Quotes About Self

I scarcely possess myself at all it seems to me - as if my self was mortgaged long ago - to whom I know not - the higher spirits, I would hope - but it may be, alas, the Devil. I pray not. But it would explain a good deal.

Now to go on, now to be Ghost. It banishes the other ghosts from his side, for a time: being someone else. Leaving the world, he steps on stage. Now, the real turn into ghosts. Like a snail in reverse, he can only live away from the shell of himself.

the surest kind of knowledge is what you construct yourself.

We are each our own devil, and we make the world our hell. OSCAR WILDE

The effect of gender is produced through the stylization of the body and, hence, must be understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements, and styles of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self. This formulation moves the conception of gender off the ground of a substantial model of identity to one that requires a conception of gender as a constituted social temporality.

Because it has always been easier to believe himself capable of evil than to accept evil in others.

See? Haven't lost your sense of humor after all but your sense of identity is what seems to have been misplaced. No. Wrong. You can't lose what you never had.

When carving stone, the sculptor removes everything that is not the statue. […] The art of revealing beauty lies in removing what conceals it. So, too, Patanjali [in the Yoga Sutras] tells us that wholeness exists within us. Our work is to chisel away at everything that is not essence, not Self.

Fragmentation in the inner representations of the self prevents the integration of identity. Fragmentation in the inner representations of others prevents the development of a reliable sense of independence within connection.

You have to find the peace and patience within yourself to be a model and an example to others and not judge.

balance your time-bound and timeless selves so you're not cornered by the clock.

One acts with dignity," he said, "as much as one may. One compromises only as much as one must, and still remain oneself. And one keeps one's pride, even if one must keep it in secret, where only God can see.

It wasn't obvious to my generation how or if one could become oneself, an individual, without performing what the psychoanalyst Louise Kaplan memorably called a "female-female impersonation.

We each are artists of the self, creating a collage -- a new and original work of art -- out of scraps and fragments of identifications. The people with whom we identify are, positively or negatively, always important to us. Our feelings toward them are, in some way, always intense.

Believe in yourself and you can achieve greatness in your life.

Actors live in a queer sort of double world. Not many of us have the names or identities we were born with.

The gradually growing hegemony of the eye seems to be parallel with the development of Western ego-consciousness and the gradually increasing separation of the self and the world; vision separates us from the world whereas the other senses unite us with it.

Our bodies and movements are in constant interaction with the environment; the world and the self inform and redefine each other constantly. The percept of the body and the image of the world turn into one single continuous existential experience; there is no body separate from its domicile in space, and there is no space unrelated to the unconscious image of the perceiving self.

Retten will man eigentlich immer nur sich selbst. Was variiert, ist das Wovor.

Eine Eigenschaft war etwas, auf das man mit dem Finger zeigen konnte, wenn man sich selber meinte. [...] Durch den Erwerb von Eigenschaften gelang noch dem Dümmsten der schwierige Akt der Selbsterschaffung.

The work of art that insures the rebirth of its author and its reader or viewer is one that succeeds in integrating the artificial language it puts forward (ne style, new composition, surprising imagination) and the unnamed agitations [Émois] of an omnipotent self that ordinary social and linguistic usage always leave somewhat orphaned or plunged into mourning. Hence such a fiction, if it isn't an antidepressant, is at least, a survival, a resurrection.

Or should one recognize that one becomes a foreigner in another country because one is already a foreigner from within?

Gregory," she said, "you cannot leave me here. What if someone finds you and removes you from the house? Who will know I am here? And what if…and what if…and then what if…" He smiled, enjoying her officiousness too much to actually listen to her words. She was definitely herself again. "When this is all over," he said, "I shall bring you a sandwich." That stopped her short. "A sandwich? A sandwich?

He was discovering that may be there was more him than his name. And may be, when all was said and done, he'd still be whole.