A verse from the Veda says, ‘What you see, you become.’ In other words, just the experience of perceiving the world makes you what you are. This is a quite literal statement.
—Deepak Chopra (b.1946) Indian-born American Physician, Public Speaker, Writer
Know yourself, master yourself, conquest of self is most gratifying.
—Unknown
One receives as reward for much ennui, despondency, boredom—such as a solitude without friends, books, duties, passions must bring with it—those quarter-hours of profoundest contemplation within oneself and nature. He who completely entrenches himself against boredom also entrenches himself against himself: he will never get to drink the strongest refreshing draught from his own innermost fountain.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Trust not yourself, but your defects to know. Make use of every friend and every foe.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.
—Richard Nixon (1913–94) American Head of State, Lawyer
Our lives teach us who we are.
—Salman Rushdie (b.1947) Indian-born British Novelist
Better to see the face than to hear the name.
—Unknown
How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.
—Sarah Ban Breathnach (b.1947) American Self-help Author
No sooner is it a little calmer with me than it is almost too calm, as though I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.
—Franz Kafka (1883–1924) Austrian Novelist, Short Story Writer
I suppose I have a highly developed capacity for self-delusion, so it’s no problem for me to believe that I’m somebody else.
—Daniel Day-Lewis (b.1957) English Actor
Labels are for filing. Labels are for clothing. Labels are not for people.
—Martina Navratilova (b.1956) Czech-born American Sportsperson
Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.
—English Proverb
All these years I’ve been feeling like I was growing into myself. Finally, I feel grown.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
It’s not only the most difficult thing to know one’s self, but the most inconvenient.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (1818–85) American Humorist, Author, Lecturer
Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
Analysis and synthesis ordinarily clarify matters for us about as much as taking a Swiss watch apart and dumping its wheels, springs, hands, threads, pivots, screws and gears into a layman’s hands for reassembling, clarifies a watch to a layman.
—Unknown
If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth’s marvels, beneath the dust of habit.
—Salman Rushdie (b.1947) Indian-born British Novelist
It is part of our pedagogy to teach the operations of thinking, feeling, and willing so that they may be made conscious. For if we do not know the difference between an emotion and a thought, we will know very little. We need to understand the components (of emotions) at work… in order to free their hold.
—M. C. Richards (1916–99) American Poet, Potter, Writer
Remember: the average is as close to the bottom as it is to the top.
—Unknown
I’m black; I don’t feel burdened by it and I don’t think it is a huge responsibility. It’s part of who I am. It does not define me.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
Everything has two sides—the outside that is ridiculous, and the inside that is solemn.
—Olive Schreiner (1855–1920) South African Writer, Feminist
A humble knowledge of oneself is a surer road to God than a deep searching of the sciences.
—Thomas a Kempis (1379–1471) German Religious Priest, Writer
I think the issues of identity mostly are poppycock. We are what we have done, which includes our promises, includes our hopes, but promises first.
—Wendell Berry (b.1934) American Poet, Novelist, Environmentalist
Take back the beauty and wit you bestow upon me; leave me my own mediocrity of agreeableness and genius, but leave me also my sincerity, my constancy, and my plain dealing; ’tis all I have to recommend me to the esteem either of others or myself.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) English Aristocrat, Poet, Novelist, Writer
To grow wiser means to learn to know better and better the faults to which this instrument with which we feel and judge can be subject.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use—silence, exile and cunning.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
Success plus self-esteem equals pretensions.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
Few men are of one plain, decided color; most are mixed, shaded or blended; and vary as much from different situations, as changeable silks do from different lights.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters