Quotes About Self-assessment

Now, I'm not the kind of guy who likes to look in the mirror and say, 'Oh, you're the best.'

I've done everything I can in my life to be the best person I can be, and I can look in the mirror and say that.

You don't have any weaknesses?' 'I haven't found any.

The only part of her that she had to leave behind was the part of her that doubted what she was capable of.

evaluation by others is not a guide for me. The judgments of others, while they are to be listened to, and taken into account for what they are, can never be a guide for me. This has been a hard thing to learn.

In fact, studies show that people are terrible at estimating their abilities.

As with the psychotherapists we discussed in chapter 4, training does not increase accuracy; it increases people's confidence in their accuracy.

Il buon senso è la cosa meglio distribuita al mondo. Ciascuno infatti pensa di esserne così ben provvisto che anche coloro che di tutte le altre cose non si contentano mai, di questa sono soliti non volerne più di quanto ne hanno.

Thank you sir for your criticism. If you knew about me what I know about me, you would have written a longer letter.

Thanks for the nice introduction. Next to my resume, that's the closest I'll ever come to perfection.

Criticism ... makes very little dent upon me, unless I think there is some real justification and something should be done.

Peabody, am I an ass-kicker? Are you asking to see my scars, or is that a trick question? Shut up, Peabody

If I were to look back on my work, I think I accomplished probably about 70 to 75 percent of what I could have. Maybe 60 percent. Somewhere in that area; two-thirds of what I could have accomplished. If I had been a really dedicated person, and really worked hard, I think I could have accomplished more.

I consider myself a reasonably intelligent guy. Made straight A's in high school (except for driver's ed and typing).

The central focus of childrearing is to bring children to a sober assessment of themselves as sinners.

I've always said when I broke in I was an average player. I had an average arm, average speed and definitely an average bat. I am still average in all of those.

A real man has no tougher judge than himself.

The ablest man I ever met is the man you think you are.

It is as much of a mistake to underestimate yourself as to overestimate yourself

If the matter is one that can be settled by observation, make the observation yourself. Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted. He did not do so because he thought he knew. Thinking that you know when in fact you don't is a fatal mistake, to which we are all prone.

By the hurts we accumulate, we measure both our follies and our accomplishments.

If it was Europe that gave us on the coast some idea of our history, it was Europe, I feel, that also introduced us to the lie. Those of us who had been in that part of Africa before the Europeans had never lied about ourselves. Not because we were moral. We didn't lie because we never assessed ourselves and didn't think there was anything for us to lie about; we were people who simply did what we did.

Because they could assess themselves, the Europeans were better equipped to cope with changes than we were.

What do you believe about who you are? About your capabilities? When was the last time you trusted yourself enough to test them?