Best 12844 quotes in «self quotes» category

As frost to the bud, and blight to the blossom, even such is self-interest to friendship; for confidence cannot dwell where selfishness is porter at the gate.

As history shows us, when colonization is voluntary, people will self-select better than any testing system. It’s like those foolish attempts to control immigration to American based on the traits that were deemed desirable, when in fact the only trait that defines Americans historically is “descended from somebody willing to give up everything to live there.” Willingness is the single most important test.

As human beings, we ought to be vulnerable. We shouldn't try to say that we can be self-sufficient or do everything that's necessary for a good life on our own, because we need other people.

As I get older, my childhood self becomes more accessible to me, but selectively, in images as stylized and suspect as moments remembered from a novel read years ago.

As Hubert Benoit said, it is not the identification with the ego that is the problem, but the exclusive nature of the identification. When our self-identity expands beyond the ego, into the deeper psychic, then even into the Unborn and One Taste, the ego is simply taken up and subsumed in a grander identity. But the ego itself remains as the functional self in the gross realm, and it might even appropriately be intensified and made more powerful, simply because it is now plugged into the entire Kosmos.

As I am, so are others as others are, so am I. Having thus identified self and others, harm no one nor have them harmed.

A sick body with a good heart is more beneficial to future lives than a fit, healthy body that is used for self-cherishing.

As I have already urged, the practice of that which is ethically best - what we call goodness or virtue - involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless selfassertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect , but shall help his fellows. It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence. Laws and moral precepts are directed to the end of curbing the cosmic process.

As I look back, I feel a touch of pride at my younger self's dedication to literature, which gave him the strength of mind to resist the blandishments of the enemies of promise. The sirens of ad-land sang sweetly and seductively, but I thought of Odysseus lashing himself to the mast of his ship, and somehow stayed on course.

As in everything else, I must start with myself. That is: in all circumstances try to be decent, just, tolerant, and understanding, and at the same time try to resist corruption and deception. In other words, I must do my utmost to act in harmony with my conscience and my better self.

As incredible as it sounds, an unhappy man does not realize that happiness is better than unhappiness. Knowing only his own concealed anguish, he worships it, which is the same as self-worship.

As I had once done thus in my breaking away from my Parents, so I could not be content now, but I must go and leave the happy View I had of being a rich and thriving Man in my new Plantation, only to pursue a rash and immoderate Desire of rising faster than the Nature of the Thing admitted; and thus I cast my self down again into the deepest Gulph of human Misery that ever Man fell into, or perhaps could be consistent with Life and a State of Health in the World.

A single, one-dimensional way of thinking has created a monoculture of the mind. And the monoculture of the mind has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is the root of why we have pitted equity against ecology and sustainability against justice.

As it almost always was when I'd been too self-centered to see the truth of the matter, I felt impossibly foolish.

A single thread of self generation ties the cosmos, the bios, and the technos together into one creation. Humans are not the culmination of this trajectory but an intermediary, smack in the middle between the born and the made... The arc of complexity and open-ended creation in the last four billion years is nothing compared to what lies ahead.

As I noticed feelings and thoughts appear and disappear, it became increasingly clear that they were just coming and going on their own. . . . There was no sense of a self owning them.

As international support for Obama's decision to attack Syria has collapsed, along with the credibility of government claims, the administration has fallen back on a standard pretext for war crimes when all else fails: the credibility of the threats of the self-designated policeman of the world.

As I see it every single day you do one in every of two issues: construct well being or produce illness in your self.

As I've become older and more self-conscious, I'm more aware of films and the film industry. I'm sure you've seen that, but the publicity, the public side of this world is pretty scary to me.

Ask yourself this: How much deprivation, how much self-effacement must you suffer through before you act on your desire for meaning and fulfillment? Before it’s your turn to thrive in your life, instead of barely surviving it? Some people live their dreams. Why not you?

As John Adams said, all democracies will eventually self-destruct. We seem to be doing it very quickly.

As long as a man is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God. Such a man plans out for himself a position, an occasion, a work, which shall bring him final salvation, but which will not.

As long as I continue to take myself seriously, how can I consider myself a saint? How can I consider myself a contemplative? For the self I bother about does not really exist, never will, never did except in my own imagination.

