Self Quotes

“We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.”
― May Sarton

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
― Rumi

“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Men Without Women

“Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.”
― Franz Kafka

“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“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.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

“We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers - but never blame yourself. It's never your fault. But it's always your fault, because if you wanted to change you're the one who has got to change.”
― Katharine Hepburn, Me: Stories of My Life

“A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet

“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.

Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.

Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.”
― Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”
― J. Krishnamurti

“My past is everything I failed to be.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“I envy people that know love. That have someone who takes them as they are.”
― Jess C Scott, The Devilin Fey

“Keep your best wishes, close to your heart and watch what happens”
― Tony DeLiso, Legacy: The Power Within: The Power Within

“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening

“It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.”
― Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

“You are who you are when nobody's watching.”
― Stephen Fry

“Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My dark side says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen

“We'd start slow, the way we always did, because the run, and the game, could go on for awhile. Maybe even forever.
That was the thing. You just never knew. Forever was so many different things. It was always changing, it was what everything was really all about. It was twenty minutes, or a hundred years, or just this instant, or any instant I wished would last and last. But there was only one truth about forever that really mattered, and that was this: it was happening. Right then, as I ran with Wes into that bright sun, and every moment afterwards. Look, there. Now. Now. Now.”
― Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

“A fit, healthy body—that is the best fashion statement”
― Jess C Scott

“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.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“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?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”
― Edward Everett Hale

“Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.”
― Alan Wilson Watts

“I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.”
― mary anne radmacher

“My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.”
― Alan Watts

“The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.”
― Jim Morrison

“The problem with introspection is that it has no end.”
― Philip K. Dick

“We don't realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme self who is eternally at peace.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“V-Day…if you need this one day in a year to show everyone else you truly care for “your loved one” I think it’s quite stupid. I hate this commercialism. It’s all artificial, and has nothing to do with real love.”
― Jess C Scott, EyeLeash: A Blog Novel