Quotes About Self-perception

When I got the Nobel Prize I said to myself that it had made me neither smarter nor more stupid.

Nobody ever warned me about mirrors, so for many years I was fond of them, and believed them to be trustworthy. I'd hide myself away in them, setting two mirrors to face each other so that when I stood between them I was infinitely reflected in either direction. Many, many me's. When I stood on tiptoe, we all stood on tiptoe, trying to see the first of us, and the last. The effect was dizzying, a vast pulse, not quite alive, more like the working of an automaton.

Every member of this class is under the impression that they are thick, and every single one of them is the opposite. Passing the GCSE now probably won't improve their job prospects or raise their estimation in the eyes of their family and friends.

A bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy forever.

Somehow a bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy forever.

A bachelor never quite gets ove the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy forever.

I love changing the way I look like because I always feel super strange whenever I do watch something that I'm in.

Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male; the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object—and most particularly an object of vision.

It's as if the media is saying to teenage girls, "Remember all those kid TV shows you used to watch that told you you could be any way you want to be and become anything you want to become? We were just kidding. You can be a lawyer, a scientist, or whatever, but what's most important is that you look gorgeous, act simpering, and fall in love with a confident, good-looking hunk." A

What a man thinks of himself that is what determines, or rather indicates his fate.

the people who dwell in the land of dimness, the people who could not see themselves except as formless shadows moving in a mist, the people who had gouged out their own eyes to keep from looking at themselves in the mirror, these people, these glorious people were none other than ourselves: The Americans.

Somewhere, someone isn't impressed by your looks. Not all men jump through the hoops of your fire. You're unbelievably boring to more people than you'll ever know.

I need to know what you think of me so I can form an opinion about myself.

I was shy by nature, and rendered worse in that respect by a consciousness of my own ugliness. I am certain that nothing so much influences the development of a man as his exterior—though the exterior itself less than his belief in its plainness or beauty.

Other people's opinion of you does not have to become your reality.

The limitations you have and the negative things that you internalize are given to you by the world. The thing that empowers you—the possibilities—come from within.

Never let someone else's opinion of you become your reality

Don't let someone else's opinion of you become your reality

In all honesty, at that time, I never saw myself as an author... I was just a Mom in a state of panic, trying to enter a short story contest to win the prize money in order to keep the lights on in my home.

Jane did believe she was all that,

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others... two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

I learned that strength, like height, is measured by who you're standing next to. I was considered a scrawny guy in the gym. [...] Yet sometimes when I stood in front of my own mirror at home, I saw a powerful me. I couldn't hold onto the image, though. It slipped like a globule of mercury from under my index finger.

All one's life as a young woman one is on show, a focus of attention, people notice you. You set yourself up to be noticed and admired. And then, not expecting it, you become middle-aged and anonymous. No one notices you. You achieve a wonderful freedom. It's a positive thing. You can move about unnoticed and invisible.

I killed the Google Alert I used to have on myself two years ago. I don't need any more information about myself. I get more than enough of that just by being me.