Quotes About Self-expression

Authentic success is living by your own lights.

Individuality' is the key to success.

We will be ourselves and free, or die in the attempt. Harriet Tubman was not our great-grandmother for nothing.

Success gave me confidence as an artist. And now I'm able to do what I want without anybody thinking it's dumb.

Success means to wake up, grow up, and show up, living your unique self, giving your unique gifts to the larger evolutionary symphony of life which needs your music.

The things we do without the fear of failure and the desire for success are the purest acts we'll ever do

Loin de chez eux, ils s'autorisaient à vivre d'autres facettes de leur personnalité, en jachère, s'affranchissaient des attentes de leurs proches qui les bornaient, du personnage prévisible qu'ils jouaient en société.

La vie est trop courte pour que nous en perdions une part précieuse à nous contrefaire.

When Juliet came flying down the hallway, Stella didn't recognize her friend. Juliet hadn't bothered with makeup; she was wearing a nightgown underneath her raincoat and had on plastic flip-flops. This was the way loved walked in, barely dressed, confused, panic-stricken, overcome, not caring what anyone thought or what they believed.

Many of them began to wonder why they themselves often feigned opinions rather than speak their minds, no matter how clever they were, for fear they'd be thought of as difficult.

She wore a wide-brimmed black hat and men's trousers, and she carried a satchel of books to ensure that if she should finish one volume she would be handily prepared with the next.

But why would a man in his right mind memorize another man's words instead of speaking his own? That's what a player does. Maria shrugged. He pretends to be someone he's not.

What is missing above all is the framework within which the child could experience his feelings and emotions. Instead, he develops something the mother needs, and although this certainly saves his life (by securing the mother's or the father's "love") at the time, it may nevertheless prevent him, throughout his life, from being himself.

The answer is that we can never do the right thing as long as we are out to please someone else. We can only be the people we are, and we cannot force our parents to love us. There are parents who can only love the mask their child wears.

Even as an older child, she was not allowed to say, or even to think: "I can be sad or happy whenever anything makes me sad or happy; I don't have to look cheerful for someone else, and I don't have to suppress my distress or anxiety to fit other people's needs. I can be angry and no one will die or get a headache because of it. I can rage when you hurt me, without losing you.

It's just that when we were younger we were not free enough to live our lives the way we really were.

individuals who refuse to adapt to a totalitarian regime are not doing so out of a sense of duty or because of naïveté but because they cannot help but be true to themselves

As she never wanted me to be the way I really was, I had to actively conceal my authentic feelings from her.

Her silent singing wrapped around the story she was telling herself, which she extended further every night on the deck. (Averill often told herself stories-- the activity seemed to her as unavoidable as dreaming.) Her singing was a barrier set between the world in her head and the world outside, between her body and the onslaught of the stars.

It isn't until an adult criticizes the picture and makes derogatory comments … that children lose their confidence and stop drawing. If young people spent as much time drawing as they do learning [the] alphabet … they would all make good pictures and maybe never even need to draw a straight line.

Tess was my first experience of a woman who had inhabited her weirdness, moved into the areas of herself that made her distinct from those around her, and learned how to display them proudly.

Ruth did not believe in makeup. She thought it demeaned women.

Helped are those who are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and the joys of self-discovery will be constant.

What will people say, you running off to Memphis like you don't have a house to look after? Shug say, Albert. Try to think like you got some sense. Why any woman give a shit what people think is a mystery to me. Well, say Grady, trying to bring light. A woman can't git a man if peoples talk. Shug look at me and us giggle. Then us sure nuff. Then Squeak start to laugh. Then Sofia. All us laugh and laugh.