Top 100 Self's Quotes
#1. Anything that grows is, by definition, alive. Washington, D.C. was no exception. As a living organism, the Federal Government's number one job was self-preservation. Any threat to its existence had to be dealt with.
Brad Thor
#2. In all honesty, if somebody asked me the secret of auditioning for Americans, I don't know. Often, I do what's called self-taping for America. I go over there quite a lot to sit in a room and do stuff in front of people. You feel like a performing monkey. It's bizarre.
David Wenham
#3. To have a girl two thousand miles away going to pieces over you, weeping at the mere memory of you, losing her appetite, losing herself and her self respect - well, that's a trophy enough for a guy's ego, huh?
Jerry Spinelli
#4. An interesting piece of work, freely chosen, which has the virtue of inducing concentration rather than fatigue, adds to the child's energies and mental capacities, and leads him to self-mastery.
Maria Montessori
#5. There are two lives to each of us, the life of our actions, and the life of our minds and hearts. History reveals men's deeds and their outward characters, but not themselves. There is a secret self that has its own life, unpenetrated and unguessed.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
#6. A woman's sense of self is defined through her feelings and the quality of her relationships.
John Gray
#7. To yield to the threat or actual use of violence is a surrender of one's self respect and religious conviction.
Mahatma Gandhi
#8. I'm really happy to have the chance to talk about the editing process. It's something that I think doesn't get the weight it deserves, especially with the rise of self-publishing.
Sarah Dessen
#9. Oh Lord, I've been so selfish, so consumed with myself I haven't been able to see anyone else's pain but my own. I've let anger blind me. I've let self-righteousness stop me in my tracks and keep me from having the kind of relationship with you that I want. I need to let it go.
Lynette Eason
#10. I was 26 when I went to my first acting class. I'm naturally quite shy. I'm a quite private person. There's this really strange acting class in New York called Black Nexxus. For someone who's slightly shy or self-conscious, it's the most frightening thing you can do.
Hannah Ware
#11. And there I suddenly found my articulate self in a dazzling land of smiling, jostling people wearing and not wearing all sorts of costumes and doing all sorts of clever things. And that's when I knew! What other life could there be but that of an actor?
Cary Grant
#12. because then they don't have to struggle with the need to die to the ego-driven self and become a humble servant of all people, which is what Jesus requires. It's much
Chuck Queen
#13. We don't take on Google Glass or the self-driving car project or Project Loon unless we think that on a risk-adjusted basis, it's worth Google's money to do it.
Astro Teller
#14. This watching through cool intent eyes and delicately adjusting one factor or another till a man's fundamental instinct for self-preservation cracks, is savagery in its most pure, most polished and most highly evolved form.
Tana French
#15. I reckon it does take a powerful trust in the Lord to guard a fellow, though sometimes I think that Cora's a mite over-cautious, like she was trying to crowd the other folks away and get in closer than anybody else.
William Faulkner
#17. Those who wish to sit, shut their eyes,
and meditate to know if the world's true or lies,
may do so. It's their choice. But I meanwhile
with hungry eyes that can't be satisfied
shall take a look at the world in broad daylight.
Rabindranath Tagore
#18. No man who worships education has got the best out of education ... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.
G.K. Chesterton
#19. I could never do a job that entailed complicating people's lives
Frank Healy
#20. Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own person is its ultimate reward
Patricia Sampson
#21. In order not to cut out a large part of one's private life, the creative work should not swallow up every other form of self-expression. But that is the most complicated thing.
Elena Ferrante
#22. In God's eyes, no one on this planet is any better than you.
Wayne Dyer
#23. If there is one lesson I've learned from failure and success, it's this. I am not the outcome. I am never the result. I am only the effort.
Kamal Ravikant
#24. At first Ifemelu thought Kimberly's apologizing sweet, even if unnecessary, but she had begun to feel a flash of impatience, because Kimberly's repeated apologies were tinged with self-indulgence, as though she believed that she could, with apologies, smooth all the scalloped surfaces of the world.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
#25. Brazilians need to work on their own national pride. I always think that they suffer from national low-self esteem. It's a lesser-developed country, and they have struggled so much. Sometimes they have an attitude that, if it's Brazilian, it can't be good.
Amy Irving
#26. I think we all have blocks between us and the best version of ourselves, whether it's shyness, insecurity, anxiety, whether it's a physical block, and the story of a person overcoming that block to their best self. It's truly inspiring because I think all of us are engaged in that every day.
Tom Hooper
#27. I think I have a great deal of self-hatred, a profound feeling of fraudulence, of being detestable and evil. It's only a part of me, but it's there, and it's active.
Tony Kushner
#28. It's not hard to create self-beliefs that produce a successful and happy life. The main job is to unlearn your limiting beliefs.
Maddy Malhotra
#29. A radical shift in attitude happens in small steps. It's a transformation. A butterfly does a lot of walking and eating and growing before it finally forms a chrysalis and emerges with wings. It's not an instant transformation.
Rohvannyn Shaw
#30. A timeline for bringing U.S. troops home that is negotiated with the Iraqi government would also boost the Iraqi government's legitimacy and claim to self-rule, and force the Iraqi government to take responsibility for itself and its citizens.
Peter DeFazio
#31. Relax; the world's not watching that closely. It's too busy contemplating itself in the mirror.
Richelle E. Goodrich
#32. Did I express my personality? I think that's quite unimportant because it's not people's selves but what they have to say about life that's important.
Paul Strand
#33. Success is the accomplishment of any number of possible aims, dreams, aspirations or goals. It's very personal and unique to you. Your greatest desire could be someone else's idea of hell; you might want to be an award-winning chef while your best friend hates cooking.
Nigel Cumberland
#34. All the collaborators of storytelling, in film and television, have to be partly self-centered because they need to do their work the best they can, and that's what makes them really good at what they do, but then they also have to be a part of the socialist society, for the greater good.
Ray McKinnon
#35. Intuition is not clairvoyance. It's not guesswork either. Intuition is executive summary, that 90 percent of the higher brain that functions subconsciously - but no less rigorously - than the self-aware subroutine that thinks of itself as the person.
Peter Watts
#37. The mask was a thing on it's own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-conciousness.
William Golding
#38. There's a thin line between interesting music and self-indulgence. We crossed it on the Passengers record.
Larry Mullen Jr.
#39. I'm still not totally sure I know what's true about me.
Kenneth Logan
#40. Gen Y is really quite distinct from Gen X; it's really self-involved and very narcissistic - their cameras are filled with pictures of themselves; Facebook, it's about me. It's a generation that's been pampered by their parents and their schools, given prizes for just taking part.
Marcus Buckingham
#41. Personal Assault and Battery breeds with no contraception a hateful vengeance for others; A sexual nature that is methodically breeding one's intolerance of Self
Rosemarie Yusen
#43. The idolatry the exists in a man's heart always wants to lead him away from his Savior and back to self-reliance no matter how pitiful that self-reliance is or how many times it has betrayed him.
Matt Chandler
#44. Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to
self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt,
that's real power.
Clint Eastwood
#45. Once, maybe I would have thought you a fool, but ... well, that's kind of what trust is, isn't it? A willful self-delusion? You have to shut out that voice that whispers about betrayal, and just hope that your friends aren't going to hurt you.
Brandon Sanderson
#46. Like many self-help books, The Deepest Blue is full of horrifyingly simplistic language and some admittedly good advice. Somehow the women in the book learn to say: That's my depression talking. It's not "me."
As if we could scrape the color off the iris and still see.
Maggie Nelson
#47. It's good to be a little nervous. God compensates those with a lack of talent with an overabundance of self-confidence. -Gigi
Karen White
#48. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honour.
Oscar Wilde
#49. It is a fact that the majority of a man's griefs comes about through lack of self-control.
Napoleon Hill
#50. It's important to avoid mirrors if one is unprepared to accept their daily news, and I think, in something as insignificantly devastating as appearance, denial is more socially constructive than despondency. Not that there's anything especially wrong with me
just the usual.
Rivka Galchen
#51. When I'm feeling sad, or lonely, and I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know where I'm going, I imagine the Cool Awesome Future Version of Myself just telling my present self, "It's okay. You just gotta grab that giraffe by the ears and ride it on out."
