You differ from a great man in only one respect: the great man was once a very little man, but he developed one important quality: he recognized the smallness and narrowness of his thoughts and actions. Under the pressure of some task that meant a great deal to him, he learned to see how his smallness, his pettiness endangered his happiness. In other words, a great man knows when and in what way he is a little man. A little man does not know he is little and is afraid to know. He hides his pettiness and narrowness behind illusions of strength and greatness, someone else's strength and greatness. He's proud of his great generals but not of himself. He admires an idea he has not had, not one he has had. The less he understands something, the more firmly he believes in it. And the better he understands an idea, the less he believes in it.

~ Wilhelm Reich

Wilhelm Reich Emotional Plague Knowledge Orgone Pride Projection Self Knowledge Self Perception Success

If one felt successful, there'd be so little incentive to be successful.

~ Alain De Botton

Alain De Botton Feelings Self Perception Success

Your self-reliance, self-appraisal and self- perception depends on how successful you are at knowing who God has created you to become

~ Sunday Adelaja

Sunday Adelaja God Self Appraisal Self Perception Self Reliance Success

Too often fear is fiction madly running amuck, all the while madly tracking ‘muck’ across the floor of fact.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Craig D. Lounsbrough Distortion Fact Fear Fearful Fiction Frightened Honest Honesty Lies Mad Madly Muck Self Concept Self Esteem Self Perception Self Understanding Track Truth

There are times in life that we ascribe qualities or traits to other people that are inaccurate or fail to recognize other aspects of their being because we are emotionally invested in that person fulfilling a specific role in our life. When we claim that the other person changed it is not so much that they altered their core composition, but we now must admit to ourselves that our original perception of them was imprecise.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Kilroy J. Oldster Change Changing Perspective Self Awareness Self Determination Self Perception Self Truth Transformation Transformation Quotes

People are crying up the rich and variegated plumage of the peacock, and he is himself blushing at the sight of his ugly feet.

~ Saadi

Saadi Beauty Self Consciousness Self Perception

We must clean the lens of our hearts to see the state of our souls. However, too often the former is too dirty to even know that the latter exists.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Craig D. Lounsbrough Aware Awareness Condition Dirty Filthy Forthright Frank Heart Honest Insight Introspection Introspective Lens Perception Self Analysis Self Care Self Critical Self Criticism Self Evaluation Self Perception Soul State

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.

~ Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell Delusions Importance Nervous Breakdowns Neurosis Perspective Self Perception Work

Forgiveness has nothing to do with absolving a criminal of his crime. It has everything to do with relieving oneself of the burden of being a victim--letting go of the pain and transforming oneself from victim to survivor.

~ C.r. Strahan

C.r. Strahan Forgiveness Pain Self Perception Survivor Victim

Don't spend your life believing a story about yourself that you didn't write that's been fed to you - that simply you've accepted, embedded and added to. Let the story go and there beneath is the real you...and your unique gifts, heart and path that await you.

~ Rasheed Ogunlaru

Rasheed Ogunlaru Accept Belief Quotes Embedded Expectation Gifts Inspirational Life Inspirational Quotes Judgement Letting Go Of Negative People Letting Go Of The Past Letting Go Of Your Grudges Letting Go Quotes Lies Lies We Tell Ourselves Life Path Life Purpose Life Story Life Wisdom Quotes Love Motivational Quotes Projection Rasheed Ogunlaru Rasheed Ogunlaru Quotes Self Belief Self Perception Talents Truth Write

I Don’t Suffer From A Complex But The Complex Suffers From Me.

~ Amit Abraham

Amit Abraham Inferiority Complex Positive Thinking Self Perception

Butterflies can't see their wings. They can't see how truly beautiful they are, but everyone else can. People are like that as well.

~ Naya Rivera

Naya Rivera Beautiful Beauty Is Not Skin Deep Butterflies Inner Beauty Inspirational Quote Self Judgement Self Perception Wisdom Quotes

There is that gnawing feeling that we are far more than what we believe ourselves to be. Maybe it’s time to believe the gnawing.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Craig D. Lounsbrough Belief Believe Feeling Gnawing Identity Intuition Intuitive Possibilities Potential Resources Self Self Confidence Self Esteem Self Perception

Shakespeare and his few peers invented all of us.

~ Harold Bloom

Harold Bloom Assumptions Conventional Wisdom Legacy Literature Self Perception

She had been so vulnerable, and Norah wanted only to protect her. But that vulnerability was tied to a massive mistake, a perception of herself too damaged to love. If Norah got anything from this book, it's that we're all damaged. The tragedy is letting it define you.

