Top 64 Self Possession Quotes
#3. The little that he had said, thus far, had been sufficient to convince me that I was speaking to a gentleman. He had what I may venture to describe as the unsought self-possession, which is a sure sign of good breeding, not in England only, but everywhere else in the civilized world.
Wilkie Collins
#4. Renee's self-possession, her ability to possess other selves, is a measure of the weakness of her husband, his inability to stop his own self from splitting in half.
Greil Marcus
#5. How I adore you and want you. You can't know how much ... I love belonging to you
I glory in it, that you alone have bent me to your will, shattered my self-possession, robbed me of my mystery, and made me yours, so that away from you I am nothing but a useless puppet, an empty husk.
Violet Trefusis
#6. The progress of her aging seemed to occur in fits and starts, not so much a matter of physical growth as a deepening self-possession, as if she were coming into ownership of her life.
Justin Cronin
#7. For me, the beauty of feminism is that it is a social and political movement that has redefined the power and obligation of the self: self-possession and self-regulation as a tool for social reform.
Vivian Gornick
#8. Contemporaries of Alexander Hamilton noticed his conspicuous sense of self-possession, his unique combination of serenity and energy.
Joseph J. Ellis
#9. In life courtesy and self-possession, and in the arts style, are the sensible impressions of the free mind, for both arise out of a deliberate shaping of all things and from never being swept away, whatever the emotion into confusion or dullness.
William Butler Yeats
#10. A clever general ... avoids an army when its spirit is keen, but attacks it when it is sluggish and inclined to return. This is the art of studying moods. Disciplined and calm, he awaits the appearance of disorder and hubbub among the enemy. This is the art of retaining self-possession.
Sun Tzu
#11. Obscenity is our name for the uneasiness which upsets the physical state associated with self-possession, with the possession of a recognized and stable individuality.
Georges Bataille
#12. One of the very best of all earthly possessions is self-possession.
George D. Prentice
#13. Gideon was a force of nature, his magnetic self-possession so powerful it put everyone around him in his shadow. I saw flashes of it every day and was awed by it, but not nearly as much as I was by the charming, wryly amusing lover I had entirely to myself in our private moments together.
Sylvia Day
#14. Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away in due time, so will this, and this great nation shall continue to prosper as before.
Abraham Lincoln
#16. A slouching posture tends to suggest a certain laziness of character as well as a lack of interest in others. Whereas an upright position can confirm a sense of self-possession and a quality of engagement.
Amor Towles
#17. But all life is a symphony of successive losses. You lose your youth, your parents, your loves, your friends, your comforts, your health, and finally your life. To deny loss is to lose it all anyway and to lose, in addition, your self-possession and your peace of mind
Isaac Asimov
#18. The art of walking is at once suggestive of the dignity of man. Progressive motion alone implies power, but in almost every other instance it seems a power gained at the expense of self-possession.
Henry Theodore Tuckerman
#19. I'm not that hard to get to know, really." He flashed me a quick smile. "But you ... I think you've made an art form out of deflection and self-possession.
Samantha Young
#20. Take to the study of the law. Possession is nine points of it, which thou hast of me. Self-possession is the tenth ...
R.D. Blackmore
#21. Self-possession is the ability to face without fear life in all its contradictions.
Vivian Gornick
#22. To many women marriage is only this. It is merely a physical change impinging on their ordinary nature, leaving their mentality untouched, their self-possession intact. They are not burnt by even the red fire of physical passion - far less by the white fire of love.
Mary Webb
#23. When I say the grace of wildness, what I mean is its autonomy, its self-possession, the fact that it has nothing to do with us. The grace is in the separation, the distance, the sense of a self-sustaining way of life.
Verlyn Klinkenborg
#24. We must become masters of our own actions and attitudes. To let another person determine whether we will be rude or gracious, elated or depressed is to give control of ourselves. The only true possession is self possession.
Sydney J. Harris
#25. A man is a beggar who only lives to the useful, and, however he may serve as a pin or rivet in the social machine, cannot be saidto have arrived at self-possession.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#26. Self-negation is noble, self-culture is beneficent, self-possession is manly, but to the truly great and inspiring soul they are poor and tame compared to self-abuse.
Michelangelo Buonarroti
#27. The possession targets a vulnerability in each of its victims and amplifies it. Essentially, it removes the self-control and notions of good that keep us from acting out on our darkest impulses.
Brian Pinkerton
#28. But it's not so much a headache as possession, my head an occupied territory, and my normal self, a disenfranchised native populace, driven underground.
Andrew Levy
#29. One always needs to be reminded; one is by no means always in possession of one's whole self. Our consciousness is feeble; only in moments of unusual clarity and vision do we really know about ourselves.
Thomas Mann
#30. What is needed is the development in men of that particular type of skill which will enable them to make social use of knowledge already in their possession; enable them to apply simple, sometimes self-evident, truths to the guidance of their common life.
Norman Angell
#31. Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#32. A road that perhaps more than any other leads to self atrophy is undedicated money.
