more quotes, quotations and passages on self

Everything that irritates us about
others can lead us to an
understanding of ourselves.

Carl Jung

There must be a place where hopes and dreams are nurtured, and that place is only within ourselves. A place to clean the grime of life, a place that waits for us to stay and look inside that we might see the truth. Cliff Robertson

Most lives are a flight from selfhood. Most prefer the truths of the stable. You stick your head into the stanchions and munch contentedly until you die. Others use you for their purposes. Not once do you look outside the stable to lift your head and be your own creature. Frank Herbert People shy away from nothing as from a rendezvous with themselves--which makes the entertainment industry what it is. Fritz Muliar

Most of us do not like to look inside ourselves for the same reason we don't like to open a letter that has bad news. Fulton J. Sheen

So many brilliant and gifted people squander their gifts because they lack the humility of self-understanding. When we think we know it all, we miss the point. When we think we know everything about ourselves, we show our ignorance and our arrogance. The wonder of human beings is that we are constructed in such a way that we can spend our entire lives exploring our inner universe and its connection to the universe as a whole and still barely scratch the surface. We are a wonder for us to behold. Anne Wilson Schaef

Many people's misery is a result of the way that they see themselves,
the way that other people have told them they are for so long. What
they don't seem to realize is that the other people have a very limited
view, a limited way of seeing the world, and when they tell anyone
anything about themselves, they're bound to have
very incomplete information.

tom walsh

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Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul,
a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice. . . .
Life from the Center is a life of unhurried peace and power.
It is simple. It is serene. It is amazing. It is radiant.

T.R. Kelly

People go forth to wonder at the height of mountains, the huge waves
of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the extent of the ocean, the
course of the stars--and forget to wonder at themselves.

St. Augustine

You have choice. You can select joy over despair. You can select
happiness over tears. You can select action over apathy. You can
select growth over stagnation. You can select you. And you can
select life. And it's time that people tell you you're not at the mercy
of forces greater than yourself. You are, indeed,
the greatest force for you.

Leo Buscaglia

People often say that this or that person has not yet found him or herself.
But the self is not something that one finds. It is something one creates.

Thomas Szasz

I often hear people say "I have to find myself."
What they really mean is "I have to make myself."
Life is an endlessly creative experience, and we are
making ourselves every moment by every decision we make.

Kent Nerburn

Deep in the soul, below pain, below all the distraction of life, is a silence
vast and grand--an infinite ocean of calm, which nothing can disturb;
nature's own exceeding peace, which "passes understanding." That
which we seek with passionate longing, here and there, upward
and outward; we find at last within ourselves.

C.M.C.

You owe no one as much as you owe yourself. You owe to yourself the action
that opens for you the doors to the goodness, the variety, and the excitement of
effort and success, of battle and victory. Making payment on this debt to
yourself is the exact opposite of selfishness. You can best pay your debt to
society, that has made you what you are, by being just yourself with all your
might and as a matter of course. . . . You fulfill the promise that lies latent
within you by keeping your promises to yourself.

David Harold Fink

How can you develop a self-concept linked to your untapped potential?
First, you can decide on the kind of life you would like to lead in ten
or fifteen years. This will give you a standard for making decisions
about current activities and will reduce the inclination to compare yourself
unfavorably to others. Learn to ask, "How would I handle this situation
were I the person I hope to become?" And then take action in line with your vision.

Ari Kiev

If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen
to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.

Rollo May

When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.

Shunryu Suzuki

Were it possible for us to wait for ourselves to come into the room, not many of us would find our hearts breaking into flower as we heard the door handle turn.

Rebecca West

Our opinion of people depends less upon what we see in them than upon what they make us see in ourselves.

Sarah Grand

self - self 2 - self 3

When mind soars in pursuit of things conceived in space, it
pursues emptiness. But when we dive deep within
ourselves, we experience the fullness of existence.

Meher Baba

People of understanding have lost nothing, if they have--if they own--themselves.
The greatest thing in the world is to know how to be--to belong to--oneself.

Michel de Montaigne

Alas, everything that people say to one another is alike; the ideas they
exchange are almost always the same, in their conversation. But inside
all those isolated machines, what hidden recesses, what secret
compartments! It is an entire world that each one carries within him
or her, an unknown world that is born and dies in silence!
What solitudes all these human bodies are!

Alfred de Musset
Fantasio

The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual;
and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true vigor
and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its
effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.

Samuel Smiles

Every person is the architect of his or her own fortune.

Appius Claudius

Make it thy business to know thyself,
which is the most difficult lesson in the world.

Miguel de Cervantes

The most important of all our perceptions is the way we perceive ourselves. There is a story in Native American folklore that illustrates this truth very clearly. According to the legend, an Indian brave came upon an eagle's egg which had somehow fallen unbroken from an eagle's nest. Unable to find the nest, the brave put the egg in the nest of a prairie chicken, where it was hatched by a brooding mother hen. The fledgling eagle, with its proverbial strong eyes, saw the world for the first time. Looking at the other prairie chickens, he did what they did. He crawled and scratched at the earth, pecked here and there for stray grains and husks, now and then rising in a flutter a few feet and then descending again. He accepted and imitated the daily routine of the earthbound prairie chickens. And he spent most of his life this way.

Then, as the story continues, one day an eagle flew over the brood of prairie chickens. The now-aging eagle, who still thought he was a prairie chicken, looked up in awed admiration as the great bird soared through the skies. "What is that?" he gasped in astonishment. One of the older prairie chickens replied, "I have seen that one before. That is the eagle, the proudest, strongest, and most magnificent of all the birds. But don't you ever dream that you could be like that. You're like the rest of us and we are prairie chickens." And so, shackled by this belief, the eagle lived and died thinking he was a prairie chicken.

