Quotes About Self

I am what I am, so take me as I am!

I is who I is.

The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.

Our entire life ... consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are.

A sobering thought: what if, right at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?

There is a proper balance between not asking enough of oneself and asking or expecting too much.

Interest in the lives of others, the high evaluation of these lives, what are they but the overflow of the interest a man finds in himself, the value he attributes to his own being?

To love others, we must first learn to love ourselves.

When one is pretending the entire body revolts.

Who we are never changes. Who we think we are does.

It is not easy to be sure that being yourself is worth the trouble, but [we do know] it is our sacred duty.

Ultimately, love is self approval.

If I am not for myself, who is for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?

The delights of self-discovery are always available.

A man who finds no satisfaction in himself, seeks for it in vain elsewhere.

It is easier to live life through someone else than to become complete yourself.

The destiny of man is in his own soul.

The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.

There is no reality except the one contained within us.

Every man is his own ancestor, and every man his own heir. He devises his own future, and he inherits his own past.

In the long run we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. ... Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow.

Let me listen to me and not to them.

Happiness is not in our circumstances, but in ourselves. It is not something we see, like a rainbow, or feel, like the heat of a fire. Happiness is something we are.