Jenna Marbles
#52. The point is that if the love object is divine perfection, then one's own self is elevated by joining one's destiny to it.
Ernest Becker
#53. And if redemption was self-serving, coming as it did ribbon-tied to what he wanted most in life? For once, Akiva's shame wouldn't rise to the bait. He wanted what he'd always wanted, and he'd better just say it, his own worries and fears be damned.
Laini Taylor
#55. If a woman says, I am getting these breast implants to gain self confidence, then I have to ask, What kind of a society do we live in where a woman's self-confidence depends on having a dangerous, expensive and painful operation on a perfectly healthy body?
Katha Pollitt
#56. The ability to reflect is associated with critical thinking and reasoning ability. And the capacity to be alone is one of the highest levels of development. It's important to know how to self-soothe and be confident of other people's love even when they're not there in front of you.
Laurie Helgoe
#57. Most urgently, women's identity must be premised upon our 'beauty' so that we will remain vulnerable to outside approval, carrying the vital sensitive organ of self-esteem exposed to the air.
Naomi Wolf
#58. It's the truth I'm after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.
Marcus Aurelius
#59. Jealousy is the manifestation of insecurity and dissatisfaction with one's calling and self-worth.
T.D. Jakes
#60. I had no special training at all; I am completely self taught. I don't fit the mold of a visual arts designer or a graphic designer. I just had a strong concept about what a game designer is. Someone who designs projects to make people happy. That's a game designer's purpose.
Toru Iwatani
#61. I have found a way to beat myself
I win by losing, something like that
I'm told that I'm stupid
So ok, I'll be stupid
If I can't register the pain
Then it's not there
I'm not so stupid after all
I'll show them
Henry Rollins
#62. Our thinking will automatically improve when we remember the words of Paul: 'know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and the spirit of God dwelleth in you?
Thomas S. Monson
#63. The process of building trust is an interesting one, but it begins with yourself, with what I call self trust, and with your own credibility, your own trustworthiness. If you think about it, it's hard to establish trust with others if you can't trust yourself.
Stephen Covey
#64. Normally, when someone we love is turning away from a struggle, we self-protect by also turning away. That's definitely my first response. I think change is more likely to happen if both partners have common language and a shared lens to see problems.
Brene Brown
#65. Authenticity is very important - be true to one's self.
Laila Ali
#66. What I think is all I have left. My mind is the only thing that makes me different from a fancy toaster. What we think does matter-it's all we truly have.
Mary E. Pearson
#67. If you don't have liberty and self-determination, you've got nothing, that's what this is what this country is built on. And this is the ultimate self-determination, when you determine how and when you're going to die when you're suffering.
Jack Kevorkian
#68. It is nonviolent non-co-operation which evokes the highest spirit of self-sacrifice that will wean one from the error of one's ways.
Mahatma Gandhi
#69. I - though forced through lack of space to assume the form of a stoic guinea pig crouched between the girl's shoe and the glove compartment - was my usual dignified self.
Jonathan Stroud
#70. To love is to be balanced, to extend one's self beyond the sense of self.
Frederick Lenz
#71. It's so important to believe in yourself. Believe that you can do it, under any circumstances. Because if you believe you can, then you really will. That belief just keeps you searching for the answers, and then pretty soon you get it.
Wally Amos
#72. The greatest victory comes not from winning against enemies but from winning over one's self.
Debasish Mridha
#73. It's healthy to periodically self examine your life, your goals, your relationships, and ask yourself honestly, am I happy? Am I on the right track?
Benjamin Stone
#74. It's a saying they have, that a man has a false heart in his mouth for the world to see, another in his breast to show to his special friends and his family, and the real one, the true one, the secret one, which is never known to anyone except to himself alone, hidden only God knows where.
James Clavell
#75. The Chinese mom is not the helicopter mom. I would never do their homework for them. It's all about: Take responsibility, don't blame others. Be self-reliant. Never blame the teacher.
Amy Chua
#76. I enjoy performing, always, but when you're taping a gig, you've got to blank out this mass apparatus of self-consciousness that's surrounding you, this invitation to drown in self-consciousness. Otherwise you just won't be able to do anything.
