Self Quotes - Page 335

Our culture has few taboos that can't be violated, and our establishment has largely given up on setting standards in the first place. Except where Islam is concerned. There, the standards are established under threat of violence, and accepted out of a mix of self-preservation and self-loathing. This is what decadence looks like: a frantic coarseness that "bravely" trashes its own values and traditions, and then knuckles under swiftly to totalitarianism and brute force.

Like Thornton Wilder said, time is not a river, but rather a landscape that you step in and out of. I've always found that true of creative work, and I've heard so many songwriters and writers in general say the same thing... When you're going into the realms of your self and trying to tap into the mystery of this creative source, linear time kind of falls away.

Racial pride and self-dignity were emphasized in my family and community.

My self-confidence didn't come from my appearance, it came from other things that I did. But certainly not my appearance.

Every act of genuine creativity means achieving a higher level of self-awareness and personal freedom.

The God worth worshipping is the one who pays us the compliment of self - regulation, and we might return it by minding our own business.

I went to a massage parlor, it was self service.

...whatever the self-righteous excesses of the environmentalist left, it is impossible to be true to traditional conservative values (to say nothing of the Christian faith conservatives like me profess) and hold laissez faire attitudes about the use and abuse of the natural world.

Keep challenging yourself to think better, do better, and be better.

The respect you give others is a dramatic reflection of the respect you give yourself.

To be true to ourselves, however, is not an easy task. We must break free of the seductions of society and live life on our own terms, under our own values and aligned with our original dreams. We must tap our hidden selves; explore the deep-seated, unseen hopes, desires, strengths and weaknesses that make us who we are. We must understand where we have been and where we are going.

The young are often accused of exaggerating their troubles; they do so, very often, in the hope of making some impression upon the inertia and the immovability of the selfish old.

The philanthropic tradition is older than democracy, older than Christianity, and older than higher education. It gives form and purpose to personal and social life that cannot be provided by the self-interest of economic enterprise or required by the mandate of political institutions.

The main cause of poverty is self-inflicted fear and ignorance.

excessive fear and self-doubt that were the greatest detractors of personal genius.

True intimacy is a human constant. People of all types find it equally hard to achieve, equally precious to hold. Age, education, social status, make little difference here; even genius does not presuppose the talent to reveal one's self completely and completely absorb one's self in another personality. Intimacy is to love what concentration is to work: a simultaneous drawing together to attention and release of energy.

Fear creates its own self-fulfilling dynamic- as people give into it, they lose energy and momentum. Their lack of confidence translates into inaction that lowers confidence levels even further, on and on.

For all of us, self-briefing before going out or starting a project sharpens artistic wit.

Your real self - the I am I - is master of this land, the ruler of this empire. You rightfully have power and dominion over it, all its inhabitants, and all contained in its realm.

Stubbornly persist, and you will find that the limits of your stubbornness go well beyond the stubbornness of your limits

Men, unlike mockingbirds, have the capacity for systematic self-delusion. We echo each other with equal precision, equal eloquence, equal assurance.

The basic of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to individual.

Selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative.

I feel the older I get, the more I'm learning to handle life. Being on this quest for a long time, it's all about finding yourself.

It is true that the poet does not directly address his neighbors; but he does address a great congress of persons who dwell at the back of his mind, a congress of all those who have taught him and whom he has admired; they constitute his ideal audience and his better self.