Self Quotations

If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life.

The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.

No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt.

If only I may grow: firmer, simpler, quieter, warmer.

Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self- solitude is the enemy of well- being.

Thus in Christianity the alienation had become total, and it was this total alienation that was the biggest obstacle to the progress of self-consciousness.

I can't think of anything I hate more than a former punk - they are the most self-righteous people in the world.

It goes against the grain of modern education to teach students to program. What fun is there to making plans, acquiring discipline, organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self critical.

The hardest people to reach with the love of God are not the bad people. They know they are bad. They have no defense. The hardest ones to win for God are the self-righteous people.

You can't defend the indefensible - anything you say sounds self-serving and hypocritical.

The self is just our operation center, our consciousness, our moral compass. So, if we want to act more effectively in the world, we have to get to know ourselves better.

A great deal of my battle, as an actor, is to whittle away the things that make me self-conscious and try to trick myself into not being self-conscious. So, it's always a challenge, whether I'm lying in a hospital bed or flying around with a rocket pack on my back, or what have you. On the best of days, it's a challenge for me.

The greatest self is a peaceful smile, that always sees the world smiling back.

Beauty is not skin-deep; it can be a means of self-affirmation, a true indicator of personality and confidence.

In historical and constitutional terms, the recent political status vote in Puerto Rico was a necessary but obviously not decisive step on the road of self-determination leading to full self-government.

When time and space and change converge, we find place. We arrive in Place when we resolve things. Place is peace of mind and understanding. Place is knowledge of self. Place is resolution.

I was being called to surrender the very citadel of my self. I was completely in the dark. I did not really know what repentance was or what I was required to repent of. It was indeed the turning point of my life.

I'm pretty horrible at relationships and haven't been in many long-term ones. Leaving and moving on - returning to a familiar sense of self-reliance and autonomy - is what I know; that feeling is as comfortable and comforting as it might be for a different kind of person to stay.

True humility is intelligent self respect which keeps us from thinking too highly or too meanly of ourselves. It makes us modest by reminding us how far we have come short of what we can be.

The key to making healthy decisions is to respect your future self. Honor him or her. Treat him or her like you would treat a friend or a loved one.

Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America's self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant.

There are seeds of self-destruction in all of us that will bear only unhappiness if allowed to grow.

The past is not simply the past, but a prism through which the subject filters his own changing self-image.

There is no doubt that Iraqis, like Australians and Americans, love and desire freedom. However, if freedom doesn't mean the right to complete self-determination, unfettered by interests other than one's own, then that freedom is less than worthless - it's oppression.

The tension between 'yes' and no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot,' makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self.

Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us. The most solid happiness can be shaken by the compassion of a fool.

In order to succeed, people need a sense of self-efficacy, to struggle together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles and inequities of life.

True freedom is the capacity for acting according to one's true character, to be altogether one's self, to be self-determined and not subject to outside coercion.

The desire for self-expression afflicts people when they feel there is something of themselves which is not getting through to the outside world.

We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us..... The old "manifest destiny" idea ought to be modified so that each nation has the manifest destiny to do the best it can - and that without cant, without the assumption of self-righteousness and with a desire to learn to the uttermost from other nations.

Love is a mutual self-giving which ends in self-recovery.

What amazes me is how far some people will go to justify their behavior to themselves, just to preserve that self-perception.

Artistic self-indulgence is the mark of an amateur. The temptation to make scenes, to appear late, to call in sick, not to meet deadlines, not to be organized, is at heart a sign of your own insecurity and at worst the sign of an amateur.

Effective health care depends on self-care; this fact is currently heralded as if it were a discovery.

I stood up as best I could to their disgusting stupidity and brutality, but I did not, of course, manage to beat them at their own game. It was a fight to the bitter end, one in which I was not defending ideals or beliefs but simply my own self.

If we allow our self-congratulatory adoration of technology to distract us from our own contact with each other, then somehow the original agenda has been lost.

If my life is of no value to my friends it is of none to myself.

