Quotes About Narcissism

They are narcissists, pumped full of self-esteem, but that self-esteem is always hanging by a thread and once pricked, their egos burst like a balloon.

As psychotherapist Dr Alice Miller says: 'the grandiose person is never really free. First, because he is so excessively dependent on admiration from others; and second, because his self-respect is dependent on qualities, functions and achievements that can suddenly fail with far-reaching consequences.

There is nothing which vanity does not desecrate.

A man is never such an egotist as at moments of spiritual ecstasy. At such times it seems to him that there is nothing on earth more splendid and interesting than himself.

Despite the destructive nature of this personality profile, many narcissists have a history of appearing friendly and agreeable-at first. Only after people have ongoing exposure to the private world of a narcissist do they experience the pain such a person can cause.

Despite their general disinterest in others' feelings, narcissists yearn to be admired; they need to win others' approval, even as they posture to keep a manipulative edge. They become masters at feigning interest, when in fact they are not interested at all. They can cover contempt for someone with seemingly genuine friendliness. So skilled are they at appearing likeable that even close associates can be fooled into assuming that all is well in the relationship even when it is not.

Since narcissism is fueled by a greater need to be admired than to be liked, psychologists might use that fact as a therapeutic lever - stressing to patients that being known as a narcissist will actually cause them to lose the respect and social status they crave.

Our public figures are often narcissists, utterly self-absorbed in their quest for power.

I don't think anyone gets bored of being called good-looking. We are all vain in one way or another.

I have been vain since birth.

I'm vain, I can be vain!

I love love. Every day of my life is Valentine's Day. When you're a pathological narcissist, you have to fall in love with yourself every day.

Everyone seeks their look. Since it is no longer possible to base any claim on one's own existence, there is nothing for it but to perform an appearing act without concerning oneself with being - or even with being seen. So it is not: I exist, I am here! but rather: I am visible, I am an image -look! look! This is not even narcissism, merely an extraversion without depth, a sort of self-promot­ing ingenuousness whereby everyone becomes the manager of their own appearance.

Today...no performance can be without its control screen video...its goal is to be hooked up to itself...the mirror phase has given way to the video phase. What develops around the video or stereo culture is not a narcissistic imaginary, but an effect of frantic self-referentiality, a short-circuit which immediately hooks up like with like, and, in doing so, emphasizes their surface intensity and deeper meaninglessness.

If you do not lend your car, your fountain pen or your wife to anyone, that is because these objects, according to the logic of jealously, are narcissistic equivalents of the ego: to lose them, or for them to be damaged, means castration.

A clone is not a child, not a twin, not a narcissistic reflection; rather, it is the materialization of a double by genetic means - in other words, the abolition of all otherness and of the entire imaginary sphere.

Well, there is narcissism in all of us, of course. I mean, we are the protagonists of our own lives, so naturally it feels like we're at the wheel. But we're not at the wheel. That just happens to be where the window is located.

She is an unpleasant woman, who seems to think of little besides herself, with few friends and no real talents.

My work requires acting at its most committed - it demands actors of enormous resilience, but also intelligence and wit. It doesn't work for narcissistic or selfish actors.

When I'm in touch with the idea that there is a higher power and that there is, you know, other factors at work, it - it kind of quells my narcissism.

The thing to strive for is to get paid to talk about yourself.

The discussion of ideas as opposed to the American narcissistic obsession with what's going on with the self, that's the general thing people are talking about.

The system has become corrupt. It's working backwards. It's not advancing the most worthy among us, the most virtuous, the hardest working, the most humble, the smartest, even the strongest, but the most devious, the best liars, the sociopaths and narcissists,

Freud argued that a leader emerges when a group of people - the followers - have replaced their own narcissism with that of the leader, so that their love for the leader is a subliminal form of self love.