself.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Love, People, Making love, Feeling

“Responsibility is actually at the opposite end of the vibrational scale from self-blame. But it takes a high degree of emotional awareness to see them as opposing states because both states recognize the self in a position of causation. For this reason, self-blame can disguise itself as responsibility like a wolf wearing sheep’s clothing. But one is self-hating, the other self-loving. One condemns the self and the other saves the self. If you are taking responsibility, you are feeling empowered. If you are self blaming, you are feeling bad about yourself and disempowered.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Love, Hate, Bad luck, Making love

“Responsibility is the cornerstone of awakening. Essentially, what responsibility is, is owning your own life. To become responsible is to step into this ability and chose to both create and respond to your life instead of to passively react to it as if it is happening to you. It is stepping into authority over yourself.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Life

“Every day in your lives, you are causing the expansion of yourself as well as the collective with your thought. And yet you still believe not in your perfection but instead in your unworthiness.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Perfection

“Depression is about feeling completely powerless and really angry at yourself because you're powerless.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Feeling

“You deserve a relationship where your feelings matter. And the fastest way to get to that kind of relationship is to decide that your emotions matter to YOU. If you stop abandoning yourself when you are experiencing negative emotions, you will come to trust that you will always be there for yourself. You will feel a deep sense of inner peace arise within you.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

book The Anatomy of Loneliness

Peace, Way, Feeling, Sense

“Your emotions are a translation, informing you at all moments of the day of where you stand energetically in relation to your higher self. When you are preventing the focused energy of your higher self, you quickly develop ailments of all kinds. When you create a lack of that energy flowing through you, you make yourself a match to illness, to accidents, and to absence instead of abundance and health.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Health, Making love, Relation ships, Self-confidence

“Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: 'Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?' And, next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: 'What kind of evidence is there for that?”

Richard Dawkins book A Devil's Chaplain

And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.
"Good and Bad Reasons for Believing" [open letter to his daughter]
A Devil's Chaplain (2003)

People, Thinking, Time

Quotes about yourself page 40

Quotes about yourself
page 40