The “self-image” is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self image and you change the personality and the behavior.
—Maxwell Maltz (1899–1975) American Surgeon, Motivational Writer
I think a child should be allowed to take his father’s or mother’s name at will on coming of age. Paternity is a legal fiction.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
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
The sense of identity provides the ability to experience one’s self as something that has continuity and sameness, and to act accordingly.
—Erik Erikson (1902–94) German-born American Developmental Psychologist
This is what the painter, the poet, the speculative philosopher, and the natural scientists do, each in his own fashion.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.
—Georges Gurdjieff (1877–1949) Armenian Spiritual Leader, Occultist
Success plus self-esteem equals pretensions.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
We forge gradually our greatest instrument for understanding the world—introspection. We discover that humanity may resemble us very considerably—that the best way of knowing the inwardness of our neighbors is to know ourselves.
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) American Journalist, Political Commentator, Writer
Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.
—English Proverb
An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.
—James Baldwin (1924–87) American Novelist, Social Critic
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
I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Explorer
He who seeks to approach his own buried past must conduct himself like a man digging. He must not be afraid to return again and again to the same matter; to scatter it as one scatters earth, to turn it over as one turns over soil. For the matter itself is only a deposit, a stratum, which yields only to the most meticulous examination what constitutes the real treasure hidden within the earth: the images, severed from all earlier associations, that stand—like precious fragments or torsos in a collector’s gallery—in the prosaic rooms of our later understanding.
—Walter Benjamin
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
Labels are for filing. Labels are for clothing. Labels are not for people.
—Martina Navratilova (b.1956) Czech-born American Sportsperson
Integrity simple means not violating one’s own identity.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments. We need people to bear witness against our inner judge, who keeps book on our shortcomings and transgressions. We need people to convince us that we are not as bad as we think we are.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
There’s a period of life when we swallow a knowledge of ourselves and it becomes either good or sour inside.
—Pearl Bailey (1918–1990) American Jazz Singer, Actress, Writer
Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.
—Alan Watts (1915–73) British-American Philosopher, Author
Integrity simply means a willingness not to violate one’s identity.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
Another cause of your sickness, and the most important: you have forgotten what you are.
—Boethius (c.480–524 CE) Roman Statesman, Philosopher
One of the best things to do sometimes is simply to be.
—Eric Butterworth (1916–2003) American Spirituality Writer
If you want to be truly successful invest in yourself to get the knowledge you need to find your unique factor. When you find it and focus on it and persevere your success will blossom.
—Sidney Madwed (1926–2013) American Poet, Author
It is curious how instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original to be believed any longer. – Woolf, Virginia
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
What we’re all striving for is authenticity, a spirit-to-spirit connection.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
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
To name oneself is the first act of both the poet and the revolutionary. When we take away the right to an individual name, we symbolically take away the right to be an individual. Immigration officials did this to refugees; husbands routinely do it to wives.
—Erica Jong (b.1942) American Novelist, Feminist
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
Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
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
Become aware of internal, subjective, sub-verbal experiences, so that these experiences can be brought into the world of abstraction, of conversation, of naming, etc. with the consequence that it immediately becomes possible for a certain amount of control to be exerted over these hitherto unconscious and uncontrollable processes.
—Abraham Maslow (1908–70) American Psychologist, Academic, Humanist
I know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak, or thoughts are affection; and am sensible of certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is no part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
It is terrible to destroy a person’s picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.
—Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British Novelist, Poet
Drop the idea that you are Atlas carrying the world on your shoulders. The world would go on even without you. Don’t take yourself so seriously.
—Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American Clergyman, Self-Help Author
One of the most wonderful things in nature is a glance of the eye; it transcends speech; it is the bodily symbol of identity.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
I have preserved my identity, put its credibility to the test and defended my dignity. What good this will bring the world I don’t know. But for me it is good.
—Vaclav Havel (1936–2011) Czech Dramatist, Statesman
If you come to fame not understanding who you are, it will define who you are.
—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
As you become more clear about who you really are, you will be better able to decide what is best for you, the first time round.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
The terrible fluidity of self-revelation.
—Henry James (1843–1916) American-born British Novelist, Writer
It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Know yourself, master yourself, conquest of self is most gratifying.
—Unknown
I know myself, but that is all.
—Unknown
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
A man may be so much of every thing, that he is nothing of any thing.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
I shall write a book some day about the appropriateness of names. Geoffrey Chaucer has a ribald ring, as is proper and correct, and Alexander Pope was inevitably Alexander Pope. Colley Cibber was a silly little man without much elegance and Shelley was very Percy and very Bysshe.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
‘Tis not need we know our every thought or see the work shop where each mask is wrought wherefrom we view the world of box and pit, careless of wear, just so the mask shall fit and serve our jape’s turn for a night or two.
—Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Translator, Critic
Partake of some of life’s sweet pleasures. And yes, get comfortable with yourself.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
I consider myself an average man, except in the fact that I consider myself an average man.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist