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Link Quote Stars Tags Author
f06d8df The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. pain relationships self Ernest Hemingway
7ef7540 Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another. self Toni Morrison
18eb1fd He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. identity life self Gabriel García Márquez
0b2f46c Don't think about making life better for other people who don't even deserve you, rather, focus on making your life the best, for yourself and those who love you. inspirational-quotes life-and-living inspiring life inspirational living-life self C. JoyBell C.
eed97ad To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why that's much harder? life self soul Ayn Rand
47dc4a8 You are -- your life, and nothing else. life self Jean-Paul Sartre
f56e3d3 We don't realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme self who is eternally at peace. self Elizabeth Gilbert
46645b5 You cannot be with someone just because you don't want to hurt him. You have your own happiness to think about. happy heartbreak love hurt self Melissa de la Cruz
25325b9 Was everyone else really as alive as she was?... If the answer was yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two billion voices, and everyone's thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone's claim on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique, when no one was. One could drown in irrelevance. self Ian McEwan
74cf893 If someone does not want me it is not the end of the world. But if I do not want me, the world is nothing but endings. lessons thoughts life love inspirational perspective self Nayyirah Waheed
82eb1de Ah, it's my longing for whom I might have been that distracts and torments me! self regret longing Fernando Pessoa
ac34d89 For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. Running day after day, piling up the races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level I elevate myself. At least that's why I've put in the effort day after day: to raise my own level. I'm no great runner, by any means. I'm at an ordinary - or perhaps more like mediocre - level. But that's not the point. The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday. In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be. self running Haruki Murakami
8ee9b22 Your inner strength is your outer foundation upliftment motivation love inspirational spiritual-growth personal-growth personal-development self-discovery realization self quotes peace self-help Allan Rufus
c11a2a6 Self-sacrifice? But it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed. self Ayn Rand
c8aa4a7 In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. self Oscar Wilde
740f6cc Don't look to the approval of others for your mental stability inspirational designer others self fashion Karl Lagerfeld
ff6369e If I was made of cake I'd eat myself before somebody else could. humor self child Emma Donoghue
77b27c2 Au milieu de l'hiver, j'apprenais enfin qu'il y avait en moi un ete invincible. seasons strength hardship self summer Albert Camus
0ed56f5 You're a poem?' I repeated. She chewed her lower lip. 'If you want. I am a poem, or I am a pattern, or a race of people whose whose world was swallowed by the sea.' 'Isn't it hard to be three things at the same time?' 'What's your name?' 'Enn.' 'So you are Enn,' she said. 'And you are a male. And you are a biped. Is it hard to be three things at the same time? discord three girls self Neil Gaiman
7a2464e I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get. loneliness poem poetry people beauty superficial-beauty bukowski appearance superficial superficiality classics self reflection beautiful mirror lonely self-esteem soul ugly classic Charles Bukowski
f6546cd "the worst thing," he told me, "is bitterness, people end up so bitter." personality individuality poem poetry death life love in-the-end bukowski bitterness self soul Charles Bukowski
48c08a6 I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am! self Nathaniel Hawthorne
86deb4c It is when you lose sight of yourself, that you lose your way. To keep your truth in sight you must keep yourself in sight and the world to you should be a mirror to reflect to you your image; the world should be a mirror that you reflect upon. self-awareness inspirational-attitude inspirational-life inspirational-quotes truth inspirational self-reflection reflections the-world self-discovery self mirror C. JoyBell C.
7c144e4 Your dreaming self seeks to tell you something your waking ears will not hear dream ears self aware Jacqueline Carey
4ba0904 When you become the image of your own imagination, it's the most powerful thing you could ever do. destiny identity imagination inspirational transcendence self transformation power creativity RuPaul
ae0a77a Plants are more courageous than almost all human beings: an orange tree would rather die than produce lemons, whereas instead of dying the average person would rather be someone they are not. be-yourself acting adage adages aphorisms audacity axiom axioms balls cojones conforming courageousness dictum dictums fit-in hardihood heroism herself human-being intrepidity made-me-think make-you-think maxims motivated moxie murder murdered oneself persons pluckiness pretender pretenders profound provoke-thought quotation spunk standout themselves true-grit daring humour bravery courage inspired people human fear quote inspiration inspire death motivational humor inspirational fearful actor saying lemons conform animal pluck courageous lemon plants nerve boldness motive plant words-to-live-by killed gnomes nonconformity orange maxim tree brave actors façades act grit epigram epigrams gnome produce deep fitting-in valour proverbs facade aphorism pretending quotations sayings pretend conformity gallantry peoples guts standing-out trees animals satire satirical self thought-provoking person himself yourself quotes human-beings thoughtful insightful proverb humans kill fearlessness dead fruit fruits die Mokokoma Mokhonoana
ff913ec We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. past identity personal-history self Joan Didion
e01d239 I've always been a slow learner in some areas of my life.mostly the areas known as myself. Or maybe I should say 'selves.'because the fact is, I've never, even as a child, felt I'm only one self, only one person. I've always felt I'm quite a few more than one. For example, there's my jokey self, there's my morose and fed-up self,there's my lewd and disgusting self. There's my clever-clogs self, and my fading-violet-who-cant-make-up-her-mind-about-anything self. There's my untidy-clothes-everywhere-all-over-my-room self, and my manically tidy self when I want my room to be minimalist and Zen to the nth degree. There's my confidant, arrogant self and my polite and reasonable and good listener self. There's my self-righteous self and my wickedly bad self, my flaky self and my bsentimental self. There are selfs I like and selfs I don't like.there's my little-girl selfnwhonlikes to play silly games and there's my old-woman self when I'm quite sure I'm eighty and edging towards geriatric personality inspirational self Aidan Chambers
ae158b9 I saw my earlier selves as different people, acquaintances I had outgrown. I wondered how I could ever have been some of them. moving-on life moving-forward growing-up growth self Roger Zelazny
91ff32a I thought how lovely and how strange a river is. A river is a river, always there, and yet the water flowing through it is never the same water and is never still. It's always changing and is always on the move. And over time the river itself changes too. It widens and deepens as it rubs and scours, gnaws and kneads, eats and bores its way through the land. Even the greatest rivers- the Nile and the Ganges, the Yangtze and he Mississippi, the Amazon and the great grey-green greasy Limpopo all set about with fever trees-must have been no more than trickles and flickering streams before they grew into mighty rivers inspirational river growth self Aidan Chambers
210dcf2 There are times when I am so unlike myself that I might be taken for someone else of an entirely opposite character. personality humorous flexibility personal-development self Jean-Jacques Rousseau
a4fdc5a "Very good, Jason Grace," Notus said. "You are a son of Jupiter, yet you have chosen your own path- as all the greatest demigods have done before you. You cannot control your parentage, but you choose your legacy." heroism roman legacy self greek hero heroes-of-olympus percy-jackson house-of-hades jason-grace rick-riordan Rick Riordan
9273f0c We always see the worst in our selves. Our most volnerable selves. We need someone to get close enough to tell us that we're wrong. Someone we trust. self Rachel Cohn
b7950e6 "I paid, got up, walked to the door, opened it. I heard the man say, "that guy's nuts." out on the street I walked north feeling curiously honored." irony poem poetry funny death life mental self honor crazy soul Charles Bukowski
a517480 Sophie said to me once that she was glad she had been scarred. She said that whoever loved her now would love her true self, and not her pretty face. This is your true self, Tessa. This power is who you are. Whoever loves you now--and you must also love yourself--will love the truth of you. true-self self Cassandra Clare
4c435ae To be oneself, simply oneself, is so amazing and utterly unique an experience that it's hard to convince oneself so singular a thing happens to everybody. self uniqueness Simone de Beauvoir
ead0b2e We define our identity always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us. Even after we outgrow some of these others--our parents, for instance--and they disappear from our lives, the conversation with them continues within us as long as we live. life self-identity dialogue self parents Charles Taylor
b119395 The square root of I is I. philosophy self Vladimir Nabokov
7641935 For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow. struggle strength self Hermann Hesse
