Self Quotes - Page 462

We cannot control what emotions or circumstances we will experience next, but we can choose how we will respond to them.

Scarcity of self value cannot be remedied by money, recognition, affection, attention or influence.

The Buddha taught that all life is suffering. We might also say that life, being both attractive and constantly dangerous, is intoxicating and ultimately toxic. 'Toxic' comes from toxicon, Pendell tells us, with a root meaning of 'a poisoned arrow.' All organic life is struck by the arrows of real and psychic poisons. This is understood by any true, that is to say, not self-deluding, spiritual path.

Read carefully, then don't read; work hard, then forget about it; know your tradition, then liberate yourself from it; learn language, then free yourself from it. Finally, know at least one form of magic.

Your own barometer is all you have to go by, and often what makes a good director is knowing when not to say something. On occasions you can find yourself on a film set where the person who is wearing the director's hat is only trying to justify his position.

A large part of parenting is about managing weariness and motivation. Much of the success of parenting is about avoiding the sins of "omission" as well as "commission." You can feed, clothe, and house your kids and not really parent them. When we raise kids for selfish reasons (to feel proud, to have people love us and appreciate us), if they disappoint us we'll pull back. But when we realize that God has called us to raise godly children and God is always worthy to be obeyed, we have a motivation that goes beyond our own pride and our own comfort.

Isn't it possible that self-esteem isn't causal at all, but simply the happy side effect of a sturdy character, itself the product of unambiguous moral education?

A championship contender in the early twentieth century needed charisma and a knack for cultivating sponsorship, and Rubinstein was the epitome of the shy and unsocial chess player. Now matter how great his chess skills, he lacked the people skills to be a self-promoter and fund-raiser.

Never insult a writer. You may find yourself immortalized in ways you may not appreciate.

My favorite, and the author I wish I was reading right now and always is Nora Ephron. I love the humor, the awareness, the sense of self-deprecation. She is such a role model to me.

If you will stop all searching right now and tell the truth to yourself, you will know what is known in the core of your bones. You will know it with no image of it, no concept of it, no thought of it. You will know it as that which has eternally been here. And you will know it as yourself.

I’m not afraid of the real truth. There is nothing you can tell me about yourself that is going to make me clutch my pearls.

Most people don't walk around the tools to process pain and fear, that kind of discomfort. In most cases, it's unbearable to look at it, feel it, and/or address it. It's why I'm such a fan of self-help books.

All the happiness, self-confidence, and support you're seeking is already within you.

History repeats itself and History never repeats itself are about equally true.

As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he's too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.

And in fact you're not like everyone else: you weren't ashamed just now to confess bad and even ridiculous things about yourself. Who would confess such things nowadays? No one, and people have even stopped feeling any need for self-judgment.

While the womanly god demands our veneration, the godlike woman kindles our love; but while we allow ourselves to melt in the celestial loveliness, the celestial self-sufficiency holds us back in awe.

In pain there is as much wisdom as in pleasure: like the latter it is one of the best self preservatives of a species.

To those human beings who are of any concern to me, I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill treatment, indignities, profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, and the wretchedness of the vanquished.

As a human being Plato mingles regal, exclusive, and self-contained features with melancholy compassion.

A life of prayer is a life whose litanies are ever fresh acts of self-devoting love.

Bodies come and go, ages come and go, yugas come and go, eternities come and go. Selves come and go.

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.

The emptiness of play is when there is no self present. There is no one playing - there is only play itself taking place, perfect fluid motion.