Dylan Moran
#77. I think that in today's world, by nature, we are all self-centered. And that often leads to selfishness.
Gary Chapman
#78. Did you ever notice they never take any fat hostages? You never see a guy coming out of Lebanon going: I was held hostage for seven months and I lost 175 pounds, I feel good and I look good and I learned self-discipline. That's the important thing.
Denis Leary
#79. Most people's Gods are self-reflective. God just has to be like you. You get concerned, so you assume God must get concerned. You get pissed off, so you assume God must get pissed off. You're attached to things that you create, so you assume that God would be.
Frederick Lenz
#80. There's a different film being made in every mind. And of course, the star of the film is the mind, the personality, the self.
Frederick Lenz
#81. Me, when it comes to religion, I have no God. When I'm cool, I don't need anyone, and when I'm feeling shitty and this big empty hole opens up inside me, I just know there's never been a god that could fill it and there never will be.
Etgar Keret
#82. Nothing adds such dignity to character as the recognition of one's self- sovereignty.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
#83. Hell is only the Cringe Eternal and the Place of our Self's Undoing. When Nietzsche proclaimed "God is Dead!" he forgot to add that Satan is also dead and we are free from all that antique tat.
Grant Morrison
#84. I do not take advice or listen to the words of hypocrites or beings that are not self-realized. It's nothing personal. I am simply no fan of beings that try to sound wise, while trying to mask their imbecility.
Lionel Suggs
#85. To be agreeable, all that is necessary is to take an interest in other persons and in other things, to recognize that other people as a rule are much like one's self, and thankfully to admit that diversity is a glorious feature of life.
Frank Arthur Swinnerton
#86. 10. Comparison is the root of all feelings of inferiority. The moment you begin examining other people's strengths against your most obvious weaknesses, your self-esteem starts to crumble!
James C. Dobson
#87. Self-confidence can be defined in two sentences. (1) I trust myself to face life's challenges and (2) I trust myself to follow my dreams and goals.
Gudjon Bergmann
#88. If you walk down the street and see someone in a box, you have a choice. That person is either the other and you're fearful of them, or that person is an extension of your family. And that makes you at home in that world and not fearful. So really it's very self-serving.
Susan Sarandon
#89. One's self-worth comes from how one chooses to navigate that space.
Paul Beatty
#90. The point of telling our stories, even if only to ourselves, is to help us resurrect the parts we have buried. When we unearth them, even if it's difficult, we can integrate them into our sense of who we are. Often in our buried self our true power lies.
Helen LaKelly Hunt
#91. Hollywood can be a draining industry. For all the glitz and glory and wonderful parts of our business, it takes it's toll on your inner self.
Amber Heard
#92. There's no mystery to confidence, it's just about self knowledge. It's savvy to know which of our flaws can be changed, and which ones to accept and let go. Then, asking the best of the good points.
Immodesty Blaize
#93. We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or other people's models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open.
Shakti Gawain
#94. When men organize themselves into groups, and they make rules based on common or self-interest, it's always tangled and political.
Andrew Dominik
#95. The Voice
There is a voice inside of you
That whispers all day long,
"I feel this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong."
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
Or wise man can decide
What's right for you
just listen to
The voice that speaks inside.
Shel Silverstein
#96. Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble - and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#97. From human problems come human solutions, which in turn spawn inspiration, creativity, insight and enlightenment. Without life's problems, life would become stagnant, dull and boring.
Beth Johnson
#98. I'll be honest with you. I'm a little bit of a loner. It's been a big part of my maturing process to learn to allow people to support me. I tend to be very self-reliant and private. And I have this history of wanting to work things out on my own and protect people from what's going on with me.
Kerry Washington
#99. Today it feels as if rock'n'roll has sort of turned in on its self, kids are 'rockin' to the same groups their parents do/did. We've seen it recently with The Stone Roses reunion shows, quite unique but is it healthy. Wasn't the 60's about rebelling against the tastes of your parents?
Andrew Loog Oldham
#100. The awkwardness and embarrassment which all feel on beginning to write, when they themselves are the theme, ought to serve as a hint to author's that self is a subject they ought very rarely to descant upon.
Charles Caleb Colton