6390523 "I have said that the soul is not more than the body, god whitman self soul Walt Whitman
52efff7 y`tqd lmr 'n tw'm lrwH hw lshkhS l'nsb lh , whdh myrydh ljmy` . wlkn tw'm lrwH lHqyqy lys sw~ mrah , nh lshkhS ldhy yryk kl my`yqk , lshkhS ldhy ylft ntbhk l~ nfsk lky tGyry Hytk , tw'm lrwH lHqyqy hw 'hm shkhS tltqyn bh `l~ l'rjH , lnh ymzq jdrnk wyhzk bqwh lky tstfyqy love soulmate self novel Elizabeth Gilbert
7a7f7ff But suppose your daemon settles in a shape you don't like? Well, then, you're discontented, en't you? There's plenty of folk as'd like to have a lion as a daemon and they end up with a poodle. And till they learn to be satisfied with what they are, they're going to be fretful about it. Waste of feeling, that is. But it didn't seem to Lyra that she would ever grow up. self-awareness self Philip Pullman
607f1e4 Siddhartha has one single goal-to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow-to let the Self die. No longer to be Self, to experience the peace of an emptied heart, to experience pure thought-that was his goal. life siddhartha self thought Hermann Hesse
b98cfd4 Then from those profound slumbers we awake in a dawn, not knowing who we are, being nobody, newly born, ready for anything, the brain emptied of that past which was life until then. And perhaps it is more wonderful still when our landing at the waking-point is abrupt and the thoughts of our sleep, hidden by a cloak of oblivion, have no time to return to us gradually, before sleep ceases. Then, from the black storm through which we seem to have passed (but we do not even say ), we emerge prostrate, without a thought, a that is void of content. renewal self void Marcel Proust
613d747 Ged had neither lost nor won but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole: a man: who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself, and whose life therefore is lived for life's sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark. dark life earthsea self Ursula K. Le Guin
8f133dc I have to admit it humbly, mon cher compatriote, I was always bursting with vanity. I, I, I is the refrain of my whole life, which could be heard in everything I said. I could never talk without boasting, especially if I did so with that shattering discretion that was my specialty. It is quite true that I always lived free and powerful. I simply felt released in the regard to all the for the excellent reason that I recognized no equals. I always considered myself more intelligent than everyone else, as I've told you, but also more sensitive and more skillful, a crack shot, an incomparable driver, a better lover. Even in the fields in which it was easy for me to verify my inferiority-like tennis, for instance, in which I was but a passable partner-it was hard for me not to think that, with a little time and practice, I would surpass the best players. I admitted only superiorities in me and this explained my good will and serenity. When I was concerned with others, I was so out of pure condescension, in utter freedom, and all the credit went to me: my self-esteem would go up a degree. self-awareness self self-esteem Albert Camus
d0ec2c7 Old photographs are very deceiving, they give us the illusion that we are alive in them, and it's not true, the person we are looking at no longer exists, and if that person could see us, he or she would not recognise him or herself in us, 'Who's that looking at me so sadly,' he or she would say. self José Saramago
3f53259 It's not about outward appearances but inward significance. A grandeur in the world, but not of the world, a grandeur that the world doesn't understand. That first glimpse of pure otherness, in whose presence you bloom out and out and out. A self one does not want. A heart one cannot help. want world heart inward inward-significance otherness outward-appearances grandeur understand help self Donna Tartt
41ca4b8 It is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge. understanding self knowledge Joseph Conrad
c78ae7a Not only are selves conditional but they die. Each day, we wake slightly altered, and the person we were yesterday is dead. So why, one could say, be afraid of death, when death comes all the time? death life self John Updike
6f2b966 But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn't going anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return. Was that so depressing? Who knows? Maybe that was 'despair.' What Turgenev called 'disillusionment.' Or Dostoyevsky, 'hell.' Or Somerset Maugham, 'reality.' Whatever the label, I figured it was me. reality dostoyevsky disillusionment maugham self hell Haruki Murakami
0119cc3 We don't like to admit it, but the idea of losing control is one that fascinates controlled people such as ourselves more than almost anything. All truly civilized people - the ancients no less than us - have civilized themselves through the wilful repression of the old, animal self. self Donna Tartt
0494705 The impetus to grow and live intensely is so powerful in me I cannot resist it. I will work, I will love my husband, but I will fulfill myself. living self Anaïs Nin
ede868f Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves, As souls only understand souls. self-awareness perfectionism souls self Walt Whitman
beff74a ...you find your genius by looking in the mirror of your life. Your visible image shows your inner truth, so when you're estimating others, what you see is what you get. It therefore becomes critically important to see generously, or you will get only what you see; to see sharply, so that you discern the mix of traits rather than a generalized lump; and to see deeply into dark shadows, or else you will be deceived. self-knowledge self soul James Hillman
2d94f04 [E]ach of our voices has something unique to say. Not only should I not mold my life to the demands of external conformity; I can't even find the model by which to live outside myself. I can only find it within. individuality individuals self uniqueness Charles Taylor
226eb20 Self is a sea boundless and measureless. introspect limitless measureless introspective endless inner-life self sea introspection Kahlil Gibran
d38ee7f There is a certain way of being human that is way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else's life. But this notion gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life; I miss what being human is for . life individuals self uniqueness Charles Taylor
d94a02b It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own. strength self Herman Melville
f1071b2 The ego is as you think of yourself. You in relation to all the commitments of your life, as you understand them. The self is the whole range of possibilities that you've never even thought of. And you're stuck with you're past when you're stuck with the ego. Because if all you know about yourself is what you found out about yourself, well, that already happened. The self is a whole field of potentialities to come through. myth self Joseph Campbell
fead013 I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be... on-keeping-a-notebook self joan didion
9a89164 I wish I wasn't an imperial highness or an ex-grand duchess. I'm sick of people doing things to me because of what I am. Girl-in-white-dress. Short-one-with-fringe. Daughter-of-the-tsar. Child-of-the-ex-tyrant. I want people to look and see me, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, not the caboose on a train of grand duchesses. Someday, I promise myself, no one will be able to hear my name or look at my picture and suppose they know all about me. Someday I will do something bigger than what I am. life inspirational otma romanovs tsar-nicholas russian-revolution royalty self russia Sarah Miller
32a3e88 Destiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis personae folded in her hand. self George Eliot
a2d1f3f There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only a knowledge-that is everywhere, that is Atman, that is in me and you and in every creature, and I am beginning to believe that this knowledge has no worse enemy than the man of knowledge, than learning. learning siddhartha self knowledge Hermann Hesse
3629606 We are more severe judges of our own acts... We judge our thoughts, our intents, our secret curses, our secret hates, not only our acts. thoughts life truth self reflection acts severe judgement Anaïs Nin
b91e863 Who are you?' I didn't understand the question. I'm Uri', he said. 'What's your name?' I gave him my name. 'Stopthief. labels milkweed self name Jerry Spinelli
fd48c87 Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all. self Hermann Hesse
5bedffa Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you. self Masamune Shirow
c684b82 Aside from myself, there was no sign of me. existence loss self Nicole Krauss
72618b6 The new light above my table is a great improvement. With all this darkness around me I feel less alone. (Pause.) In a way. (Pause.) I love to get up and move about in it, then back here to... (hesitates) ...me. (Pause.) darkness beckett self play Samuel Beckett
d311de3 To know who I am is a species of knowing where I stand. My identity is defined by the commitments and identifications which provide the frame or horizon within which I can try to determine from case to case what is good, or valuable, or what ought to be done, or what I endorse or oppose. In other words, it is the horizon within which I am capable of taking a stand. self-identity self Charles Taylor
7ec3de3 That was with me for years--feeling I wasn't myself. And I do think I wasn't my real self then. Of course, I'm not sure there is such a thing as a real self. You could ransack your innards looking for the real you and never find it--slice yourself open and all you'll find is blood and muscle and bone. self Ryū Murakami
281996a A shadow is never created in darkness. It is born of light. We can be blind to it and blinded by it. Our shadow asks us to look at what we don't want to see. If we refuse to face our shadow, it will project itself on someone else so we have no choice but to engage. spirit self shadow Terry Tempest Williams
a6ab425 To be always what I am - and so changed from what I was. self Samuel Beckett
b7a3843 I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give. loneliness self self-respect self-esteem Charlotte Brontë
f4a5236 "I'm talking about a little truth-in-packaging here. To be perfectly frank, you don't quite like yourself. And if you walk around looking like someone other than who you are, you could end up getting the wrong job, the wrong friends, who knows what-all. You could end up with somebody else's life." I shrugged again, and smiled. "This is my life," I said. "It doesn't seem like the wrong one." identity life hair self haircut Michael Cunningham
461a814 There's a lot of things wrong with this country, but one of the few things still right with it is that a man can steer clear of the organized bullshit if he really wants to. It's a goddamned luxury, and if I were you, I'd take advantage of it while you can. america independence self Hunter S. Thompson
