Quotes About Self

Then ego goes on growing, because the society needs you as an ego, not as a Self. The Self is irrelevant for the society; your periphery is meaningful. And there are many problems. The ego can be taught and the ego can be made docile and the ego can be forced to be obedient. The ego can be made to adjust, but not the Self. The Self cannot be taught, the Self cannot be forced. The Self is intrinsically rebellious, individual. It cannot be made a part of society.

Self-righteousness is unavoidable. You can either be a self-righteous Pharisee where you think you are better than everyone else or you can be a self-righteous pagan who thinks you are better than the Pharisee. If you are a self-righteous person, I could become very self-righteous thinking that you're self-righteous and you think you're so good but I know you're bad. I know I'm bad so that makes me better than you.

The two greatest enemies of the individual in the modern world are communism and psychiatry. Each wages a relentless war against that which makes a person an individual: communism against the ownership of property, psychiatry against the ownership of the self (mind and body). Communists criminalize the autonomous use of capital and labor, and harshly punish those who "traffic" in the black market, especially in foreign currencies. Psychiatrists criminalize the autonomous use of the self, and harshly punish those who "traffic" in self-abuse, especially in self-medication and self-destruction.

The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but that the relation relates itself to its own self.

The universe must be experienced as the Great Self. Each is fulfilled in the other: the Great Self is fulfilled in the individual self, the individual self is fulfilled in the Great Self. Alienation is overcome as soon as we experience this surge of energy from the source that has brought the universe through the centuries. New fields of energy become available to support the human venture. These new energies find expression and support in celebration. For in the end the universe can only be explained in terms of celebration. It is all an exuberant expression of existence itself.

No value is higher than self-esteem, but you've invested it in counterfeit securities-and now your morality has caught you in a trap where you are forced to protect your self-esteem by fighting for the creed of self-destruction. The grim joke is on you: that need of self-esteem, which you're unable to explain or to define, belongs to my morality, not yours; it's the objective token of my code, it is my proof within your own soul.

Transcendent Oneness does not require self-examination, self-help, or self-work. It requires self-loss.

Self-negation is noble, self-culture beneficent, self-possession is manly, but to the truly great and inspiring soul they are poor and tame compared with self-abuse.

The fatuous idea that a person can be holy by himself denies God the pleasure of saving sinners. God must therefore first take the sledge-hammer of the Law in His fists and smash the beast of self-righteousness and its brood of self-confidence, self wisdom, and self-help. When the conscience has been thoroughly frightened by the Law it welcomes the Gospel of grace with its message of a Savior Who came-not to break the bruised reed nor to quench the smoking flax-but to preach glad tidings to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, and to grant forgiveness of sins to all the captives.

Be your authentic self. Your authentic self is who you are when you have no fear of judgment, or before the world starts pushing you around and telling you who you're supposed to be. Your fictional self is who you are when you have a social mask on to please everyone else. Give yourself permission to be your authentic self.

Well, think of what I’m doing to you right now. For me I’m the self, and you’re the object. For you, of course, it’s the exact opposite—you’re the self to you and I’m the object. And by exchanging self and object, we can project ourselves onto the other and gain self-consciousness. Volitionally.” “I still don’t get it, but it sure feels good.” “That’s the whole idea,” the girl said.

Self-acceptance begins in infancy, with the influence of your parents and siblings and other important people. Your own level of self-acceptance is determined largely by how well you feel you are accepted by the important people in your life. Your attitude toward yourself is determined largely by the attitudes that you think other people have toward you. When you believe that other people think highly of you, your level of self-acceptance and self-esteem goes straight up. The best way to build a healthy personality involves understanding yourself and your feelings.

First Corinthians so clearly says that whether we eat or drink, do it all to the glory of God. It's not just self. Jesus said ... in Matthew 16, 'Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Me.' The Osteens have just inverted that. They think it's not the denial of self, but the exaltation of self. They're not trying to pursue a cross; they're trying to pursue prosperity. And they're certainly not following the biblical Jesus. They're following whatever brings happiness and contentment.

Self-hatred and self-love are equally self-centered.

Once the idea of a supernaturalistic creation is fully overcome, the idea returns that the universe must be self-organizing and therefore composed of self-moving parts. Also, insofar as dualistic assumptions are fully overcome and human experience is accepted as fully natural, it begins to seem probable that something analogous to our experience and self-movement is a feature of every level of nature.

We talk about self-expression but need to pause and remember that self-expression requires a self to express.

To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.

Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don't see the self as self, what do we have to fear?

A positive self image and healthy self esteem is based on approval, acceptance and recognition from others; but also upon actual accomplishments, achievements and success upon the realistic self confidence which ensues.

I'm not sure if resilience is ever achieved alone. Experience allows us to learn from example. But if we have someone who loves us-I don't mean who indulges us, but who loves us enough to be on our side-then it's easier to grow resilience, to grow belief in self, to grow self-esteem. And it's self-esteem that allows a person to stand up.

The heart becomes wide by forgetting self, but narrow by thinking of the self and pitying one's self. To gain a wide and broad heart you must have something before you to look upon, and to rest your intelligence upon - and that something is the God-ideal.

All the classical meditation traditions, in one way or another, stress nonattachment to the self as a goal of practice. Oddly, this dimension is largely ignored in scientific research, which tends to focus on health and other such benefits. I suppose the difference has to do with the contrast in views of the self from the spiritual and scientific perspectives. Scientists value the self; spiritual traditions have another perspective.

for me, the beauty of feminism is that it is a social and political movement that has redefined the power and obligation of the self: self-possession and self-regulation as a tool for social reform.