E. Stanley Jones
#33. Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.
Mahatma Gandhi
#34. Character isn't inherited. One builds it daily by the way one thinks and acts, thought by thought, action by action. If one lets fear or hate or anger take possession of the mind, they become self-forged chains.
Helen Gahagan Douglas
#35. Let the beggar speak for himself. He's in earnest. Haven't we been bred on the principle of self-sacrifice, till we've come to think a man's self is his uncleanest possession?
Bernard Capes
#36. I think I possess because I do not try to give,
Trying to give, I see that I have nothing.
Rene Daumal
#37. Spirituality points, always, beyond: beyond the ordinary, beyond possession, beyond the narrow confines of the self, and - above all - beyond expectations. Because "the spiritual" is beyond our control, it is never exactly what we expect.
Ernest Kurtz
#38. I believe we should pray that God will take possession of our lives totally and completely. We should pray that we will be emptied of self - self-love, self-will, self-ambition - and be placed completely at His disposal.
Billy Graham
#39. I will not find myself, nor will I obtain any precarious morsel of life in giving all of life to myself. If I am ever to find these things, I must first be willing to give these things away at the very moment that I come into possession of them.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
#40. The most precious of all possessions is power over ourselves.
John Locke
#41. One is free from depression," writes Alice Miller in The Drama of the Gifted Child, "when self-esteem is based on the authenticity of one's own feelings and not on the possession of certain qualities.
John Bradshaw
#42. So soon as the possession of property becomes the basis of popular esteem, therefore, it becomes also a requisite to that complacency which we call self-respect.
Thorstein Veblen
#43. He was very much a man of moods, possibly owing to what is styled the artistic temperment. I have never seen, myself, why the possession of artistic ability should be supposed to excuse a man from a decent exercise of self-control.
Agatha Christie
#44. True respect comes when we fend for ourselves without the aid of anyone, and when we owned something and say, 'this is my own'! Not necessarily as a way of boasting of our abundance and grace, but having a feeling that we can use it without obstruction, or being asked to return the favor.
Michael Bassey Johnson
#45. Instead of being lost in your thinking, when you awaken you recognize yourself as the awareness behind it. Thinking then ceases to be a self-serving autonomous activity that takes possession of you and runs your life.
Eckhart Tolle
#46. He who is controlled by objects Loses possession of his inner self: If he no longer values himself, How can he value others? If he no longer values others, He is abandoned. He has nothing left!
Thomas Merton
#47. Mental illness is no myth, as some have claimed. It is a disturbance in our sense of possession of a stable inner self that survives its personae.
Camille Paglia
#49. To a greater or lesser degree, the project of the self becomes translated into one of the possession of desired goods and the pursuit of artificially framed styles of life. ( ... ) Not just lifestyles, but self-actualisation is packaged and distributed according to market criteria.
Anthony Giddens
#50. Desire then is the invasion of the whole self by the wish, which, as it invades, sets going more and more of the psychical processes; but at the same time, so long as it remains desire, does not succeed in getting possession of the self.
Samuel Alexander
#51. Taking possession of your positive self will put you on the success beam that you may ride triumphantly to whatever heights of achievement you desire.
Napoleon Hill
#52. Your opinions about me does not change who I am. I am God's special possession.
Lailah Gifty Akita
#53. There was nothing fake or added about him. He was all himself.
Colin Cotterill
#54. I am not a thing. I am not your possession. I am a human being."
- CBI Agent Sam Rose
Liana Brooks
#55. For just as the first general precepts of the law of nature are self-evident to one in possession of natural reason, and have no need of promulgation, so also that of believing in God is primary and self-evident to one who has faith: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is.
Thomas Aquinas
#56. Quid nomen tibi est? She was not about to offer her name up to a stranger. It was almost the only thing she possessed that nobody had stolen.
Ruth Downie
#58. No one could have called Mr. Standen quick-witted, but the possession of three sisters had considerably sharpened his instinct of self-preservation.
Georgette Heyer
#59. Among people lacking self-restraint, those apt to be impulsive40 are better than those who are in possession of an argument [logos] but do not abide by it. For
Aristotle.
#60. The great master key to riches is nothing more or less than the self-discipline necessary to help you take full and complete possession of your own mind.
Napoleon Hill
#61. One's own self or material goods, which has more worth?
Loss (of self) or possession (of goods), which is the greater evil?
He who loves most, spends most,
He who hoards much loses much
Laozi
#62. Only those who become "money conscious" ever accumulate great riches. "Money consciousness" means that the mind has become so thoroughly saturated with the DESIRE for money, that one can see one's self already in possession of it.
Napoleon Hill
#63. Self-realization is the knowing in all parts of body, mind, and soul that you are now in possession of the kingdom of God; that you do not have to pray that it come to you; that God's omnipresence is your omnipresence; and that all that you need to do is improve your knowing.
Paramahansa Yogananda
#64. Know yourself. Feel yourself. Love yourself. Respect yourself. Take good care of yourself. You are your most precious possession on Earth.
Robert Muller
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