Self Quotes

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A man can be himself only so long as he is alone.
Arthur Schopenhauer

All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.
Blaise Pascal

Cherish that which is within you, and shut off that which is without; for much knowledge is a curse.
Zhuangzi

Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.
William S. Burroughs

For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.
Plato

He who conquers others is strong; He who conquers himself is mighty.
Lao Tzu

He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.
Lao Tzu

If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.
Jean-Paul Sartre

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
Buddha

It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.
Henry David Thoreau

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
Heraclitus

No matter where I go, there I am
/Murphy's Law/

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.
Michel de Montaigne

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.
Henry David Thoreau

Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.
Demosthenes

One of those glittery dreams sold by Bu-bubble and other junk, where all you had to do to be famous was just ‘be yourself’.
Terry Pratchett

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.
Buddha

People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.
Thomas Szasz /The Second Sin /

The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position.
Leo Buscaglia

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
Michel de Montaigne /To The Reader/

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
Rudyard Kipling

The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.
Friedrich Nietzsche

The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.
Winston Churchill

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.
Joseph Campbell

The self is more distant than any star.
Gilbert K. Chesterton /Orthodoxy/

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.
William Makepeace Thackeray

The world would go on even without you. Don't take yourself so seriously.
Norman Vincent Peale

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
E. E. Cummings

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.
Robert Louis Stevenson

We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.
Henry David Thoreau

We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves.
Galileo Galilei

We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.
Arthur Schopenhauer

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
William Shakespeare

What is outside yourself does not convey much worth; Clothes do not make the man, the saddle not the horse.
Angelius Silesius

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
Henry David Thoreau

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
Lao Tzu

You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!
John Lennon