c5c7332 But there were too many points at which the other self could invade the self he wanted to preserve, and there were too many forms of invasion: certain words, sounds, lights, actions his hands or feet performed, and if he did nothing at all, heard and saw nothing, the shouting of some triumphant inner voice that shocked him and cowed him. words mind life inner-voicery strangers-on-a-train patricia-highsmith lights sounds inner-voice shocked invasion train shouting self strangers voice Patricia Highsmith
c2a1320 The people around you are mirrors, I think. You see yourself reflected in their eyes. If the mirror is true, and smooth, you see your true self. That's how you learn who you are. feminism life how-to-be-a-woman self person Caitlin Moran
121edb1 I do know the sorrow of being ordinary, and that much of our life is spent doing the crazy mental arithmetic of how, at any given moment, we might improve, or at least disguise or present our defects and screw-ups in either more charming or more intimidating ways. ordinary self Anne Lamott
cd0b9ea He had lived and acted on the assumption that he was alone, and now he saw that he had not been. What he had done made others suffer. No matter how much he would long for them to forget him, they would not be able to. His family was a part of him, not only in blood, but in spirit. relationship self Richard Wright
b246b9a Such journeys have convinced me that it is not always possible to restore one's boundaries after they have been blurred and made permeable by a relationship: try as we might, we cannot reconstitute ourselves as the autonomous beings we previously imagined ourselves to be. relationships self Mohsin Hamid
7f656ed What we have not had to decipher, to elucidate by our own efforts, what was clear before we looked at it, is not ours. From ourselves comes only that which we drag forth from the obscurity which lies within us, that which to others is unknown. self Marcel Proust
7f06ea9 [M]y discovering my own identity doesn't mean that I work it out in isolation, but that I negotiate it through dialogue, partly overt, partly internal, with others. self-identity self Charles Taylor
3fb8969 We become full human agents, capable of understanding ourselves, and hence of defining our identity, through our acquisition of rich human languages of expression. self-identity self humans Charles Taylor
bb2c587 "Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self--to the mediating intellect--as to verge close to being beyond description. It thus remains nearly incomprehensible to those who have not experienced it in its extreme mode, although the gloom, "the blues" which people go through occasionally and associate with the general hassle of everyday existence are of such prevalence that they do give many individuals a hint of the illness in its catastrophic form." illness pain existence depression incomprehensible gloom elusive mood self intellect William Styron
9a5880f It's kind of depressing, if you think about it. I mean, me being so young, and yet so cynical and suspicious. self sarcasm Meg Cabot
555629b If everybody spent enough time worrying about their own goddamn selves, no one would have to worry about anyone else. noremorse self skin Don De Grazia
0f25a3f In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits. writing walden myself first self person Henry David Thoreau
d112609 Your self...is other people, all the people you're tied to, and it's only a thread. identity self Tom Wolfe
4ae714a Not at all. It's why people come. They say it's about looking smart, or beautiful, or professional, but it's not. Gray-haired ladies try to recapture their former brunette. Brunettes want to go blond. Other women go for colors that don't arise in nature. Each group thinks it's completely different than the others, but I don't see it that way. I've watched them looking at themselves in the mirror, and they're not interested in conforming or rebelling, they just want to walk out of here feeling like themselves again. individuality hair self Antony John
f690325 When I went on anyway, my body began to grow cold, and I thought I was dead. Face pale, my dead self sat down on a bench and began to turn toward my real self, who was watching this hallucination on the screen of the night. My dead self came nearer, just as if it might want to shake hands with my real self. That's when I panicked and tried to run. But my dead self pursued me and finally caught me, entered me and controlled me. I'd felt then just the way I felt now. I felt as if a hole had opened in my head from which consciousness and memory leaked out and in their place the rash crowded in, and a cold like spoiled roast chicken. But that time before, shaking and clinging to the damp bench, I'd told myself, Hey, take a good look, isn't the world still under your feet? I'm on this ground, and on this same ground are trees and grass and ants carrying sand to their nests, little girls chasing rolling balls, and puppies running. world murakami japanese self Ryū Murakami
297d198 Every angel is terrifying. Through the darkness, they move silently... I will go down into death with you. I must go where I must go To see what I must see In that place where no one knows... ... This is where love is taking me. You have been leading Me, angels, in and out of death. I have no idea who you are. Eurydice. Is she nothing Or is she your mirror? I don't know anymore. I am at war. Perhaps that which is given - Being human - Is too hard, And so it is love that brings us, To what cannot be born, To ourselves, And so we must change, Must descend, guided by love, into the unknown. Lovers disappear in each other. Do they disappear forever? Where do they go? lovers death love eurydice self Kathy Acker
