Quotes About Self-definition

A sort of insatiability seems to infect our feelings when we look back on women, particularly on those who are highly interesting and yet whose effort at self-definition through works is fitful, casual, that of an amateur. We are inclined to think they could have done more, that we can make retroactive demands upon them for a greater degree of independence and authenticity.

Black women are programmed to define ourselves within this male attention and to compete with each other for it rather than to recognize and move upon our common interests.

If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.

Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade their responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future.

I love the entertainment business. I have a lot of friends in it, but it wasn't my passion. The sports business is what I am passionate about. I also wanted to define myself through something that wasn't linked to my grandfather.

Slobberknocker: My Life in Wrestling' is really not a wrestling book. It's a book about life, and there's a great love story in this book. There are great life lessons in this book about not allowing others to define you.

Definitevi voi stessi prima che siano gli altri a definirvi.

I call myself a harp because I like the sound of the word - it is short, sharp, and abusive.

Psychologists suggest that when people are no longer in charge of basic elements of a situation (such as where they sit, or when they go to the restroom), they must give over some degree of control that they normally use to define their independence, and thus themselves.

Point is, I invented me... maybe as a reaction to them... definitely as a reaction to them. I am myself in spite of my memories.

I do not want my name to mean a story about being kind and helpful. I want my name to mean me.

If I want to define myself, I first have to say, "I am a woman"; all other assertions will arise from this basic truth. A man never begins by positing himself as an individual of a certain sex: that he is a man is obvious.

Le privilège économique détenu par les hommes, leur valeur sociale, le prestige du mariage, l'utilité d'un appui masculin, tout engage les femmes à vouloir ardenment plaire aux hommes. Elles sont encore dans l'ensemble en situation de vassalité. Il s'ensuit que la femme se connaît et se choisit non en tant qu'elle existe pour soi mais telle que l'homme la définit.

A man would never set out to write a book on the peculiar situation of the human male. But if I wish to define myself, I must first of all say: T am a woman

Men's economic privilege, their social value, the prestige of marriage, the usefulness of masculine support—all these encourage women to ardently want to please men. They are on the whole still in a state of serfdom. It follows that woman knows and chooses herself not as she exists for herself but as man defines her. She thus has to be described first as men dream of her since her being-for-men is one of the essential factors of her concrete condition.

Não é a natureza que define a mulher: esta é que se define, retomando a natureza em sua afectividade.

The Other is singularly defined according to the singular way the One chooses to posit himself.

Nature does not define woman: it is she who defines herself by reclaiming nature for herself in her affectivity.

Ser libre es lanzarse en el mundo sin cálculo, sin apuestas, es definir uno mismo toda apuesta, toda medida.

I'm not made to fit into the society's definition of me. I've got freedom to define myself. You too, if you know!

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself.

Define the life you want.Never allow yourself to be bullied.No one knows your destiny.

It was himself that he was attempting to define as he worked on his study. It was himself that he was slowing shaping, it was himself that he was putting into a kind of order, it was himself that he was making possible.

You have to go through a mental and emotional process to recognize who you really are. I finally recognized that I cannot be defined by one country.