Quotes About Self-doubt

the fear that now your "fatal flaw" will reveal itself fully as you fail to make the

Sometime in your past you entered a social situation (usually overstimulating to begin with) and felt that you failed. Others said you did something wrong

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.

Your confusion and self-doubt are important warning signals that you may be encountering someone who has a narcissistic personality disorder.

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

No man is defeated without until he has first been defeated within.

Perhaps Lila was right: my book—even though it was having so much success—really was bad, and this was because it was well organized, because it was written with obsessive care, because I hadn't been able to imitate the disjointed, unaesthetic, illogical, shapeless banality of things.

I was so afraid that I thought I was sick. But was I sick? Did I really have a murmur in my heart? No. The only problem has always been the disquiet of my mind. I can't stop it, I always have to do, redo, cover, uncover, reinforce, and then suddenly undo, break.

They're scared. They're afraid we won't be worthy of them.

Would she always do the things I was supposed to do, before and better than me? She eluded me when I followed her and meanwhile stayed close on my heels in order to pass me by?

Ci salutammo alla funicolare e da allora non l'ho più rivisto. Non osai fare domande su Roberto, non chiesi se Vittoria gli aveva parlato di me, se gli aveva raccontato i fatti di casa mia. Dissi solo, vergognandomi: "Mi sento brutta, di cattivo carattere, e tuttavia vorrei essere amata". Ma lo dissi tardi, in un soffio, quando lui già mi dava le spalle.

Today I know what I felt, but then I didn't understand. At that instant I had only an unpleasant impression, as if he had given the signal and from then on all I could do was to sink by degrees into repugnance. In reality I felt above all a blaze of hatred toward myself, because I was there, because I had no excuses, because it was I who had decided to come, because it seemed to me that I could not retreat.

Ich würde immer Angst haben: Angst davor, einen falschen Satz zu sagen, einen übertriebenen Ton anzuschlagen, unpassend gekleidet zu sein, kleinliche Gefühle zu offenbaren, keine interessanten Gedanken zu haben.

school. At first I had great expectations, and even if I didn't say so clearly to myself I was glad to be there with Gigliola Spagnuolo rather than with Lila. In some very secret part of myself I looked forward to a school where she would never enter, where, in her absence, I would be the best student, and which I would sometimes tell her about, boasting. But immediately I began to falter, many of the others proved to be better than me. I ended up with Gigliola in a kind

Comment avais-je pu imaginer lui plaire, ne serait-ce que le temps des vacances, moi la petite ronde à lunettes, certes appliquée mais pas intelligente, moi qui prétendais être cultivée et informée mais ne l'étais pas?

At those moments I took it for granted that there was not and never would be a manuscript of Lila's. I had always overestimated her, nothing memorable would emerge from her - something that reassured me and yet truly upset me. I loved Lila. I wanted her to last. But I wanted it to be I who made her last. I thought it was my task. I was convinced that she herself, as a girl, had assigned it to me.

Was it possible that I—short, too full-figured, wearing glasses, I diligent but not intelligent, I who pretended to be cultured, informed, when I wasn't—could have believed that he would like me even just for the length of a vacation?

I had too many worries and, whatever I did, the feeling of always being in the wrong.

I would always be afraid: afraid of saying the wrong thing, of using an exaggerated tone, of dressing unsuitably, of revealing petty feelings, of not having interesting thoughts.

The eternal pauper in the great marketplace of ideas and of the world, I had nothing to teach anyone. I didn't have anything anyone wanted.

They didn't take anything I did seriously; it was all some trivial, mildly annoying side activity that I insisted on for some reason, having nothing to do with real life. I couldn't challenge or contradict this view, even to myself, because I really didn't know how to do anything real. I didn't know how to move to a new city, or have sex, or have a real job, or make someone fall in love with me, or do any kind of study that wasn't a self-improvement project.

for as long as self-doubt is not paralysing, it also allows for alternative points of view to be given their proper weight and consideration and so can be considered a vital step in any sound decision-making process.

Observed by others, he was afraid they might discover his inner lack of substance, detect his discomfort behind his smile or the fear that had gradually become his natural state.

As long as we thing we are worth something, we wrong ourselves.