0452cee You're afraid. Of yourself more than anyone else in the world. fear kingdom-of-ash self Sarah J. Maas
e95ced0 Small souls who seek power over others first destroy the faith those others might have in themselves. self power Frank Herbert
38d949b It is ourselves we encounter whenever we invent fictions. reality self Frank Kermode
4da6ee4 Depression is not generalized pessimism, but pessimism specific to the effects of one's own skilled action. pessimistic self Robert M. Sapolsky
573f979 The ability to find sparks may be buried so deep in you that you stop believing there's a God. Until someone comes along, with so much light in her that you can't help but see your own, and when you're together,that light grows even brighter. light love self Jodi Picoult
9167f45 When I fell in love it was as though I looked into a mirror for the first time and saw myself. self Jeanette Winterson
4a79d05 Each of us comes into being knowing who he is and what he is supposed to do.' ... 'Small children know,' Leto said. 'It's only after adults have confused them that children hide this knowledge even from themselves. identity self Frank Herbert
495c357 In a swamp, as in meditation, you begin to glimpse how elusive, how inherently insubstantial, how fleeting our thoughts are, our identities. There is magic in this moist world, in how the mind lets go, slips into sleepy water, circles and nuzzles the banks of palmetto and wild iris, how it seeps across dreams, smears them into the upright world, rots the wood of treasure chests, welcomes the body home. mind magic dream circle palmetto meditation self iris perception water Barbara Hurd
253a091 "What about you and me, Adina?" Duff said, sidling up to her by the railing. "I know I screwed up. But do you think we could start over?" Adina thought about everything that had happened. Part of her wanted to kiss Duff McAvoy, the tortured British trust-fund-runaway-turned-pirate-of-necessity who loved rock 'n' roll and mouthy-but-vulnerable bass-playing girls from New Hampshire. But he didn't exist. Not really. He was a creature of TV and her imagination, a guy she'd invented as much as he'd invented himself. And this was what she suddenly understood about her mother: how with each man, each husband, she was really trying to fill in the sketchy parts of herself and become somebody she could finally love. It was hard to live in the messiness and easier to believe in the dream. And in that moment, Adina knew she was not her mother after all. She would make mistakes, but they wouldn't be the same mistakes. Starting now. "Sorry," she said, heading for the bow, where a spot of sun looked inviting. "Oh, also, about that blog? Just so you know, my dads know a lot of gay lawyers. Bitches will take your ass down if you try to publish that. Peace out." love self Libba Bray
3e58650 It was one of those moments--which sometimes occur only at the interval of years--when a man's moral aspect is faithfully revealed to his mind's eye. Not improbably, he had never before viewed himself as he did now. self-awareness self Nathaniel Hawthorne
0a67d49 I once heard a tale of a man who split himself in two. The one part never changed at all; the other grew and grew. The changeless part was always true, The growing part was always new, And I wondered, when the tale was through, Which part was me, and which was you. soulmates self soul Orson Scott Card
e8405ed We were revisionists; what we revised was ourselves. revisionism self Margaret Atwood
791e5f0 Who was the real me? I can only repeat: I was a man of many faces. At meetings I was earnest, enthusiastic, and committed; among friends, unconstrained and given to teasing; with Marketa, cynical and fitfully witty; and alone (and thinking of Marketa), unsure of myself and as agitated as a schoolboy. Was the last face the real one? No. They were all real: I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces because I was young and didn't know who I was or wanted to be. (I was frightened by the differences between one face and the next; none of them seemed to fit me properly, and I groped my way clumsily among them.) youth identity man-of-many-faces czech masks self novel Milan Kundera
beb8746 To have been always what I am - and so changed from what I was. self Samuel Beckett
ac753f4 lm 'kn '`rf b`d 'n lHzn l yzwl blkml 'bdan , w'nh ybq~ tHt ljld ; wmn dwnh mkn ly lywm 'n 'kwn nfsy , wlm stT`t lt`rf `l~ nfsy fy lmra@ self Isabel Allende
c983e34 We can see Spirit made visible when people are kind to one another, especially when it's a really busy person, like you, taking care of a needy, annoying, neurotic person, like you. spirit needs self Anne Lamott
94a7a16 I don't know what understanding myself is. I don't look inside. I don't believe I exist behind myself. understanding seeing personality existence nature reality personae pantheism feeling clarity meaning-of-life paganism self Alberto Caeiro
4f7b7d9 Society is invincible--to a certain degree. But your real life is your own, and nothing can touch it. There is no power on earth that can prevent your criticizing and despising mediocrity--nothing that can stop you retreating into splendour and beauty--into the thoughts and beliefs that make the real life--the real you. integrity character life ideals society self mediocrity values E M Forster
4b65e8d People turned out to be alive. Hitherto he had supposed that they were what he pretended to be - flat pieces of cardboard stamped with a conventional design... there came by no process of reason a conviction that they were human beings with feelings akin to his own. social-commentary society self sociology E.M. Forster
70180c6 We are, at least in part, who we remember ourselves to be. Take away our memories, and you take away our selves. part-of-me take-away steal ourselves self remember Beth Revis
af0a059 "Whatever you is, Onion," he said, "be it full." understanding existence self-actualization purpose self James McBride
5db9e32 The price we paid for the volumes of ourselves that we suffocated in the dark. the-self self Nicole Krauss
6cafa38 No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory - this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea. memory-trigger metafiction self french infinite novel memory nostalgia Marcel Proust
4a61431 Language and hearing are seated in the cerebral cortex, the folded gray matter that covers the first couple of millimeters of the outer brain like wrapping paper. When one experiences silence, absent even reading, the cerebral cortex typically rests. Meanwhile, deeper and more ancient brain structures seem to be activated--the subcortical zones. People who live busy, noisy lives are rarely granted access to these areas. Silence, it appears, is not the opposite of sound. It is another world altogether, literally offering a deeper level of thought, a journey to the bedrock of the self. experiences silence reading world activated bedrock busy cerebral-cortex deeper gray-matter structures subcortical hearing sound brain noisy language ancient self thought journey Michael Finkel
d95c456 "When I said, "I am my mother, but I'm not," I was saying my path would be my own." self Terry Tempest Williams
3f2f7c8 A man's spirit is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego. howard-roark the-fountainhead self Ayn Rand
596559c Maybe anosognosia, the inability to see your own disability, is the human condition and I'm the only one who doesn't suffer from it. outsider self different Karen Joy Fowler
9e5e480 You had once asked me if I was afraid of death. I said I was afraid of not living. I don't want to eke out my life like a resource in short supply. The only selfish life is a timid one. To hold back, to withdraw, to keep the best in reserve, both overvalues the self, and undervalues what the self is. life timidity self selfishness Jeanette Winterson
4927541 Our fundamental tactic of self-protection, self-control, and self-definition is not spinning webs or building dams, but telling stories, and more particularly connecting and controlling the story we tell others - and ourselves - about who we are. story self Daniel C. Dennett
9dba995 Me--a teenager? If she suddenly stood, here, now, before me, would I need to treat her as near and dear, although she's strange to me, and distant? Shed a tear, kiss her brow for the simple reason that we share a birthdate? So many dissimilarities between us that only the bones are likely still the same, the cranial vault, the eye sockets. Since her eyes seem a little larger, her eyelashes are longer, she's taller, and the whole body is tightly sheathed in smooth, unblemished skin. Relatives and friends still link us, it is true, but in her world nearly all are living, while in mine almost no one survives from that shared circle. We differ so profoundly, talk and think about completely different things. She knows next to nothing-- but with a doggedness deserving better causes. I know much more-- but not for sure. She shows me poems, written in a clear and careful script I haven't used for years. I read the poems, read them. Well, maybe that one if it were shorter and touched up in a couple of places. The rest do not bode well. The conversation stumbles. On her pathetic watch time is still cheap and unsteady. On mine it's far more precious and precise. Nothing in parting, a fixed smile and no emotion. Only when she vanishes, leaving her scarf in her haste. A scarf of genuine wool, in colored stripes crocheted for her by our mother. I've still got it. youth poetry change growth self Wisława Szymborska
737abe9 Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book or How you can survive in the Cosmos about which you know more and more while knowing less and less about yourself, this despite 10,000 self-help books, 100,000 psychotherapists, and 100 million fundamentalist Christians or Why is it that of all the billions and billions of strange objects in the Cosmos - novas, quasars, pulsars, black holes - you are beyond doubt the strangest or Why is it possible to learn more in ten minutes about the Crab Nebula in Taurus, which is 6,000 light-years away, than you presently know about yourself, even though you've been stuck with yourself all your life existence self self-help Walker Percy
5802e95 Sometimes I get mail for people who lived in my home before I did, and sometimes my own body seems like a home through which successive people have passed like tenants, leaving behind memories, habits, scars, skills, and other souvenirs. history body self home Rebecca Solnit
aa77d1b It was all right to be who he was, but others would probably think it was terrible. A couple of times in the past he'd reached this absolute zero of the truth, and without fear or bitterness he realized now that somewhere inside it there was a move he could make to change his life, to become another person, but he'd never be able to guess what it was. self revelation Denis Johnson
392d331 You can be a really nasty, selfish little jerk when you're scared enough. I was scared enough. fear self yourself scared Robin McKinley
e745854 Our imagination is dictated by who we are. (198) self Dai Sijie
