Quotes About Self

Barry Eisler

We all, to some extent, reinvent ourselves. Jeffrey (Archer) has just gone to a bit more trouble.

Freedom to choose has what might be called expressive value. Choice is what enables us to tell the world who we are and what we care about.

FIRST, I THINK INCREASES IN EXPERIENCED CONTROL OVER THE YEARS have been accompanied, stride for stride, by increases in expectations about control. The more we are allowed to be the masters of our fates, the more we expect ourselves to be.

Identity is much less a thing people "inherit" than it used to be.

Taking care of our own "wants" and focusing on what we "want" to do does not strike me as a solution to the problem of too much choice. It is precisely so that we can, each of us, focus on our own wants that all of these choices emerged in the first place.

I form withing myself the utopia of a subject free from repression

Segretamente o no, è necessario divenire tutt'altro oppure cessare di essere.

Eindelijk! De tirannie van het menselijk gelaat is verdwenen en ik zal alleen nog maar door mijzelf lijden.

All I know is what's past is past, and what's ahead is ahead. The second is ka, and takes care of itself.

I believe in my consciousness and my unconscious, even though I don't know what those things are.

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us. And sometimes...they win...

To go beyond the ego's model of the world, the lucid dreamer must relinquish control of the dream—surrender—to something beyond the ego.

the poet Rainer Maria Rilke surmised, "Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."[4] In Jung's view the presence of shadow figures in dreams indicates that the ego model of the self is incomplete. When the ego intentionally accepts the Shadow, it moves toward wholeness and healthy psychological functioning.

The mind is a useful tool but not a very good friend.

And it all boils down to two simple questions: 1) Do I trust myself? and 2) Am I someone others can trust? With regard to having trust in self, it often begins with the little things.

Self-trust is the first secret of success . . . the essence of heroism.

Desire and aspiration are two different things. The idea that you want to achieve something in Zen meditation is basically selfish. 'I want to get enlightened' means 'I want to get enlightened.' But aspiration is not for myself, it is not a merely individual desire, it transcends the idea of self. It is desire without attachment. If enlightenment comes, good. If enlightenment does not come, good. Actually, this is enlightenment.

Beings arise from food; food arises from rain; rain arises from worship; worship, from ritual action; ritual action, from God; God, from the deathless Self. Thus, the all-present God requires the worship of men.

The self is a friend for him who masters himself by the Self; but for him who is not self-mastered, the self is the cruelest foe.

The only person I know, is the person I want to be

we're responsible for our own lives.

We hear a lot about identity theft when someone takes your wallet and pretends to be you and uses your credit cards. But the more serious identity theft is to get swallowed up in other people's definition of you.

Inside-Out means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self -- with your paradigms, your character, and your motives