What you really are isn’t loyal to your self. It won’t favor your self. It will turn your self into what you really are.

This new meta-system is very much in favor of the self, but a self that is based on a proper sense of dignity, not on an inflated ego. A person who dare not admit he is wrong inflates his ego but weakens his self.

......at this point the self has obviously outworn its function; it is no longer needed or useful, and life can go on without it. we are ready to move on, to go beyond the self, beyond even its most intimate union with God, and this is where we enter yet another new life- a life best categorized, perhaps, as a life without a self.

Bacon's portraits are an interrogation on the limits of the self. Up to what degree of distortion does an individual still remain himself? To what degree of distortion does a beloved person still remain a beloved person? For how long does a cherished face growing remote through illness, through madness, through hatred, through death still remain recognizable? Where is the border beyond which a self ceases to be a self?

Jesus regularly visualized the success of his efforts ... 'I always do what pleases God.' ... Was this conceit? Or was it enlightened creativity and self-knowledge? ...Jesus was full of self-knowledge and self-love. His 'I am' statements were what he became.

Obesity is the result of a loss of self-control. Indeed, loss of self-control might be said to be the defining social (or anti-social) characteristic of our age: public drunkenness, excessive gambling, promiscuity and common-or-garden rudeness are all examples of our collective loss of self-control.

Our society is falling back increasingly on rampant consumerism and self-promoting social media as a way for people to feel that their lives matter - self-centered means of numbing the questions of mattering. Culture has relapsed back into the self-aggrandizing, glorifying answers that the Athenians had presumed, which had Socrates railing against them until he got so annoying that they killed him.

Religion is not a matter of God, church, holy cause, etc. These are but accessories. The source of religious preoccupation is in the self, or rather the rejection of the self. Dedication in the obverse side of self-rejection. Man alone is a religious animal because, as Montaigne points out, it is a malady confined to man, and not seen in any other creature, to hate and despise ourselves.

I'm still a researcher. The best way to explain it is that I trusted myself deeply as a professional, but I did not have a lot of self-trust personally. When I started learning all of these things about the value and the importance of belonging, vulnerability, connection, self-kindness and self-compassion, I trusted what I was learning - again, I know I'm a good researcher. When those things and wholeheartedness started to emerge with all these different properties, I knew I had to listen. I'd heard these messages before personally but I didn't trust myself there.

In any culture, subculture, or family in which belief is valued above thought, and self-surrender is valued above self-expression, and conformity is valued above integrity, those who preserve their self-esteem are likely to be heroic exceptions.

In her presence, I was reminded again of why I was an anoretic: fear. Of my needs, for food, for sleep, for touch, for simple conversation, for human contact, for love. I was an anoretic because I was afraid of being human. Implicit in human contact is the exposure of the self, the interaction of the selves. The self I'd had, once upon a time, was too much. Now there was no self at all. I was a blank.

That's the old AA maxim, "Always have a drink in your hand and you'll never want a drink." That's one of the most classic deceptions in the literature: "I'll take a drink tomorrow." I actually don't think that's necessarily a very helpful maxim in AA, but it's a very good maxim in showing how strategic self-deception can be employed, even self-consciously. That's the amazing thing, to me, about self-deception.

You are the Self, that perfect immutable Self. Nothing else exists. Nothing else ever existed. Nothing else will ever exist. There is only one Self and you are That. Rejoice!

I'm self-critical but also, I'm not a very modest person. I'm self-critical in the lead-up to showing anyone anything. You know how people say they write, like, 30 songs and then they'll pick the ones they're going to put on the record? I don't ever get to that point because I self-edit so harshly at the beginning. I would never let anyone hear something that I wasn't happy with. But then once I've made it, I'm also not going to turn around and go, "Oh, yeah, I don't know..." If I'm putting it out, anything creative that I do, I think that it's good, otherwise I wouldn't put it out.

Acceptance is approval, a word with a bad name in some psychologies. Yet it is perfectly normal to seek approval in childhood and throughout life. We require approval from those we respect. The kinship it creates lifts us to their level, a process referred to in self-psychology as transmuting internalization. Approval is a necessary component of self-esteem. It becomes a problem only when we give up our true self to find it. Then approval-seeking works against us.

It's no accident that most of the great black spokespersons and leaders understood the centrality of self-affirmation, self-respect and self-love.

Our everyday self is a narrow construct...Our total self is far broader, ultimately infinite. Actors who seem to be playing themselves are actually playing roles they have become so skillful at that they seem pure and natural...Much bad Acting is the result of being too close to the Actor's everyday self, confining him in its rigid mold.

You must learn to honor and cherish and love your Self. You must first see your Self as worthy before you can see another as worthy. You must first know your Self to be holy before you can acknowledge holiness in another.

The basis of the self is not thought but suffering, which is the most fundamental of all feelings. While it suffers, not even a cat can doubt its unique and uninterchangeable self. In intense suffering the world disappears and each of us is alone with his self. Suffering is the university of ego-centrism.

Jealousy is the result of one's lack of self-confidence, self-worth, and self-acceptance.

Gaiety is forgetfulness of the self, melancholy is memory of the self: in that state the soul feels all the power of its roots, nothing distracts it from its profound homeland and the look that it casts upon the outer world is gently dismayed.

Self-knowledge is better than self-control any day," Raquel said firmly. "And I know myself well enough to know how I act around cookies.

A crucified Savior is not well served by self-pleasing, self-indulging people.

The self is the class (not the collection) of the experiences (or autopsychological states). The self does not belong to the expression of the basic experience, but is constructed only on a very high level.

One of the goals of a spiritual practice is self-awareness, and one of the best tools of self-awareness is simple emotional vulnerability.