58733c9 For everyone now strives most of all to seperate his person, wishing to experience the fullness of life within himself, and yet what comes of all his efforts is not the fullness of life, but full suicide, for instead of the fullness of self-definition, they fall into complete isolation. philosophy self Fyodor Dostoyevsky
f217dce But even them, my pains, I understand ill. That must come from my not being all pain and nothing else. There's the rub. Then they recede, or I, till they fill me with amaze and wonder, seen from a better planet. Not often, but I ask no more. Catch-cony life! To be nothing but pain, how that would simplify matters! Omnidolent! Impious dream. self Samuel Beckett
49076d0 Is it that my habit of placing myself in the souls of other people makes me see myself as others see or would see me if they noticed my presence there? It is. And once I've perceived what they would feel about me if they knew me, it is as if they were feeling and expressing it at that very moment. It is a torture to me to live with other people. Then there are those who live inside me. Even when removed from life, I'm forced to live with them. Alone, I am hemmed in by multitudes. I have nowhere to flee to, unless I were to flee myself. people souls self torture Fernando Pessoa
c568576 Apparently Brooklyn needn't always push itself to be something else, something conscious and anxious, something pointed toward Manhattan.... Brooklyn might sometimes also be pleased, as here on Flatbush, to be its grubby, enduring self. grubby enduring self Jonathan Lethem
8b86655 You speak as if this is a good world with a little evil in it. Rubbish. It's a hellish one where the best a man can do is put a little sanity back and look after his own. life self A.J. Hartley and David Hewson
8abf2ab He sat thus, lost in meditation, thinking Om, his soul as the arrow directed at Brahman. siddhartha meditation self Hermann Hesse
1240b00 I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the futherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering. inner-conflict self Robert Louis Stevenson
a41e318 Then the edge asserts itself. You are not a god. You are not that enlarged self. Indeed, you are not even a whole self, as you now see. Your new knowledge of possibilities is also a knowledge of what is lacking in the actual. self Anne Carson
5efa76f He liked to get off by himself, a mile or so from camp, and listen to the country, not the men. apart loner self like Larry McMurtry
0c9e421 Crime begins with God. It will end with man, when he finds God again. Crime is everywhere, in all the fibres and roots of our being. Every minute of the day adds fresh crimes to the calendar, both those which are detected and punished, and those which are not. The criminal hunts down the criminal. The judge condemns the judger. The innocent torture the innocent. Everywhere, in every family, every tribe, every great community, crimes, crimes, crimes. War is clean by comparison. The hangman is a gentle dove by comparison. Attila, Tamerlane, Genghis Khan reckless automatons by comparison. Your father, your darling mother, your sweet sister: do you know the foul crimes they harbor in their breasts? Can you hold the mirror to iniquity when it is close at hand? Have you looked into the labyrinth of your own despicable heart? Have you sometimes envied the thug for his forthrightness? The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself. All that you despise, all that you loathe, all that you reject, all that you condemn and seek to convert by punishment springs from you. The source of it is God whom you place outside, above and beyond. Crime is identification, first with God, then with your own image. god self Henry Miller
baf9ce2 He (Anwar Sadat) records that he was almost loathe to leave his prison cell because it was there that he realized that real success is success with self. It's not in having things, but in having mastery, having victory over self. success self victory Stephen R. Covey
ba318ec Henry: I usen't to need anyone, just to myself, stories, there was a great one about an old fellow called Bolton, I never finished it, I never finished any of them, I never finished anything, everything always went on for ever. (Pause.) embers self play stories Samuel Beckett
43956e9 Why should anyone be so grateful for acceptance unless he doubts that he is acceptable, and why should a young, educated and successful couple have such doubts, if not due to the fact that they cannot accept themselves because they are not themselves. individuality identity originality self Erich Fromm
7f9fb9f We seem to be unable to resist overstating every aspect of ourselves: how long we are on the planet for, how much it matters what we achieve, how rare and unfair are our professional failures, how rife with misunderstandings are our relationships, how deep are our sorrows. Melodrama is individually always the order of the day. relationships melodrama significance sorrows self Alain de Botton
778544c Our problem isn't that we're individualists. It's that our individualism is static rather than dynamic. We value what we think rather than what we do. We forget that we haven't done, or been, what we thought; that the first function of life is action, just as the first property of things is motion. identity philosophy static dynamic motion individualism self Fernando Pessoa
0ee0f4b The world is inseparable from the subject, but from a subject which is nothing but a project of the world, and the subject is inseparable from the world, but from a world which the subject itself projects. world relational-nature subject subjectivity projection self Maurice Merleau-Ponty
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