Our lives are shaped by the way we perceive ourselves. The all-important attitudes by which we perceive and evaluate ourselves tell us who we are and describe the appropriate behavior for such a person. We live and die according to our self-perception.

John Powell

You have to develop a style that suits you and pursue it,
not just develop a bag of tricks. Always be yourself.

Jimmy Stewart

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness
of your intuition. . . what you'll discover will be wonderful.
What you'll discover will be yourself.

Alan Alda

You are something new in this world. Be glad of it. Make the most of what
nature gave you. In the last analysis, all art is autobiographical. You can sing
only what you are. You can paint only what you are. You must be what your
experiences, your environment, and your heredity have made you. For better
or for worse, you must cultivate your own little garden. For better or for worse,
you must play your own little instrument in the orchestra of life.

Dale Carnegie

Nobody is so miserable as the person who longs to be somebody and
something other than the person he or she is in body and mind.

Angelo Patri

This self should never be lost sight of. It is the one thing of supreme importance,
the greatest factor even in the life of the greatest service. Being always and
necessarily precedes doing; having always and necessarily precedes giving. But
this law also holds: That when there is the being, it is all the more increased
by the doing; when there is the having, it is all the more increased by the giving.
Keeping to oneself dwarfs and stultifies. Hoarding brings loss: using brings even
greater gain. In brief, the more we are, the more we can do; the more we have,
the more we can give. The most truly successful, the most powerful and valuable life,
then, is the life that is first founded upon this great, immutable law of love and
service, and that then becomes supremely self-centred--supremely self-centred
that it may become all the more supremely unself-centred; in other words, the life
that looks well to self, that there may be the ever greater self,
in order that there may be the ever greater service.

Ralph Waldo Trine

Believe in yourself, learn, and never stop wanting to build a better world.

Mary McLeod Bethune

One's own self is well hidden from one's own self;
of all mines of treasure, one's own is the last to be dug up.

Friedrich Nietzsche

You have everything in you that Buddha has, that Christ has. You've
got it all. But only when you start to acknowledge it is it going to get
interesting. Your problem is you're afraid to acknowledge your own
beauty. You're too busy holding on to your own unworthiness. You'd
rather be a schnook sitting before some great man. That fits in more
with who you think you are. Well, enough already. I sit before you and
I look and I see your beauty, even if you don't.

Ram Dass

Whereas I formerly believed it to be my bounden duty to call other
persons to order, I now admit that I need calling to order myself.

Carl Jung

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You have deep within you the power to fulfill your highest vision of
your life. To engage this power you must develop a solid personal
relationship with yourself. By doing so, you'll tap into a wealth of
inner strength that will allow you to take the necessary actions that
build confidence and self-esteem. When you learn to stop hiding your
power and use fear to your advantage, you'll become less attached to
what others want for you and more attached to what you want for
yourself. As this shift occurs, you'll naturally begin to lead a more
authentic and passionate life.

Cheryl Richardson
Stand Up for Your Life

Taking on responsibilities that properly belong to someone else means behaving
irresponsibly toward yourself. You need to know where you end and someone
else begins. You need to understand boundaries. You need to know what is and
is not up to you, what is and is not your responsibility.

Nathaniel Branden

Self-knowledge is for the purpose of contributing.

Alene Moris

If none of your role models provide the answer, then it is time to go within and ask yourself, "What would make me happy?" In other words, let your feelings guide you. This doesn't work well if you focus narrowly on your personal needs. I am not talking about selfishness or self-interest. When I ask, What will make you happy?, I mean, What way of loving others feels right for you? Choose a way of loving that makes you happy, and your efforts will be play rather than work.

Bernie Siegel
Prescriptions for Living

A well-developed sense of self is a necessary if not sufficient condition
of your well-being. Its presence does not guarantee fulfillment, but its
absence guarantees some measure of anxiety, frustration, or despair.

Nathaniel Branden
Self-Esteem Every Day

Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you
should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing you
will forget the pose, and then where are you?

Fanny Brice

We have to dare to be ourselves, no matter how
frightening or strange that self may prove to be.

May Sarton

You are goodness and mercy and compassion and understanding. You are
peace and joy and light. You are forgiveness and patience, strength and
courage, a helper in time of need, a comforter in time of sorrow, a healer
in time of injury, a teacher in times of confusion. You are the deepest
wisdom and the highest truth; the greatest peace and the grandest love.
You are these things. And in moments of your life you have
known yourself as these things.
Choose now to know yourself as these things always.

Neale Donald Walsch
Conversations with God

Most of us are not raised to actively encounter our destiny. We may not
know that we have one. As children, we are seldom told we have a place
in life that is uniquely ours alone. Instead, we are encouraged to believe
that our life should somehow fulfill the expectations of others, that we will
(or should) find our satisfactions as they have found theirs. Rather than
being taught to ask ourselves who we are, we are schooled to ask others.
We are, in effect, trained to listen to others' versions of ourselves. We are
brought up in our life as told to us by someone else! When we survey our
lives, seeking to fulfill our creativity, we often see we had a dream that went
glimmering because we believed, and those around us believed, that the
dream was beyond our reach. Many of us would have been, or at least
might have been, done, tried something, if. . .
If we had known who we really were.

Julia Cameron

If you celebrate your differentness, the world will, too. It believes exactly what
you tell it—through the words you use to describe yourself, the actions you take
to care for yourself, and the choices you make to express yourself. Tell the world
you are a one-of-a-kind creation who came here to experience
wonder and spread joy. Expect to be accommodated.

Victoria Moran
Lit From Within

It is not my business to think about myself. My business is to
think about God. It is for God to think about me.

Simone Weil