Self Quotes - Page 209

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.

I celebrate myself," the poet Walt Whitman wrote. The thought is so delicious it is almost obscene. Imagine the joy that would come with celebrating the self — our achievements, our experiences, our existence. Imagine what it would be like to look into the mirror and say, as God taught us, "That's good.

Spirituality without a prayer life is no spirituality at all, and it will not last beyond the first defeats. Prayer is an opening of the self so that the Word of God can break in and make us new. Prayer unmasks. Prayer converts. Prayer impels. Prayer sustains us on the way. Pray for the grace it will take to continue what you would like to quit.

You've got to love yourself with all your short comings, and you've got to love the world no matter how bad it gets.

You cannot change the seasons, but you can change yourself.

What sex gives you momentarily is the total abandonment of yourself, then you are back again with your turmoil, so you want a repetition over and over again of that state in which there is no worry, no problem, no self.

If I learned one thing, it is that self-doubt is one of the most destructive forces. It makes you defensive instead of open, reactive instead of active. Self-doubt is consuming and cruel. And my hope today is that we can all collectively agree to ban it. . . . Think to the moments of your life when you forgot to doubt yourself. When you were so inspired that you were just living and creating and working. Pay attention to those moments because they're trying to reach you through those lenses of doubt and trying to show you your potential.

You become yourself, every single day of your life, through your choices and how you think.

In order to find out who you are, you will, at some point, have to feel really isolated, left out, different.

You think you can go into all those auditions not knowing who you are? The work came after I found my sense of self - when I wasn't so manic and desperate.

I’m instantly mortified by my fat, uncontrollable mouth, but that’s when it occurs to me that my humor is a self-defense mechanism. Even though I may come off like a stark raving asshat, being funny is the most important tool I have to stay sane. The ability to say what I think is the key to allowing me to feel in control.

For me, art really starts with acceptance, self trust. Wherever you come to with art, its perfect. You dont have to come with anything. What you bring to something is the art. Thats where its found. Its found within you.

The Western world is ... looked upon as being arrogant, self-satisfied, greedy and with no limits. And Sept. 11 is an occasion for me to realize it even more.

The quality which makes man want to write and be read is essentially a desire for self-exposure and masochism. Like one of those guys who has a compulsion to take his thing out and show it on the street.

Level 5 leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company. It's not that Level 5 leaders have no ego or self-interest. Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious-but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.

Saudi Arabia operates according to the belief that God made young men and women so utterly and completely without self-control that they must be physically segregated every moment of the day and night.

That which especially distinguishes a high order of man from a low order of man, that which constitutes human goodness, human nobleness, is surely not the degree of enlightenment with which men pursue their own advantage; but it is self-forgetfulness; it is self-sacrifice; it is the disregard of personal pleasure, personal indulgence, personal advantage, remote or present, because some other line of conduct is more right.

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.

America is not so much a country as it is an idea, and that must be why so many people are drawn to it, the idea of it, the idea that you might be free of your past, free of the traditions that kept you in your own traditions - that is the idea of it: freedom from your very own self.

High self-esteem isn't a luxury. It's a necessity for anyone who has important goals to achieve.

Each scar's a cipher rimmed with old barbs and landmines, protecting its truth.

There's only one way for an individual to remain upright, not to fall to pieces, not to sink into the mire of self-oblivionorself-contempt. That's calmly to turn away from everything, to say, "Enough!" and, folding one's useless arms across one's empty breast, to retain the ultimate, the sole attainable virtue, the virtue of recognizing one's own insignificance.

Psychiatry is a strange field because, unlike any other field of medicine, you never really finish. Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I'm still learning.

Self-portraiture is something one should never get involved in, since it is wrong to lie even though one endeavours to tell the truth.

If we knew that god exists, such knowledge would make morality impossible. For, if we acted morally from fear or fright, or confident of a reward, then this would not be moral. It would be enlightened selfishness.