Quotes About Self

Of course, I'm not sure there is such a thing as a real self. You could ransack your innards looking for the real you and never find it—slice yourself open and all you'll find is blood and muscle and bone...

Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here? What is this thing called the world? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted? And If I am compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I want to see him.

The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but that the relation relates itself to its own self.

For he who loves God without faith reflects on himself, while the person who loves God in faith reflects on God.

He who loved himself became great in himself, and he who loved others became great through his devotion, but he who loved God became greater than all.

If then, if you have lived in despair, then whatever else you won or lost, for you everything is lost, eternity does not acknowledge you, it never knew you, or, still more dreadful, it knows you as you are known, it manacles you to your self in despair.

To be human, is not a fact, but a task.

Be that self that one is

No one may pride himself at being more than an individual, and no one despondently think that he is not an individual...

I am poor—you are my riches; dark—you are my light; I own nothing, need nothing. And how could I own anything? After all, it is a contradiction that he can own something who does not own himself. I am happy as a child who is neither able to own anything nor allowed to. I own nothing, for I belong only to you; I am not, I have ceased to be, in order to be yours." —Johannes the Seducer, from_Either/Or_

To be isolated is always to assert oneself numerically; when you assert yourself as one, that is isolation.

The person whose joy is dependant upon certain conditions is not himself joyful; his joy, after all, is that of the conditions and is conditional upon them.

Sin is: in despair not wanting to be oneself before God.

What we call worldliness simply consists of such people who, if one may so express it, pawn themselves to the world.

An Apostle can never come to himself in such a way that he becomes conscious of his apostolic calling as a factor in the development of his life. Apostolic calling is a paradoxical factor, which from first to last in his life stands paradoxically outside his personal identity with himself as the definite person he is.

At vove er at miste fodfæstet et kort øjeblik - ikke at vove er at miste sig selv.

Socrates proved the immortality of the soul from the fact that the sickness of the soul (sin) does not consume it as sickness of the body consumes the body. So also we can demonstrate the eternal in man from the fact that despair cannot consume his self, that this precisely is the torment of contradiction in despair. If there were nothing eternal in a man, he could not despair; but if despair could consume his self, there would still be no despair.

I am poor—you are my riches; dark—you are my light; I own nothing, need nothing. And how could I own anything? After all, it is a contradiction that he can own something who does not own himself. I am happy as a child who is neither able to own anything nor allowed to. I own nothing, for I belong only to you; I am not, I have ceased to be, in order to be yours." —Johannes De Silentio, from_Either/Or_

The unhappy person is one who has his ideal, the content of his life, the fullness of his consciousness, the essence of his being, in some manner outside of himself. The unhappy man is always absent from himself, never present to himself. But one can be absent, obviously, either in the past or in the future. This adequately circumscribes the entire territory of the unhappy consciousness.

However, a self, every instant it exists, is in process of becoming, for the self [potentially] does not actually exist, it is only that which it is to become. In so far as the self does not become itself, it is not its own self; but not to be one's own self is despair.

Pues amar a Dios significa amarse de verdad a uno mismo; ayudar a otro ser humano a que ame a Dios es amar a otro ser humano; ser ayudado por otro ser humano para amar a Dios significa ser amado.

Algo de un rey se encuentra en mi ser; pero tú no puedes siquiera imaginar cuál es mi reino.

What we call worldliness simply consists of such people who, if one may so express it, pawn themselves to the world. They use their abilities, amass wealth, carry out worldly enterprises, make prudent calculations, etc., and perhaps are mentioned in history, but they are not themselves. In a spiritual sense they have no self.

La mala conciencia, sin embargo, puede hacer interesante la existencia…