self  -  individuality

There is only one you for all time.
Fearlessly be yourself.

unattributed
   
Be yourself.  Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe,
shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.

John Jakes

      

If you teach people to keep their eyes upon what others think of them, unthinkingly to lead the lives and hold the principles of the majority of their contemporaries, you must discredit in their own eyes the authoritative voices of their own souls.  They may be docile citizens; they will never be men and women.  It is ours, on the other hand, to disregard this babble and chattering of other people better and worse than we are, and to walk straight before us by what light we have.  They may be right; but so, before heaven, are we.  They may know; but we know also, and by that knowledge we must stand or fall.  There is such a thing as loyalty to one's own better self; and from those who have not that, God help me, how am I to look for loyalty to others?

Robert Louis Stevenson

  

All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself.

Ralph Ellison

   

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate
version of somebody else.

Judy Garland

   

By being yourself, you put something wonderful
in the world that was not there before.

Edwin Elliot
   
   
   

What another would have
done as well as you, do not
do it.  What another would
have said as well as you,
do not say it; what another
would have written as well,
do not write it. Be faithful
to that which exists nowhere
but in yourself--and
thus make yourself
indispensable.

Andre Gide
   

Few are those who see with their own eyes
and feel with their own hearts.

Albert Einstein
   
   
If you're able to be yourself, then you have no competition.
All you have to do is get closer and closer to that essence.

Barbara Cook

self  -  individuality

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.

Baruch Spinoza

Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others,
is one of the most difficult challenges I face.

Carol Mosely-Braun

Accept everything about yourself--I mean everything.
You are you and that is the beginning
and the end--no apologies, no regrets.

Clark Moustakas
I was once afraid of people saying, Who does she think she is?  Now I have the courage to stand and say, This is who I am.

Oprah Winfrey
   
I have a basic philosophy that I've tried to follow during
my coaching career. Whether you're winning or losing,
it's important to always be yourself.  You can't change
because of the circumstances around you.

Cotton Fitzsimmons
   

To be nobody-but-yourself--in a world which is doing its best,
night and day, to make you everybody else--means
to fight the hardest battle which any human being
can fight; and never stop fighting.

e.e. cummings
  
Why not be oneself?  That is the whole secret of a successful
appearance.  If one is a greyhound why try to look like a Pekinese?

Edith Sitwell
   

You have a masterpiece inside you, you know.  One unlike
any that has ever been created, or ever will be.  If you
go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it
will not get painted.  No one else can paint it.  Only you.

Gordon MacKenzie
   
   

Josh Billings said, It is not only the most difficult thing to know
oneself, but the most inconvenient one, too.  Human beings
have always employed an enormous variety of clever devices
for running away from themselves, and the modern world
is particularly rich in such stratagems.

John W. Gardner
   
One does not "find oneself" by pursuing one's self, but on
the contrary by pursuing something else and learning through
discipline or routine. . . who one is and wants to be.

May Sarton
   

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There are many who are living far below their possibilities
because they are continually handing over their individualities
to others.  Do you want to be a power I the world?
Then be yourself.

Ralph Waldo Trine
   
   

When I was a child, my mother said to me, "If you
become a soldier, you'll be a general.  If you become
a monk you'll end up as the pope."  Instead I
became a painter and wound up as Picasso.

Pablo Picasso
    

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I am much better employed from every point of view, when I live solely
for my own satisfaction, than when I begin to worry about the world. The
world frightens me, and a frightened man is no good for anything.

George Gissing

self  -  individuality

Just being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans.  We have learned
to live our life trying to satisfy other people's demands.  We have learned
to live by other people's points of view because of the fear of not being
accepted and of not being good enough for someone else.

Don Miguel Ruiz
   

People who have the courage to be individuals can usually think
things through on their own and make sound decisions.  They
don't say, "What will people think?"  They say, "What's the best
way to handle this?"  The amazing fact is that God created each
one of us as a separate, unique person amid billions of other
separate, unique individuals.  So the best way to achieve
real fulfillment is to be yourself.

Norman Vincent Peale