Define Ourselves Quotes

#1. The way we view fiction is a reflection of how we define ourselves as a nation. Works of the imagination are canaries in the coal mine, the measure by which we can evaluate the health of the rest of society.

Azar Nafisi

#2. At culinary school, none of the things we use to define ourselves outside that world - actor, producer, student - none of that matters. It's a magical art form.

Eric Christian Olsen

#3. Black women who define ourselves and our goals beyond the sphere of a sexual relationship can bring to any endeavor the realized focus of completed and therefore empowered individuals.

Audre Lorde

#4. We aren't who our pasts say we are. Damage doesn't define us. WE DEFINE OURSELVES.

Cynthia Eden

#5. We're moving into an era when we will define ourselves more by the technologies we refuse than the ones we accept.

Douglas Rushkoff

#6. The trap of the self is the trap that causes unhappiness. We define ourselves too much; whereas the infinite, the pure radiant spirit, is not so definable.

Frederick Lenz

#7. I have since become convinced that when we define ourselves by our wounds, we burden and lose our physical and spiritual energy and open ourselves to the risk of illness.

Caroline Myss

#8. I'm convinced that if we don't define ourselves, other people will do it for us, and inaccurately.

Hasan M. Elahi

#9. We define ourselves in relationship to Christ: who we are is how we relate to him. The Son, sent by the Father, lives in us through the Holy Spirit, and we can't truly meet ourselves until we meet him.

Adam S. McHugh

#10. We're not words, Henry, we're people.
Words are how others define us, but we can define ourselves any way we choose.

Shaun David Hutchinson

#11. If we don't want to define ourselves by things as superficial as our appearances, we're stuck with the revolting alternative of being judged by our actions.

Ellen DeGeneres

#12. Women don't have to be defined by others. We have the power to define ourselves: by telling our own stories, in our own words, with our own voices.

Sarah Kay

#13. As parents we also define ourselves by what we bring our attention and presence to. This is easy to forget when daily life feels more like triage. By eliminating some of the clutter in our lives we can concentrate on what we really value, not just what we're buried under, or deluged with.

Kim John Payne

#14. Being good or being evil is not something that is inherent in our nature over which we have no control, rather we define ourselves by the choices we make, moment by moment, situation by situation. All it takes is an act of will to be the best that we can be.

Laurence Overmire

#15. Words are how others define us, but we can define ourselves any way we choose." I

Shaun David Hutchinson

#16. All life has in it the dimension of the Unknown; it is a thing forever unfolding. It seems important to consider the possibility that science may have defined life too small. If we define life too small, we will define ourselves too small as well.

Rachel Naomi Remen

#17. We do not define ourselves as men or as women through our work, our house, our health, or our reputation. We define ourselves as men and women through the way we love.

Simone Troisi

#18. To say that 'I will not be free till all humans (or all sentient creatures) are free' is simply to cave in to a kind of nirvana-stupor, to abdicate our humanity, to define ourselves as losers.

Hakim Bey

#19. I don't write or think too much about the word "salvation." I might; I probably should. We are such needy creatures, needing to be saved, to feel we are saved or might be, however we define ourselves, however we define that word.

Pattiann Rogers

#20. We have tendency to define ourselves in opposition to stuff. But try to also express your passion for things you love. Be demonstrative and generous in your praise of those you admire. Send thank-you cards and give standing ovations. Be pro-stuff, not just anti-stuff.

Tim Minchin

#21. For Black women as well as Black men, it is axiomatic that if we do not define ourselves for ourselves, we will be defined by others - for their use and to our detriment.

Audre Lorde

#22. Every day we choose who we are by how we define ourselves.

Angelina Jolie

#23. How we view ourselves and define ourselves is perhaps the most essential paradigm we have as human beings. It determines all of our actions and reactions.

David Clark

#24. As long as we define ourselves in terms of our pains and problems, we will never be free from them.

Eckhart Tolle

#25. College life is different, entirely different like you don't have to get ready and wear that red and crisp blue school uniform and look alike every day. Free to define ourselves with statement attire. Good thing.

Parul Wadhwa

#26. I think of the security of cages. How violence, cruelty, oppression, become a kind of home, a familiar pattern, a cage, in which we know how to operate and define ourselves ...

Eve Ensler

#27. Comparison, a great teacher once told me, is the cardinal sin of modern life. It traps us in a game that we can't win. Once we define ourselves in terms of others, we lose the freedom to shape our own lives.

James C. Collins

#28. We have needed to define ourselves by reclaiming the words that define us. They have used language as weapons. When we open ourselves to what they say and how they say it, our narrow prejudices evaporate and we are nourished and armed.

Selma James

#29. Stories are epically important to how we view and interact in the world around us. We define ourselves, our abilities and even our goals by the stories we believe and share. These stories become part of our personal view of our world.

Lyssa Danehy DeHart

#30. 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.

Audre Lorde

#31. We define ourselves by the best that is in us, not the worst that has been done to us.

Edward B. Lewis

#32. We define ourselves, in part, by the discriminations we make. The value of what we love is enriched by our understanding of what we dislike.

David Ansen

#33. When we are kids, we imagine that to define ourselves or to find ourselves means charting your own individuality, making your own destiny, and actually running away from your parents and your home and what you grew up with. Of course, as the years go on, we come to find that we become our parents.

Pico Iyer

#34. When we define ourselves, when I define myself, the place in which I am like you and the place in which I am not like you, I'm not excluding you from the joining - I'm broadening the joining.

Audre Lorde

#35. It is important to realize that we so often define ourselves by what is in opposition to ourselves.

Chris Matakas

#36. I miss having a villain. Whether we realize it or not, most of us define ourselves by opposing rather than by favoring something or someone. To put it another way, it is easier to react than to act. Nothing arouses a passion for dogma more than a good antagonist. And the more unlikely the better.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

#37. The decisions that we write off as momentary, insignificant, incidental, everyday encounters are exactly when we have a chance to define ourselves. To find beauty. To engage the world around us. To create memories.

Teri Hatcher

#38. How we treat the vulnerable is how we define ourselves as a species.

Russell Brand

#39. If we define ourselves by each of the ever-changing feelings that cascade through us, how will we ever feel at home in our own bodies and minds?

Sharon Salzberg

#40. I've seen extreme bravery from the least likely of people. Life is about the moments when it's all gone wrong. That's when we define ourselves.

Bear Grylls

#41. We define ourselves by comparing ourselves to the things around us. But what if all those things against which you compare yourself weren't there. How tall would you be then?

Danny Scheinmann

#42. I wish I was like that. More carefree."
"Anyone can be. People aren't carved out of marble. We're all works in progress. The trick is to define ourselves, rather than let outside influences define us.

J.A. Konrath

#43. My point is that we much decolonize our minds and re-name and re-define ourselves ... In all respects, culturally, politically, socially, we must re-define ourselves and our lives, in our own terms.

Max Roach

#44. We define ourselves as intelligent. That's odd, because we're doing the definition - We're creating our own definition and saying, 'We are intelligent!'

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

#45. The most powerful force in the human psyche is people's need for their words and actions to stay consistent with their IDENTITY - how we define ourselves.

Tony Robbins

#46. Animals have this way of constantly confronting us with ultimate questions - about truth and falsehood, guilt and innocence, God and sanctity and the soul - forcing us to define ourselves and our relationship to the world.

Matthew Scully

#47. It is so important that we as spiritual people should not define ourselves only by our profession

Sunday Adelaja

#48. Once upon a time, there was a clear set of choices that people made. Now there are so many choices of how to think, how to define ourselves.

Tamar Jacoby

#49. Whether we realise it or not, most of us define ourselves by opposing rather than by favouring something or someone. To put it another way, it is easier to react than to act.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

#50. If we truly seek diversity in fiction, we have to let the needs of others come before our need to define ourselves as social justice allies.

Jennifer Armintrout

#51. To be an aritst is not to wait for others to define us, but to define ourselves, claim our lives ...

Jan Phillips

#52. It is highly unlikely that we, who can know, determine, and define the natural essences of all things surrounding us, which we are not, should ever be able to do the same for ourselves
this would be like jumping over our own shadows.

Hannah Arendt

#53. In this universe, and this existence, where we live with this duality of whether we exist or not and who are we, the stories we tell ourselves are the stories that define the potentialities of our existence. We are the stories we tell ourselves.

Shekhar Kapur

#54. I don't think that trauma is an illusion; there is no question in my mind that circumstances beyond our control can shape and define us. But ultimately, we make choices about letting ourselves be defined by our pasts.

Christina Baker Kline

#55. We need to punch back against the extremes of both the left and the right and define the terms of the debate ourselves.

John Avlon

#56. Objects are what we aren't, what we can't extend ourselves to be. Do people make things to define the boundaries of the self? Objects are the limits we desperately need. They show us where we end. They dispel our sadness, temporarily.

Don DeLillo

#57. We must define a story which encourages us to make use of the place where we live without killing it, and we must understand that the living world cannot be replicated. There will never be another setup like the one in which we thrived. Ruin it and we will have lost ourselves, and that is craziness.

William Kittredge

#58. People define themselves to some degree by the music that they listened to as teens. My mom had Elvis. Me, I had 'The Who' and later punk rock. Kids who came up in the '80s had other songs and bands. It's a way of placing ourselves culturally and temporally.

Jennifer Egan

#59. Change means growth, and growth can be painful. But we sharpen self-definition by exposing the self in work and struggle together with those whom we define as different from ourselves, although sharing the same goals. (151)

Stewart Burns

#60. We can't let boys define how we feel about ourselves. You have to know who you are before you should let any boy worth anything in.

Kasie West

#61. For some people there is no comfort without pain. Thus; we define salvation through suffering. Hence, why we choose people who we know aren't right for ourselves.

Cato The Younger

#62. It often seems, looking back, that the unexpected comes to define us, the paths we didn't see coming and may have wandered down by mistake. The older we get the more willing we are to follow those, to surprise ourselves.

Anna Quindlen

#63. Being true to ourselves is about having courage to define our own version of what it is to live a successful life.

Henna Inam

#64. It's not the circumstances we find ourselves in that define us, it's how we overcome them.

Nicole Reed

#65. People sometimes say that it is "old-fashioned" to define morality based on the Bible, but nothing is more "old- fashioned" than wanting to define right and wrong for ourselves.

Dannah Gresh

#66. Coercion from outside, strong temperamental inclinations and passions within ourselves, do nothing to effect the essence of our freedom. They simply define its action by imposing certain limits on it.

Thomas Merton

#67. The moment we begin to define others and ourselves by how we are different, the seeds of separation are planted.

Kim H. Krisco

#68. We can each define ambition and progress for ourselves. The goal is to work toward a world where expectations are not set by the stereotypes that hold us back, but by our personal passion, talents and interests.

Sheryl Sandberg

#69. Justice to others and to ourselves is the same; that we cannot define our duties by mathematical lines ruled by the square, but must fill with them the great circle traced by the compasses

Albert Pike

#70. We know God easily, if we do not constrain ourselves to define him.

Joseph Joubert

#71. However self-sufficient we may fancy ourselves, we exist only in relation
to our friend, family, and life partners; to those we teach and mentor; to our co-workers, neighbors, strangers; and even to forces we cannot fully conceive of, let alone define. In many ways, we are our relationships.

Derrick A. Bell

#72. Once we know our elements we know our strengths, but that is nothing compared with our weaknesses. Our strengths define us, but our weaknesses limit us. It's a constant tug of war in ourselves.

Katie Kacvinsky

#73. To be free to roam our own consciousness and be responsible for ourselves, a letting go process is required. We have to let go of how others define us; what damaging messages remain from childhood; how others define our relationship with the creator; and what expectations they may have for us.

David W. Earle

#74. I mean one of the things about being alone is that you've no people to define yourself off, I mean, people are like all-round mirrors, because let's face it, we don't often see ourselves all round in a mirror anyway, do we.

Diana Wynne Jones

#75. We are also not what others think of us. Our reputations do not define our true worth. Every person we know has an opinion of us. We drive ourselves crazy wondering what those opinion are and trying to change the ones that aren't favorable.

Toni Sorenson

#76. It is not those events outside of our control which we should allow to define us. Instead, the definition of who we choose to be is dictated by how we deal with these outside events within ourselves.

Tony C. Skye

#77. We cannot let the haters of this world define us. Or frighten us into no longer being ourselves.

Mary E. DeMuth

#78. The thing about love is one can never define it exactly. And as much of a mystery as that is and as familiar it is when we acknowledge it, words just aren't enough. So we find ourselves scratching the walls while our hair is falling out. Then we can't live without it. We become addicts.

Kevin Fuller

#79. Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves.

Robert Graves