A slightly modified version of the Serenity Prayer: Lord, grant me the serenity to ignore the assholes I cannot avoid; The luck to avoid the ones I can; And the self-awareness not to be one myself

As long as we remain self-reflective and keep looking at who and what we are, as long as we keep our analysis that way, then there's no freedom. We're just trying clothes on in front of a mirror and admiring them.

As long as we place millions of Indians at the centre of our thought process, as long as we think of their welfare, their future, their opportunities for self-realisation we are on the right track.

As long as you pretend to be self-sufficient, you short-circuit God's power in your life. You need to admit your inadequacy and say, "God, I can't handle this!

As long as we can tell stories about our ability to survive, the more we will hope, not self-destruct.

As much as everything can seem to be about patterns in your self and others, within the drama of all that, it's really all about knowing.

As often as not our whole self...engages itself in the most trivial of things, the shape of a particular hill, a road in the town in which we lived as children, the movement of wind in grass. The things we shall take with us when we die will nearly all be small things.

As never before, he understood the vitality of tradition, the dignity of the worship of what had existed before one's own self had come into being. There was no shame in awe; there was exaltation. (“Cafe Endless: Spring Rain”)

A solid sense of self will help a person to lead a full and happy life.

As one studies these preconditions, one becomes saddened by the ease with which human potentiality can be destroyed or repressed, so that a fully-human person can seem like a miracle, so improbable a happening as to be awe-inspiring. And simultaneously one is heartened by the fact that self-actualizing persons do in fact exist, that they are therefore possible, that the gauntlet of dangers can be run, that the finish line can be crossed.

A sort of egotistical self-evaluation is unavoidable in those joys in which erudition and art mingle and in which aesthetic pleasure may become more acute, but not remain as pure.

As our self-interests differ, so do our feelings.

A spirituality that is only private and self-absorbed, one devoid of an authentic political and social consciousness, does little to halt the suicidal juggernaut of history. On the other hand, an activism that is not purified by profound spiritual and psychological self-awareness ... will only perpetuate the problem it is trying to solve, however righteous its intentions.

A sort of fearlessness - the notion that a person could be comfortable with (even interested in) whatever arises. I sure can't do it, but I think all of us have had little glimpse of that power, often when we are really actively loving someone or something and feel that little eradication of self that happens when we are engaged in feeling protective or especially fond of someone else. I associate that feeling with a corresponding clarity of purpose and a disappearance of confusion.

As self-governing entities, artists have a profound interest in change. Embracing change, we embrace growth and we embrace our future.

Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.

As publishing has become less expensive, the urge to write my own self has become the opportunity to publish my own self. Everyone now can afford to preach in the desert.

Assurance is not to be obtained so much by self-examination as by action

As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he's too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.

As soon as you start doing that - changing things - it seems self-evident to me that you've entered the world of make-believe. If you pretend that it's true, and use your own name, you are misleading people. Fiction is looser and wilder and sometimes in the end more self-revealing, anyway.

Assume the worst. About everybody. But don't let this poisoned outlook affect your job performance. Let it all roll off your back. Ignore it. Be amused by what you see and suspect. Just because someone you work with is a miserable, treacherous, self-serving, capricious and corrupt asshole shouldn't prevent you from enjoying their company, working with them or finding them entertaining.

A state arises,as I conceive,out of the needs of mankind;no one is self-sufficing,but all of us have many wants

As the great poet wrote, ‘To thine own self be true.’…What? You don’t think a Skotos can be literate? I happen to love Shakespeare. Hamlet is one of my faves. (Zeth) I’m not touching that one with tongs and a gas mask. (Jericho)

As there must be moderation in other things, so there must be moderation in self-criticism. Perpetual contemplation of our own actions produces a morbid consciousness, quite unlike that normal consciousness accompanying right actions spontaneously done; and from a state of unstable equilibrium long maintained by effort, there is apt to be a fall towards stable equilibrium, in which the primitive nature reasserts itself. Retrogression rather than progression may hence result.

As the same fire assumes different shapes When it consumes objects differing in shape, So does the one Self take the shape Of every creature in whom he is present.

A string of reproaches against other people leads one to suspect the existence of a string of self-reproaches with the same content.

As to memory, it is known that this frail faculty naturally lets drop the facts which are less flattering to our self-love - when it does not retain them carefully as subjects not to be approached, marshy spots with a warning flag over them.