Quotes About Identity

If a man has a sense of identity that does not depend on being shored up by someone else, it cannot be eroded by someone else. If a woman has a sense of identity that does not depend on finding that identity in someone else, she cannot lose her identity in someone else. And so we return to the central fact: it is necessary to be.

Society imposes an identity on you because of the way you look. Your struggle as a self has to do with an identity being imposed on you that you know is not your identity.

As I see it, our revolutionary task is to destroy phallic identity in men and masochistic non-identity in women--that is, to destroy the polar realities of men and women as we now know them so that this division of human flesh into two camps--one an armed camp and the other a concentration camp--is no longer possible. Phallic identity is real and it must be destroyed. Female masochism is real and it must be destroyed.

When you find your authentic self, your identity - your true identity - how many people work a job they hate or live a life, they're going oh my gosh.

My identity shifted when I got into recovery. That's who I am now, and it actually gives me greater pleasure to have that identity than to be a musician or anything else, because it keeps me in a manageable size. When I'm down on the ground with my disease-which I'm happy to have-it gets me in tune. It gives me a spiritual anchor. Don't ask me to explain.

Having an identity at work separate from an identity at home means that the work role can help absorb some of the emotional shock of domestic distress. Even a mediocre performance at the office can help a person repair self-esteem damaged in domestic battles.

For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. You need not look at that only in a negative way. You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did so quickly and easily. But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you. You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.

When actually, you have one identity made of different parts. Depending on where you are, at what time in your life, some things are higher or deeper. That's what I understood later: that I'm French and Tunisian, and I'm accepting the French part of my identity.

I am a writer and always was; being a writer is an integral part of my identity. Being published, being well regarded, is a component of that identity.

Most whites do not have a racial identity, but they would do well to understand what race means for others. They should also ponder the consequences of being the only group for whom such an identity is forbidden and who are permitted no aspirations as a group.

Syrians have a national identity beyond the sectarian divide. Syria's national identity would be weaker and poorer if it didn't have this beautiful pluralism between Arabs, Kurds, and sects.

Since the main problem that American, the Afro- Americans have is a lack of cultural identity. It is necessary to teach [people] that they had some type of identity, culture, civilization before they were brought here.

Religion: 'My identity is built on being a good person.' Gospel: 'My identity is not built on my record or my performance but on Christ's.'

The core of racism is the notion that the individual is meaningless and that membership in the collective - the race - is the source of his identity and value. ... The notion of 'diversity' entails exactly the same premises as racism - that one's ideas are determined by one's race and that the source of an individual's identity is his ethnic heritage.

We no longer just take religious identity from our parents, so what's going on? Why are people going to this series, why are people reading so many books about religion? It's because they want answers. The answers are no longer just passed down from generation to generation. It's harder for people. In effect, you have to roll up your sleeve and ask the questions. But if you do it, if you forge your own identity, it can be much more personal and much more meaningful to you.

The demand for racial (and sexual) justice gets reduced to politics of identity - and excoriating the so-called perpetrators of the identity politics.

It is the prayer of my innermost being to realize my supreme identity in the liberated play of consciousness, the Vast Expanse. Now is the moment, Here is the place of Liberation.

Romantic love, in pornography as in life, is the mythic celebration of female negation. For a woman, love is defined as her willingness to submit to her own annihilation.... The proof of love is that she is willing to be destroyed by the one whom she loves, for his sake. For the woman, love is always self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of identity, will, and bodily integrity, in order to fulfill and redeem the masculinity of her lover.

I was confident about America and the idea that in America people can become American without masking their ethnic identity.

Those who have chosen the path of least resistance in life, who cannot bear to bring themselves to make a stern value-judgment in criticism of their own most intimate feelings, achieve what they deserve: not self-understanding but radical self-superficialization, not a discovered but a self-ascribed identity that explains nothing, reveals nothing, means nothing, and ultimately accomplishes nothing culturally or intellectually.

Taste, like identity, has value only when there are differences.

The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the springs of wonder. The communication by the glance is in the greatest part not subject to the control of the will. It is the bodily symbol of identity with nature. We look into the eyes to know if this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but make a faithful confession what inhabitant is there.

Our need for worth is so powerful that whatever we base our identity and value on we essentially 'deify.' We will look to it with all the passion and intensity of worship and devotion, even if we think ourselves as highly irreligious.

