Quotes About Ego

The more primitive a man is the better he believes himself to be.

The average ego, the average individual, remains fixed in the group, although in the course of development he is compelled to give up the original security of the unconscious, to evolve a conscious system, and to take upon himself all the complications and sufferings which such development entails.

The ego will receive the reward of moral recognition by the collective to the exact extent to which it succeeds in identifying with the persona, the collectivized façade personality – the simple reason being that this façade personality is the visible sign of agreement with the values of the collective.

by identifying his personal ego with the transpersonal in the shape of the collective values, the limited individual loses contact with his own limitations and becomes inhuman.

The hero is an ego hero; that is, he represents the struggles of consciousness and the ego against the unconscious. The masculinization and strengthening of the ego, apparent in the hero's martial deeds, enable him to overcome his fear of the dragon and give him courage to face the Terrible Mother—Isis—and her henchman Set.

Either way I don't come first, which for some stupid reason bothers hell out of me, having grown up with the notion that I always had to be number one. Family heritage, don't you know?

I am by far your superior, but my notorious modesty prevents me from saying so.

There were young men trying to look important; important men trying to look young.

Unlike the baboon who gluts himself only on food, man nourishes himself mostly on self-esteem. It

We noted that the ego delays responses in order to permit a richer reaction: it allows the organism to choose between several alternatives, reviewed in awareness in lieu of immediate action.

It is one of the meaner aspects of narcissism that we feel that practically everyone is expendable except ourselves.

The human ego would have to become strong enough to die; and strong enough to set aside guilt… . [F]ull psychoanalytic consciousness would be strong enough to cancel the debt [of guilt] by deriving it from infantile fantasy.7

I dried my hands and took out my pocket-book from the inside of my tunic hanging on the wall. Rinaldi took the note, folded it without rising from the bed and slid it in his breeches pocket. He smiled, I must make on Miss Barkley the impression of a man of sufficient wealth. You are my great and good friend and financial protector. Go to hell, I said.

if I had waited long enough I probably never would have written anything at all since there is a tendency when you really begin to learn something about a thing not to want to write about it but rather to keep on learning about it always and at no time, unless you are very egotistical, which, of course, accounts for many books, will you be able to say: now I know all about this and will write about it.

Ambition...the original of vices; Mother of hypocrisy, parent of envy, engineer of deceit

Let him think I am more man than I am and I will be so.

Man is always inclined to regard the small circle in which he lives as the center of the world and to make his particular, private life the standard of the universe and to make his particular, private life the standard of the universe. But he must give up this vain pretense, this petty provincial way of thinking and judging.

he never discouraged the disciples from wanting to be first; he just told them what first looks like in his economy: If you want to be first, then you must be last. If you want to be first, you must become the servant of all. He didn't try to diminish their ambition; he tried to redirect their intention.

The human animal is remarkably adept at seeing itself as the hero, no matter what the story.

It's human; we all put self interest first.

As for Mustafa Kemal, he was to tell the English journalist Grace Ellison in 1923: 'I don't like Napoleon at all. He intruded his person into everything. He fought not for a cause, but for himself. That's why he came to a bad end. It's inevitable for such people.'45

I hate myself for how much this grudging nod of respect means to me. But it does mean something . . . How do assholes make us care what they think?

While scientists saw man as a body, Hubbard argued that man was an endlessly reincarnated spirit. He did not worship God, but was his own god. By following Hubbard's applied religious philosophy, an individual could fully realize his immortal nature, freeing himself from his body. At its heart, the appeal of Scientology was not to a man's soul, but to his ego. He could become his own god . . . for a price.

Pride must die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you.