I love people. I love my family, my children… but inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American Novelist, Human Rights Activist
An identity is questioned only when it is menaced, as when the mighty begin to fall, or when the wretched begin to rise, or when the stranger enters the gates, never, thereafter, to be a stranger. Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self: in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one’s nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned. This trust in one’s nakedness is all that gives one the power to change one’s robes.
—James Baldwin (1924–87) American Novelist, Social Critic
He who thinks that he is finished is finished. How true. Those who think that they have arrived, have lost their way. Those who think they have reached their goal, have missed it. Those who think they are saints, are demons.
—Henri Nouwen (1932–96) Dutch Catholic Theologian, Writer
We are so customed to disguise ourselves to others that, in the end, we become disguised to ourselves.
—Donna Tartt (b.1963) American Novelist
Our concern must be to live while we’re alive… to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.
—Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1926-2004) American Psychiatrist
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
Partake of some of life’s sweet pleasures. And yes, get comfortable with yourself.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
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, Satirist, Short Story Writer
A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
—Buddhist Teaching
Let your light shine. Shine within you so that it can shine on someone else. Let your light shine.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
I think it’s one of the scars in our culture that we have too high an opinion of ourselves. We align ourselves with the angels instead of the higher primates.
—Angela Carter (1940–92) English Novelist
The conqueror and king in each of us is the… Knower of truth…. Let that Knower awaken in us and drive the horses of the mind, emotions, and physical body on the pathway which that king has chosen.
—George S. Arundale (1878–1945) British Theosophist
A man may be outwardly successful all his life long, and die hollow and worthless as a puff-ball; and he may be externally defeated all his life long, and die in the royalty of a kingdom established within him.—A man’s true estate of power and riches, is to be in himself; not in his dwelling, or position, or external relations, but in his own essential character.—That is the realm, in which he is to live, if he is to live as a Christian man.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
You never know yourself till you know more than your body.
—Thomas Traherne (1636–74) English Metaphysical Poet, Mystic
It is, I fear, but a vain show of fulfilling the heathen precept, “Know thyself,” and too often leads to a self-estimate which will subsist in the absence of that fruit by which alone the quality of the tree is made evident.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
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
A man may be so much of every thing, that he is nothing of any thing.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Seriousness is stupidity sent to college.
—P. J. O’Rourke (1947–2022) American Journalist, Political Satirist
I fear chiefly lest my expression may not be extravagant enough, may not wander far enough beyond the narrow limit of my daily experience, so as to be adequate to the truth of which I have been convinced. Extravagance! it depends on how you are yarded.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Integrity simply means a willingness not to violate one’s identity.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
Once you label me you negate me.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
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
I know myself, but that is all.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
All these years I’ve been feeling like I was growing into myself. Finally, I feel grown.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
It is always the same: once you are liberated, you are forced to ask who you are.
—Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French Sociologist, Philosopher
If you do it right 51 percent of the time you will end up a hero.
—Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. (1875–1966) American Businessman, Philanthropist
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