The worst evil is - and that's the product of censorship - is the self-censorship, because that twists spines, that destroys my character because I have to think something else and say something else, I have to always control myself.

It's the journey of self, I guess. You start with this kind of loner, outside guy, which a lot of people can relate to, and he goes out into the world.

If you run for mayor, people say you're being egotistical. If you decide you won't run for mayor, people say you're being self-centered and egotistical.

Enlightened self-interest from those involved in hydrocarbons should lead to the support of technologies enabling the clean use of hydrocarbons, such as carbon capture and storage, and not to the defence of deniers and cranks.

I recall feeling an almost delicious terror when one day I found myself alone in the midst of tall June grasses that grew high as my head. But here the secret working of self consciousness is almost too entangled with the things of the past for me to explain it.

Self-deception ultimately explains Japan's plight. The Japanese have never accepted that change is in their interest - and not merely a response to U.S. criticism.

I always stayed in tune with my own ambitions and attitudes and I'm still my intractable old self, for better or worse.

The Second Amendment does protect the right to people to possess weapons for self-defense in the home. That's what the Supreme Court said.

It's not a choice between war and peace. It's a choice between war and endless war. It's not appeasement. I think it's better even to call it American self-interest.

You do not have the right to take another human's life, unless it's in strict self-defense.

Self-Realization Fellowship seemed like training. It was the training ground for finding a sense of peace in myself. Because that's my job. It's no one else's.

Guitar is the best form of self-expression I know. Everything else, and I'm just sort of tripping around, trying to figure my way through life.

Well, love is insanity. The ancient Greeks knew that. It is the taking over of a rational and lucid mind by delusion and self-destruction. You lose yourself, you have no power over yourself, you can't even think straight.

Self-knowledge is essential not only to writing, but to doing almost anything really well. It allows you to work through from a deep place - from the deep, dark corners of your subconscious mind.

I think that in today's world, by nature, we are all self-centered. And that often leads to selfishness.

Yes, forget your weakness, whatever that weakness may be. It is egotism, it is selfishness after. all, for it is a dwelling on self. Forget your weakness; and remember your strength.

Every mind which has given itself to self-expression in art is aware of a directing agency outside its conscious control which it has agreed to label 'inspiration'.

I think I am less self-assured when I write English than I would be if I were writing in my first language. I have to test each sentence over and over to be sure that it's right, that I haven't introduced some element that isn't English.

I'm very self-conscious having my picture taken, so I clown around. My driver's license photo looks like a blonde Elvis.

The biographer who writes the life of his subjects self-concept passes through a fade into the inner house of life.

Self-love is the source of all our other loves.

Loving oneself isn't hard, when you understand who and what 'yourself' is. It has nothing to do with the shape of your face, the size of your eyes, the length of your hair or the quality of your clothes. It's so beyond all of those things and it's what gives life to everything about you. Your own self is such a treasure.

When it is working, you completely go into another place, you're tapping into things that are totally universal, completely beyond your ego and your own self. That's what it's all about.

Fishing provides that connection with the whole living world. It gives you the opportunity of being totally immersed, turning back into yourself in a good way. A form of meditation, some form of communion with levels of yourself that are deeper than the ordinary self.

That is still the case in this country for too many students, the soft bigotry of low expectations. If you don't expect them to learn, if you don't expect them to succeed - then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think the enemy is self-censorship. In a free society the biggest danger is that you're afraid to the point where you censor yourself.

Had we not loved ourselves at all, we could never have been obliged to love anything. So that self-love is the basis of all love....

From exam grading to health education to professional training to democratic participation, paths towards self-realization and success in the world are often daunting and obscure: journeys only the privileged feel confident setting off along.

I'm self-made. I always wanted to make myself a better person, because I was not educated. But that was my dream - to have class.

Distortions control my self-image, like they do for a lot of us. It's irrational.

The desire for self-improvement is vital. There is no point in pushing children; they need to be the ones who want to learn new skills.

All art is an intensely vulnerable gesture, and it is made with no small amounts of risk, and fear. So, I have plenty of sympathy for self-defense mechanisms, especially among artists.

Long-term, we must begin to build our internal strengths. It isn't just skills like computer technology. It's the old-fashioned basics of self-reliance, self-motivation, self-reinforcement, self-discipline, self-command.

Self confidence for me is a fragile fleece.

From my fathers point of view, without a thought for self, a true patriot stands up against the stones of condemnation and speaks for those who are given no real voice in the halls of justice or the halls of government.

Being cool is being your own self, not doing something that someone else is telling you to do.

Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.

Sometimes I wish that I could go into a time machine right now and just look at my self and say, 'Calm down. Things are gonna be fine. Things are gonna be all great. Just relax.

Pop music provides not just the soundtrack to our lives, as the cliche goes; it releases our emotions and helps us to articulate them. This is why music is so important to adolescents, who are struggling with questions of identity and self-expression.

I'm a self-taught musician aside from what I've been able to pick up from other players.

We hope the world will act in the spirit of enlightened self-interest.

Finally, is not liberty the restricting of the law only to its rational sphere of organizing the right of the individual to lawful self-defense; of punishing injustice?

I feel like I'm part of a generation of people who are stuck in the past and are really self-absorbed. I mean, we're actually taking pictures of ourselves and posting them on Facebook, and keeping in touch with people that should have been out of our lives 15 years ago.

There is no scientific explanation for the fact that while my body lay in coma, my mind - my conscious, inner self - was alive and well.

When you look at where the Democratic field is going relative to foreign policy, they are increasingly moving away from a policy of pre-emptive self-defense that the president has adopted since September 11.

We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race.

If you set goals for yourself, and you're like a lot of other people, you probably realize it's not that your goals are physically impossible that's keeping you from achieving them; it's that you lack the self-discipline to stick to them. It's physically possible to lose weight. It's physically possible to exercise more.

Throughout history, self-styled arbiters have taken it upon themselves to decide the question of what can or cannot be the legitimate purview of art.

I'm definitely a vintage collector. I have a wardrobe of core basics that I like to spice up with different colors, new accessories, and I love to try on new things to invite something different. I find, with every new stage of my life, my self-image shifts with new duties and responsibilities, and so does my fashion style.

Happiness is dependent on self-discipline. We are the biggest obstacles to our own happiness. It is much easier to do battle with society and with others than to fight our own nature.

Sometimes you've got to let everything go - purge yourself. If you are unhappy with anything . . . whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you'll find that when you're free, your true creativity, your true self comes out.

I'm a self-taught guitarist, but I have a classical music background.

He who busies himself with things other than improvement of his own self becomes perplexed in darkness and entangled in ruin. His evil spirits immerse him deep in vices and make his bad actions seem handsome.

Confidence and empowerment are cousins in my opinion. Empowerment comes from within and typically it's stemmed and fostered by self-assurance. To feel empowered is to feel free and that's when people do their best work. You can't fake confidence or empowerment.

You have to figure out who the right person is to tell the story. And often, people who are very self-aware will only sound as if they are pontificating if they tell the story.

Almost all the ideas we have about being a man or being a woman are so burdened with pain, anxiety, fear and self-doubt. For many of us, the confusion around this question is excruciating.

People speak of the fear of the blank canvas as though it is a temporary hesitation, a trembling moment of self-doubt. For me it was more like being abducted from my bed by a clown, thrust into a circus arena with a wicker chair, and told to tame a pissed-off lion in front of an expectant crowd.

Like water which can clearly mirror the sky and the trees only so long as its surface is undisturbed, the mind can only reflect the true image of the Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed.

Never mind. The self is the least of it. Let our scars fall in love.

The one self- knowledge worth having is to know one's own mind.

Folk musicians have a lot of the same self-importance, but they're way more cruel and jealous than rock musicians - I know this for a fact because I used to be a folk musician.

There is no question you get pumped up by the recognition. Then a self-loathing sets in when you realise you're enjoying it.

There's something very romantic about self-destruction and sabotaging your life, and taking a hammer to it.