~ Ellen Meister

Ellen Meister Choices Damaged Dorothy Parker Drank Here Ellen Meister Forgiveness Healing Lessons Life Self Perception Understanding

Who you are is too vast to be captured by the reflection of a mirror, classified by the state of your attitude, or categorized by the opinions of others. Therefore, if any of these are defining you, you have yet to be defined.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Craig D. Lounsbrough Characteristics Classified Defined Identity Personality Self Self Perception Self Understanding Traits

I take my cues from the world around me and carefully paint a self-portrait that the world can’t help but accept. However, I would be much wiser to put down all such artistic notions and hold up the portrait of me painted by God simply because that is a picture at which the world can’t help but marvel.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Craig D. Lounsbrough Artistic God Portrait Self Self Concept Self Confidence Self Esteem Self Perception Self Understanding

It has nothing to do with who I am as compared to everyone else. It has everything to do with who I am in companionship with God.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Craig D. Lounsbrough Comparison To Others Confidence God Self Concept Self Doubt Self Esteem Self Evaluation Self Perception Value Worth

A beautiful person is not defined by a hair style, a pair of shoes, it’s not the logos on the T-shirt, the sport’s team on a hat, the designer’s name on a hand bag, or even how you smell.Instead, beauty lies in who you are when no one is watching, the person you are when there’s nothing to hide behind. No amount of concealer can cover up a cantankerous heart, but all the make-up in the world can’t add a single lumen to the brightness of a beautiful soul.

~ Justin Young

Justin Young Poor Self Image Self Esteem Self Image Self Perception True Beauty

Secularity is a way of being dependent on the responses of our milieu. The secular or false self is the self which is fabricated, as Thomas Merton says, by social compulsions. 'Compulsive' is indeed the best adjective for the false self. It points to the need for ongoing and increasing affirmation. Who am I? I am the one who is liked, praised, admired, disliked, hated or despised. Whether I am a pianist, a businessman or a minister, what matters is how I am perceived by my world. If being busy is a good thing, then I must be busy. If having money is a sign of real freedom, then I must claim my money. If knowing many people proves my importance, I will have to make the necessary contacts. The compulsion manifests itself in the lurking fear of failure and the steady urge to prevent this by gathering more of the same - more work, more money, more friends.

~ Henri J.m. Nouwen

Henri J.m. Nouwen False Self Perception Self Esteem Self Perception Worldliness

The image that concerns most people is the reflection they see in other people's minds.

~ Edward De Bono

Edward De Bono Acceptance Of Oneself Confidence Ego Perception Self Confidence Self Esteem Self Image Self Perception

Who people think they are and what people think they want is not really who they are or what they want.

~ Laurie Frankel

Laurie Frankel Desire Self Perception Want

As you heal, you see yourself more realistically. You accept that you are a person with strengths and weaknesses. You make the changes you can in your life and let go of the things that aren’t in your power to change. You learn that every part of you is valuable. And you realize that all of your thoughts and feelings are important, even when they’re painful or difficult.

~ Ellen Bass

Ellen Bass Abuse Survivors Child Abuse Survivors Emotional Freedom Emotional Health Healing Healing Insights New Perspective Recovery Self Awareness Self Perception Survivors Of Abuse Valuing Yourself

To realize that you do not understand is a virtue, not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.

~ Lao Tzu

Lao Tzu Self Knowledge Self Perception Understanding

If we cant laugh at ourselves, do we have the right to laugh at others?

~ C.h. Hamel

C.h. Hamel Respect Self Awareness Self Perception

Greatness demands that I understand that I am not nearly as big as I thought myself to be, but that I am capable of becoming far bigger than I ever imagined myself to be.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Craig D. Lounsbrough Big Capable Great Greatness Imagine Imagined Me Myself Self Image Self Perception

What man ain't the honestest cove in his own eyes? Grote's round face is a bronze moon in the dark. 'Tain't good intentions what paves the road to hell: it's self-justifyin's.

~ David Mitchell

David Mitchell Good Intentions Honesty Self Justification Self Perception

But I never looked like that!’ - How do you know? What is the ‘you’ you might or might not look like? Where do you find it - by which morphological or expressive calibration? Where is your authentic body? You are the only one who can never see yourself except as an image; you never see your eyes unless they are dulled by the gaze they rest upon the mirror or the lens (I am interested in seeing my eyes only when they look at you): even and especially for your own body, you are condemned to the repertoire of its images.

~ Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes Identity Perceptive Self Perception

I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then, I must watch my reaction to it. I have no other way of spotting both my denied shadow self and my idealized persona.

~ Richard Rohr

Richard Rohr Humility Mistakes Self Perception Sin

Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. Life would undergo a change of appearance because we ourselves had undergone a change of attitude.

~ Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield Attitude Self Perception

...all these things were part of the business of dreams. He had learned not to laugh at the advertisements offering to teach writing, cartooning, engineering, to add inches to the biceps and to develop the bust

~ Nathanael West

Nathanael West American Dream Capitalism Commercialization Conformity Disillusionment Self Perception Social Commentary

He wasn't so elderly after all, I saw: probably just a few years older than I. And yet I was never able (and am still not) to think of myself as old. I talked as if I knew I was; I bemoaned my age. But it was only for comedy, or to make other people feel young.

~ Hanya Yanagihara

Hanya Yanagihara Age Self Perception

Most people overestimate others' talents and underestimate their own.

~ Orrin Woodward

Orrin Woodward Leadership Self Perception Talent

There's more to clothing than just adornment. It does more than merely change how the world perceives us. It changes how we perceive ourselves.

~ Jacqueline Carey

Jacqueline Carey Fashion Self Perception

We must not allow other people’s limited perceptions to define us.

~ Virginia Satir

Virginia Satir Be Yourself Self Determination Self Perception