Identity Quotes

When you are clearly-defined, deliberate with intention and operating at your highest level, your brilliance cannot be hidden, diminished or overshadowed.

~ Rhonda Louise Robbins

I wear makeup and I don dramatic attire because I like control. I’m not interested in controlling others but I’m invested in strict self-governance. This is why I don’t do many face-to-face interviews. I don’t like being caught off-guard. It all goes back to that attempt to create order amidst disorder. One of the most frightening things about losing your mind is that you feel like your body, your brain, every part of your essence is being invaded. There is such a palpable helplessness to that narrative and I hate the sense of victimhood that it implies. Certainly, this is how I felt during my moments of psychological disquiet. I felt like my personhood was under attack. Performativity is important to me because I’m the teller of my own stories. I have been performing these multiple roles for so long that they have bled into my identity. I have become the man that I always wanted to be.

~ Diriye Osman

I'll never have to give an account for not being more like my favorite celebrity, that shining star in my chosen field or anybody else. And at the end of my life, the question I never want to be asked is, How come you weren't more like YOU? You had such great potential. You were a wholly unique person -- unrepeatable and irreplaceable. Why you weren't more like YOU?

~ Steve Goodier

Are you what others say and think you are?  Or are you who you are regardless of what others say and think?

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

It reminded him of the truth—who he really was, and the fact that no matter how far he ran, his past would be right there with him.

~ Kayla Krantz

The past, if there is such a thing, is mostly empty space, great expanses of nothing, in which significant persons and events float. Nigeria was like that for me: mostly forgotten, except for those few things that I remembered with an outsize intensity. These were the things that had been solidified in my mind by reiteration, that recurred in dreams and daily thoughts: certain faces, certain conversations, which, taken as a group, represented a secure version of the past that I had been constructing since 1992. But there was another, irruptive, sense of things past. The sudden reencounter in the present, of something or someone long forgotten, some part of myself I had relegated to childhood and to Africa.

~ Teju Cole

This is when I became myself. The girl before this time is a shadow, like a soul who is practicing how not to become. She is the background, the hole in the fabric from which the real shape is cut.

~ Gabriel Weston

I have to tell you about these things from the past, because they are so important. The really important things usually lie in the distant past. And until you know about them, if you'll forgive my saying so, you will always to some extent a mere newcomer in my life.When I was at High School my favourite pastime was walking. Or rather, loitering. If we are talking about my adolescence, it's the more accurate word. Systematically, one by one, I explored all the districts of Pest. I relished the special atmosphere of every quarter and every street. Even now I can still find the same delight in houses that I did then. In this respect I've never grown up. Houses have so much to say to me. For me, they are what Nature used to be to the poets - or rather, what the poets thought of as Nature.But best of all I loved the Castle Hill District of Buda. I never tired of its ancient streets. Even in those days old things attracted me more than new ones. For me the deepest truth was found only in things suffused with the lives of many generations, which hold the past as permanently as mason Kelemen's wife buried in the high tower of Deva.

~ Antal Szerb

I miss my old life

~ Richard C. Morais

It's not being in the past, but accepting who we were and being who we are.

~ Roisin Turner

Finally, it is wrong to say that nothing is more basic to the identity of the church than suffering. Nothing is more basic to the identity of the institutional church than the preaching of the gospel, the correct administration of the sacraments, and the worship of God in Spirit and in truth (Westminster Confession of Faith, 25.4). Nothing is more basic to the identity of the individual Christian than faith, hope, obedience, and love, the fruit of the Spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 13:4-13; Gal. 5:22-24; 1 John 2:3; 3:10, 24; 4:7-21; 5:1-3).

~ Keith A. Mathison

For in some ways the world was like a shopping centre, and he himself was a doubtful customer, often ineffectual, being talked into buying things he didn't want, things indeed which nobody in their right mind would want to buy.

~ Margaret Mahy

I do not care what I labeled, as long as I am heard.

~ Hannah Sawyerr

Think how wonderful it might be to no longer matter, Mrs. Peregrine. Think how wonderful it might be to no longer worry, struggle… or fail.

~ Diane B. Saxton

Although claiming my true identity as a child of God, I still live as though the God to whom I am returning demands an explanation. I still think about his love as conditional and about home as a place I am not yet fully sure of. While walking home, I keep entertaining doubts about whether I will be truly welcome when I get there. As I look at my spiritual journey, my long and fatiguing trip home, I see how full it is of guilt about the past and worries about the future. I realize my failures and know that I have lost the dignity of my sonship, but I am not yet able to fully believe that where my failings are great, 'grace is always greater.' Still clinging to my sense of worthlessness, I project for myself a place far below that which belongs to the son, (p. 52).

~ Henri J.m. Nouwen

Don't ever think that life is unfair. People may be different in status and identity, but what matters most is your personality. God created all humans with equal love and attention. In times that you think you are alone, remember that He is always there for you. He will never leave you because He loves you. Always bear in mind that all of us are His children and He is our father. And in times of need, hold on to Him because He will never let you suffer. Even though life varies in some circumstances, all will experience a composition of victory and failure. Victory as a reward and failure as a lesson. If you are born poor, do everything to achieve your dreams and strive for success. If you are born rich, be charitable to others and keep your feet on the ground. Everyone is special. Everyone is unique. Everyone is blessed. But not everyone knows how to value it. Be the best that you can become, always acquire happiness and live your life to the fullest!

~ Joe Mari Fadrigalan

But often, in the world's most crowded streets,But often, in the din of strife,There rises an unspeakable desireAfter the knowledge of our buried life;A thirst to spend our fire and restless forceIn tracking out our true, original course.

~ Matthew Arnold

You are not who you think you are.

