The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is.
—John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) American Catholic Clergyman, Educator, Essayist, Biographer
The white light streams down to be broken up by those human prisms into all the colors of the rainbow. Take your own color in the pattern and be just that.
—Charles Reynolds Brown (1862–1950) American Clergyman
What’s a man’s first duty? The answer is brief: To be himself.
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) Norwegian Playwright
To aim at the best and to remain essentially ourselves is one and the same thing.
—Janet Erskine Stuart (1857–1914) English Catholic Nun, Educationalist
I believe there’s an inner power that makes winners or losers. And the winners are the ones who really listen to the truth of their hearts.
—Sylvester Stallone (b.1946) American Actor, Film Director, Screenwriter
To be nobody-but-yourself–in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else–means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.
—e. e. cummings (1894–1962) American Poet, Writer, Painter
This above all—to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
We are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves; it is civil war.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
If you’re gonna be a failure, at least be one at something you enjoy.
—Sylvester Stallone (b.1946) American Actor, Film Director, Screenwriter
All men have happiness as their object: there are no exceptions. However different the means they employ, they aim at the same end.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause; he noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws. All other Life is living Death, a world where none but Phantoms dwell, a breath, a wind, a sound, a voice, a tinkling of the camel-bell.
—Richard Burton (1925–84) Welsh Actor
A man must be obedient to the promptings of his innermost heart.
—Robertson Davies (1913–95) Canadian Novelist, Playwright, Essayist
Men throw themselves on foreign assistances to spare their own, which, after all, are the only certain and sufficient ones.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying “Amen” to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
Your readiest desire is your path to joy even if it destroys you.
—Holbrook Jackson (1874–1948) British Journalist, Writer, Publisher
With begging and scrambling we find very little, but with being true to ourselves we find a great deal more.
—Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali Poet, Polymath
Let me listen to me and not to them.
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American Writer
We would have to settle for the elegant goal of becoming ourselves.
—William Styron (1925–2006) American Novelist, Essayist, Writer
Integrity simply means a willingness not to violate one’s identity.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
The search for a new personality is futile; what is fruitful is the interest the old personality can take in new activities.
—Cesare Pavese (1908–50) Italian Novelist, Poet, Critic, Translator
While you cannot resolve what you are, at last you will be nothing.
—Martial (40–104) Ancient Roman Latin Poet
A path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you … Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself alone, one question … Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t it is of no use.
—Carlos Castaneda (1925–98) Peruvian-born American Anthropologist, Author
Don’t compromise yourself, it’s all you’ve got.
—Janis Joplin (1943–1970) American Singer-songwriter
Philosophy is a purely personal matter. A genuine philosopher’s credo is the outcome of a single complex personality; it cannot be transferred. No two persons, if sincere, can have the same philosophy.
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British Sexologist, Physician, Social Reformer