Quotes About Self

We are so used to "doing" that it may seem like a chore just to "be.

There was a cry that must have been mine

The cult of the individual that dominates modern minds, the ideology of the "I," prevents most of us from seeing ourselves as products of the chronicle and choices of our predecessors

People think they are individuals because they use the word ''I'' so often.

People think they are individuals because they use the word I so often, Patrick commented.

humility was the ultimate arrogance

Everything turns inward in depression. A beautiful flower momentarily catches your attention, but within seconds the focus bends back into your own misery. You see loved ones who are celebrating a recent blessing, but before you can synchronize your feelings with theirs, you have doubled back to your own personal emptiness. Like a boomerang that always returns, no matter how hard you try, you can't get away from yourself.

My wants are what concern me. That's where the battle must be fought. I

No one will ever love you more than you love your pain," he had replied, his words ringing even louder in the dark. She

the major relational problem for our species is not getting together; protoplasm loves to join. The problem is preserving self in a close relationship. No human on planet Earth does that well.

Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.

Without freedom, no art art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.

Not until we dare to regard ourselves as a nation, not until we respect ourselves, can we gain the esteem of others, or rather only then will it come of its own accord.

There's only one way to improve society. Present it with a single improved unit: yourself.

The good news is that we are Buddha. The bad news is that all beings are Buddha. The sickness of being human is the sickness of wanting to be unique.

We poke the fires of negativity with memories: past failures, past conflicts, past betrayals and humiliations. Constantly we rake the coals seeking to know the self in the light and heat of their pain. The last thing people will abandon, said Gurdjieff, is their suffering.

When we are uncertain, undecided, embarrassed, or have stage fright, we lose the sensation of self. We sometimes say after an embarrassing moment, "I was completely at sea, I was lost, I was out of my mind." and so on. If the uncertainty is great then feelings of anxiety, fear, or panic can flood in. So we develop strategies to cope with the anxiety by restoring the sensation of self. Men stroke their chins using the stubble as a kind of sandpaper. Women touch their hair.

It is no longer real, but just an illusion that I make real for my own amusement. To know the self we must make the mountains move. All we need is just an insight; not much, just a flash, a moment in which no reflection occurs. These moments go on all the time, and all the time we close up against them. We close up against a loss of self, we react, we clench, we adopt one or other strategy.

Travel if you wish, taste strange dishes, gather experience in dangerous activities, but see that your soul remains your own. Do not become a stranger to yourself, for you are lost from that day on; you will have no peace if there is not, somewhere within you, a corner of certainty, calm waters where you can take refuge in sleep.

LOIS MADDEN was happy, very, very happy—until some one told her she was not. Happiness is a mystic bud that a single breath can wake into riotous bloom or wither to a shrivel. And it has no existence except in its possessor's heart. That is why a breath, laden with a few silly cynicisms from a wise fool, was able to do all sorts of things to Lois Madden's gladness.

As we understand life in ourselves, we want to understand life in the universe. in order to enter into harmony with it.

He who does not reflect his life back to God in gratitude does not know himself.

Put your faith in God and confidence in yourself.