~ Silvia Hartmann

Everybody calls me Marty. I never know what to call myself.

~ Marty Rubin

And the supreme mystery was simply this: here was one room; there another. Did religion solve that, or love?

~ Virginia Woolf

And I wasn’t playing a role – I was trying to be myself.But the harder I was striving, the more I was realizing that I had probably lost that ‘myself’ somewhere between two perfectly performed roles...

~ Simona Panova

Disparate from animals, human beings are constantly interpreting who we are. The mental rhythm of the human mind is a stream of thought that is constantly in motion. The development of conscious awareness is a lifetime process of interpreting the external world by employing the tools of observation, memory, and imagination; supplemented by rational thoughts, meditative reflections, intuition, and freelance conjure. Every day we can consciously work to alter our being or remain mentally stagnant.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

When we are children or teenagers, most of us experience something which has devastating effects on our growth and own identity. It's happens when we are compared to others. you are like your father, you're like your mother, you are like your friends... it always has a negative meaning. It's not too late to stop comparing yourself to others, it's a challenging lesson to learn and to carry on a daily basis, it's painful and it takes time for results to be seen, so start today. Start now.

~ Marino Baccarini

It’s complicated, what makes a person. I think…part of it is experience—whether you seek them out or they come to you—and your reactions to them. Even then, you may not know exactly how something affects you, and sometimes that says even more. I guess the best way to understand something is to actually go through it yourself.

~ Jonathan Luna

If you dont speak, they will know you know more than you're telling them. And if they know that, they'll find a way to get what you know out of you. Believe me, they'll get everything out, Willie. Don't have any qualms about it -- make your story good and make it believable. Silence won't work! This was an expert giving me the best advice she could. From that point on, I worked hard not to remember the people I loved, to try instead to create another life, a false life...I tried to become a person concerned only with very simple things -- and scared. I tried to become the woman I needed to be in order to live.

~ Diet Eman

You’ll never know who you are unless you shed who you pretend to be.

~ Vironika Tugaleva

Every person’s story contains chapters of pain and loss, victory and defeat, love and hate, pride and prejudice, courage and fear, faith and self-distrust, charity and kindness, selfishness and jealously. Every person’s story also contains folios of hopefulness and truthfulness, deceit and despair, action and change, passion and compassion, excitement and boredom, birth and creation, mutation and defect, generation and preservation, delusions and illusions, imagination and fantasy, bafflement and puzzlement. What makes a person’s selfsame story unique is how he or she organizes the pure and impure forces that comprise them, how they respond to internal and external crisis, if they act in a safeguarding and humble manner, or lead a self-seeking and destructive existence.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

You are not who you think you are. You are not your fears, your thoughts, or your body. You are not your insecurities, your career, or your memories. You're not what you're criticized for and you're not what you're praised for. You are a boundless wealth of potential. You are everything that's ever been. Don't sell yourself short. Every sunset, every mountain, every river, every passionate crowd, every concert, every drop of rain - that's you. So go find yourself. Go find your strength, find your beauty, find your purpose. Stop crafting your mask. Stop hiding. Stop lying to yourself and letting people lie to you. You're not lacking in anything except awareness. Everything you've ever wanted is already there, awaiting your attention, awaiting your time.

~ Vironika Tugaleva

I find it really fascinating that while in an attempt to look beautiful we tend to go for what's easily acceptable.But when it comes to portraits, it is only our facial flaws that make that picture worth its while, setting it apart.Isn't it amazing to find that beauty is something that makes us alike? While our flaws are the real contributors to our uniqueness.

~ Mansi Laus Deo

Sometimes the most important conversation we can have is with the waves of the ocean or the dewdrops on a blade of grass. Sometimes the easiest way to love yourself is to realize that you are all these things. You are everything you’ve ever loved.

~ Vironika Tugaleva

It's better to risk being disliked for living your truth than to be loved for what you are pretending to be.

~ Dawn Gluskin

Although healing brings a better life, it also threatens to permanently alter life as you’ve known it. Your relationships, your position in the world, even your sense of identity may change. Coping patterns that have served you for a lifetime will be called into question. When you make the commitment to heal, you risk losing much of what is familiar. As a result one part of you may want to heal while another resists change.

~ Laura Davis

I live in an ecotone. Employment must coexist with goofing off. Responsibility must coexist with irresponsibility.

~ Benjamin Alire Sáenz

And, she thought uncomfortably, what would happen if people did not recognize you? Would you know who you were yourself? If tomorrow they started to call her Vanessa or Janet or Elizabeth, would she know how to be, how to feel like, Charlotte? Were you some particular person only because people recognized you as that?

~ Penelope Farmer

So I say a name, even if self-bestowed, is better than a number. In the register of the potter's field I shall soon have both. What wealth!

~ Ambrose Bierce

Writers use both their blood and their brains to explore the darkest recesses of their pooling self. Writing allows us to harness the whimsy of the collaborative mind and body, pull our tissue apart like taffy, and expose the composition of our life sustaining organs. Telling our personal story forces us to account for any actions that made us laugh, cry, scream and shout, or hide behind a cloak of mootness. Critical examination of the self allows one to disintegrate the envelope of their present personality and make up a new imaging.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Our work is not to become unique. We are unique. Our work is to unleash our sense of adventure and to allow the inner whisper that says “come hither” to be reason enough to go.

~ Vironika Tugaleva

A person's name is a fate-conjuring incantation.

~ Mark Leyner

The most fundamental change in people at this time was a weakening of their sense of individual identity, their sense of fate grew correspondingly stronger.

~ Vasily Grossman

I make no apologies for you. After all, each one of us is little more than the meager residue of the infinite unrealized possibilities of our lives.

~ Gregory Frost