Every loss recapitulates earlier losses, but every affirmation of identity echoes earlier moments of clarity.

That was the fear that there would be no identity anymore, for Canada. It was foolish, because there are so many examples of separatism, and nothing has disintegrated, unless they went to war.

When I arrived here at Givenchy, there was a lot of confusion. Before me, there had been some great geniuses - John Galliano and Alexander McQueen are great masters. They marked history. But when I came in after Julien Macdonald, it was also a bit of a mess, because not even I could understand what the true identity of Givenchy was. Everyone thinks that it's only Audrey Hepburn, but there is a whole other world behind it.

We live in a world where great incompatibles co-exist: the human scale and the superhuman scale, stability and mobility, permanence and change, identity and anonymity, comprehensibility and universality.

You manifest based on who you are already - so you must own the identity of the dream in order to manifest it.

I am the excuse to explore your identity. To be exactly who you are and to feel unafraid. To not judge yourself, to not hate yourself.

Identity liberalism, as I understand it, is expressive rather than persuasive.

When our identity comes from the self, then we keep our energy to ourselves. We feel energetic, we feel powerful, and we experience youthful vigor.

Enlightened groups can exist, as long as the individuals' sense of identity is not derived from a mentally defined image of us.

Memory is identity....You are what you have done; what you have done is in your memory; what you remember defines who you are; when you forget your life you cease to be, even before your death.

The most annoying thing I found was all the people pretending to be me on MySpace and Facebook. I'm not a member of either, but apparently there is an 'official' Nikki Sanderson MySpace page, complete with rants about how terrible identity fraud is, which is ironic.

No more fear of hunger. A new kind of freedom. But what then ... what? What would my life be like on a daily basis? Most of it has been consumed with the acquisition of food. Take that away and I'm not really sure who I am, what my identity is. The idea scares me some.

If we have no identity apart from our jobs, we are truly vulnerable.

My first guiding principle is this: willing and active co-operation between independent sovereign states. Europe will be stronger precisely because it has France as France, Spain as Spain, Britain as Britain, each with its own customs, traditions and identity. It would be folly to try to fit them into some sort of identikit European personality.

I went through some tough times because if you're used to having a voice in contemporary culture and all of sudden, you don't have that voice, you don't have that outlet. I didn't appreciate that. I didn't understand how important that was to me. And all of a sudden, after investing all this time and energy, I had no identity. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know what I had to say. I didn't have a way to say it. It was very painful.

To protect one's identity is a Constitutional right.

Remote villages and rural communities have lost their identity, and their charm and peace have been sacrificed to that worst of abominations, the automobile.

You have your identity when you find out, not what you can keep your mind ON, but what you can't keep your mind OFF.

I think that what's happening today, with all the young poets rushing from one college to another, lecturing at the drop of a hat and so on, is not too good; I think it might have a bad effect on a great many of the young poets. They - to quote Mark Twain - "swap juices" a little too much, so that they are in danger of losing their own identity and don't give themselves time enough in which to work out what's really of importance to them - they're too busy.

Each human being is a citizen of the world. We have many identities, of which one of the identities is our human identity. And that's something that the schools can provide, but that requires again a vision rather than being centers of hatred. It could be an enormous opportunity to give that mission.

It doesn't seem to be that huge a commitment that would create, you know, some kind of really powerful constituency. But the history has been for the United States and Russia especially that nuclear weapons have kind of become part of the identity of the countries.

I think, for some artists, the fear of taking on a political identity stems from not wanting to be pigeonholed as political actor or a political musician. It becomes this thing where somehow your art can no longer exist on its own and be multifaceted.

Aschenbach is not only a projection of Mann in the obvious ways - same daily routines, author of the works Mann had planned - nor even in sharing his author's aspirations, doubts, and sexual identity. His watchword, "Durchhalten!" [persevere, keep going] could be Mann's own.

You talked about national identity cards and the terrorism bill. We have made a government that has grown used to viewing us as subjects, has grown used to seeing its role as commanding us.

I'm as proud and assertive in my Quebec identity as any Quebecer. I believe it's to Quebec's advantage to be part of the Canadian federation. But I will be extremely strong and forceful in defending Quebec's interests within Canada.