Quotes About Self-perception

Though they spent so much time trying to make themselves beautiful, you were not supposed to admit to women that beauty mattered.

Lucky" was what people who couldn't bear to contemplate horrors needed to hear maimed and terrorized survivors call themselves.

La mancanza di critiche, o anche solo di una silenziosa disapprovazione da parte di Robin, era una cosa davvero singolare per Strike. Era l'unica persona di sesso femminile nella sua vita che non avesse cercato di migliorarlo o correggerlo.

We are troubled by having two selves, the inner and the outer. The outer one is rather dull and lets great things go by.

We seldom see these things in ourselves until we have a reason to look. We are probably all like the heroes we had when we were boys.

He noticed his voice shook a little, and he didn't like it. American males have their standards, after all.

The Clown turned his powdered face to the mirror. If to be fair is to be beautiful, he said, who can compare with me in my white mask? Who can compare with him in his white mask? I asked Death beside me. Who can compare with me? said Death, for I am paler still. You are very beautiful, sighed the Clown, turning his powdered face from the mirror.

No man can be a failure if he thinks he's a success; If he thinks he is a winner, then he is.

As Kurzban has summarized this finding, "We think we're better than average at not being biased in thinking that we're better than average.

people don't want to believe the truth about themselves. They get some mental picture of themselves and then they devil the poor old body, trying to make it like the picture. When it won't obey-can't obey, of course-they are mad at it, and live in it as if it were an unsatisfactory house they were hoping to move out of.

Beauty: You called me beautiful last night. Beast: You do not believe me then? Beauty: Well - no. Any number of mirrors have told me otherwise. Beast: You will find no mirrors here, for I cannot bear them: nor any quiet water in ponds. And since I am the only one who sees you, why are you not then beautiful?

the words you say to yourself affect your self-image

You see? You're just figuring it out now, but I discovered a long time ago that the smarter you are, the more tempting it is to just let people imagine you. We move through each other's lives like ghosts, leaving behind haunting memories of people who never existed.

His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god. Circumstances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit. Silence, though, could.

The mind is a funny place. I do not even trust my own.

I could read my nonexistence in the clothes my mother had worn before I can remember her.

Rockefeller was sensitive about adults who behaved in a high-handed fashion toward him. Having assumed so much responsibility at home, he now thought of himself as a mature person.

perhaps he had so thoroughly rationalized his own behavior that he saw himself in the same glowing, virtuous light as his son did.

In South Carolina, I had been an African. In Nova Scotia, I had become known as a Loyalist, or a Negro, or both. And now, finally back in Africa, I was seen as a Nova Scotian, and in some respects thought of myself that way too.

Life as a writer was not what I expected. I knew no other writers. I knew no writing teachers or editors. I had to draw every last bit of strength from the exalted notions I nursed about myself.

Research suggests that when it comes to understanding our feelings, we humans have an odd mix of low ability and high confidence.

In fact, studies show that the people with the most accurate self-perceptions tend to be moderately depressed, suffer from low self-esteem, or both. An overly positive self-evaluation, on the other hand, is considered normal and healthy.

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

We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are. A person feels guilt because he did something wrong. A person feels shame because he is something wrong.