Quotes About Identity

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt that i was a butterfly. flitting around and enjoying myself. I had no idea I was Chuang Tzu. Then suddenly I woke up and was Chuang Tzu again. But I could not tell, had I been Chuang Tzu dreaming I was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I was now Chuang Tzu? However, there must be some sort of difference between Chuang Tzu and a butterfly! We call this the transformation of things.

If you'd called me an ox, I'd have said I was an ox; if you'd called me a horse, I'd have said I was a horse. If the reality is there and you refuse to accept the name men give it, you'll only lay yourself open to double harassment.

When a hideous man becomes a father And a son is born to him In the middle of the night He trembles and lights a lamp And runs to look in anguish On that child's face To see who he resembles.

Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly. A butterfly fluttering happily around— was he revealing what he himself meant to be? He knew nothing of Zhou. All at once awakening, there suddenly he was — Zhou. But he didn't know if he was Zhou having dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhou. Between Zhou and the butterfly there must surely be some distinction. This is known at the transformation of things.

Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature

You cannot perform in a manner inconsistent with the way you see yourself.

You cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.

I never worry because I know who I am and I know Whose I am.

Live creatively, friends. . . . Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don't be impressed with yourself. Don't compare yourself with others" (Galatians 6:1, 4).

You cannot consistently perform in a manner that is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.

Are you a meaningful specific or a wandering generality ?

Religion has become so many different things. Religion is an economic thing for some people. Religion is a gun.

I really enjoyed being a blonde. Men were more friendly and flirtatious. My face looked more worldly. It took the innocence away. It could be the new me.

I will never get married to the head of General Motors. I will never be the wife of a superstar. For those women, their lives are somebody else's. I will never be a Mrs. Blabidyblah!

Our sense of identity is in large measure conferred on us by others in the ways they treat or mistreat us, recognize or ignore us, praise us or punish us. Some people make us timid and shy; others elicit our sex appeal and dominance. In some groups we are made leaders, while in others we are reduced to being followers. We come to live up to or down to the expectations others have of us.

I've always been curious about the psychology of the person behind the mask. When someone is anonymous, it opens the door to all kinds of antisocial behavior, as seen by the Ku Klux Klan.

Word is murder of a thing, not only in the elementary sense of implying its absence -- by naming a thing, we treat it as absent, as dead, although it is still present -- but above all in the sense of its radical dissection: the word "quarters" the thing, it tears it out of the embedment in its concrete context, it treats its component parts as entities with an autonomous existence: we speak about color, form, shape, etc., as if they possessed self-sufficient being.

War is a war. Everywhere is hard and bloody, but the Balkans in it bring their coloring and passion. Someone happened to be on the right side. But, madam, be without worry: it is not so far a day when both sides will become the same and when it will not be known which side of the story is right.

It's always a disappointing business confronting my own reflection. My body isn't bad. It's a perfectly nice, serviceable body. It's just that the external me- the study, lightly wrinkled, handbagged me- does so little credit to the stuff that's inside.

In the end, I suspect, being female will do nothing for Sheba, except deny her the grandeur of genuine villainy.

I think my mother secretly hoped that I'd turn into one of those girlie girls. It wasn't her fault that I firmly resisted any attempts to mould me into an ideal daughter. You can take a girl to ballet lessons as much as you like, but you can't necessarily make her into a ballerina.

It's ridiculous going around looking for Griqua history and traditions when you know that they're just ordinary coloured people like everyone else, just ordinary gullible people who fell for the nonsense of that madman Le Fleur. Ugh, Sally snorts, the things that pass

We don't know what we are; the point is that in a place where everything gets distorted, no one knows who he

Glamour is about feeling good in your own skin.