Self Quotes

The best way to forget ones self is to look at the world with attention and love.

~ Red Auerbach

Music has always been such an amazing tool for me to access self and emotion.

~ Matisyahu

The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.

~ Toni Morrison

Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force.

~ George Bernard Shaw

I've loved Leia and Han since I was seven years old. Getting a chance to tell some of their adventures? Mind-blowing on every level. I wish I could go back in time and high-five my baby self.

~ Claudia Gray

The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosopher's or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself, and that is why you must know yourself - Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self.

~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.

~ Khalil Gibran

If you first fortify yourself with the true knowledge of the Universal Self, and then live in the midst of wealth and worldliness, surely they will in no way affect you.

~ Ramakrishna

The library is seen as a force for self improvement and the pursuit of knowledge. I fear that in many cases this is no longer true, if it ever was.

~ John Redwood

For those who have obtained unobstructed knowledge of Self, the world is seen merely as a bondage causing imagination.

~ Ramana Maharshi

We have a habit of turning to scientists when we want factual answers and artists when we want entertainment, but where are the facts about the nature of the self? Neurologists peering at PET scans and fMRIs know they aren't seeing the soul in there.

~ James Gleick

I see the American experience as being defined by the immigrant paradigm of rupture and renewal: rupture with the old world, the old ways, and renewal of the self in a bright but difficult New World.

~ Ayad Akhtar

We are becoming so fickle and self involved. Always looking for the next best thing - especially when it comes to people. We spend hours buried in our phones trying to keep up with the social lives of people we may not even know. Envy and the fear of missing out have taken over. Yet we are all still longing for human connection.

~ Whitney Wolfe

Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.

~ Napoléon Bonaparte

It is wisest to be impartial. If you have health, but are attached to it, you will always be afraid of losing it. And if you fear that loss, but become ill, you will suffer. Why not remain forever joyful in the Self?

~ Paramahansa Yogananda

I always say three things make a writer: inspiration, obviously; perspiration, doing the work. But the third is desperation. I'm not really fit for anything else, or to have a real job. That fear drives me. The pressure has always been self inflicted.

~ Harlan Coben

Getting in touch with your true self must be your first priority.

~ Tom Hopkins

The Grameen clinics prove that a medical system 'for the poor' can be almost entirely self-supporting, and we hope we can make it fully self sufficient so we can expand it across Bangladesh.

~ Muhammad Yunus

If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life.

~ Marcus Garvey

The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when it be obeyed.

~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

I think what I would say to my younger self, and probably to younger, just starting-out writers is that a lot of times you're just afraid to put yourself out there, and it's uncomfortable because it's working up the courage to do something, to push yourself to do those things.

~ Carol Leifer

The world runs on individuals pursuing their self interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a, from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way.

~ Milton Friedman

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.

~ Martin Luther

When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That's one of the great feelings - to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.

~ Brian Eno

Walking is magic. Can't recommend it highly enough. I read that Plato and Aristotle did much of their brilliant thinking together while ambulating. The movement, the meditation, the health of the blood pumping, and the rhythm of footsteps... this is a primal way to connect with one's deeper self.

~ Paula Cole

The world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description one must travel through it one's self to be acquainted with it.

~ Philip Stanhope

To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.

~ Charles Horton Cooley

What is the meaning of 'gossip?' Doesn't it originate with sympathy, an interest in one's neighbor, degenerating into idle curiosity and love of tattling? Which is worse, this habit, or keeping one's self so absorbed intellectually as to forget the sufferings and cares of others, to lose sympathy through having too much to think about?

~ Lucy Larcom

Revenge is not a positive state of mind or energy to indulge your self in.

~ Michael K. Williams

We're in a world where masculinity, especially with these big spectacle movies, is often pushed by rippling six packs and forcing an image down someone's throat trying to prove masculinity. Whereas I think true masculinity comes from having a strong sense of self.

~ Theo James

I have suffered my self to be politically sacrificed to save my country from ruin and disgrace and if I am never a gain elected I will have the gratification to know that I have done my duty.

~ Davy Crockett

Jews have had to carry around their own sense of self in a carpet bag and I think perhaps too much emphasis might be being put on nationality and on the other hand patriotism, that sort of thing.

~ Janet Suzman

We are spiritual beings whether we want to admit it or not, and inherent in our DNA is a design to return us home - home to our true essence, our greatest self, our limitless self.

~ Debbie Ford

I think that's what makes a successful marriage: a mindful sense of self and the ability to make clear choices to stay together or choices not to.

~ Goldie Hawn

Lovers may be - and indeed generally are - enemies, but they never can be friends, because there must always be a spice of jealousy and a something of Self in all their speculations.

~ Lord Byron

Inner beauty should be the most important part of improving one's self.

~ Priscilla Presley

For me art and chess are closely related, both are forms in which the self finds beauty and expression.

~ Vladimir Kramnik

If you don't know your worth, if you don't know your value, if you don't know how fantabulous you are - it's going to be hard for other people to see it. Being appreciative of self is beauty to me.

~ Kelly Rowland

I had gotten to a place where I truly believed everything I was called: 'not sexy,' 'not funny,' 'too intense,' desperate.' All those labels they gave me, I took them because there wasn't a trace of my true self left.

~ Naomi Watts

Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.

~ Jean-Luc Godard