Self Quotes

Make it thy business to know thyself, which is the most difficult lesson in the world.

Miguel de Cervantes

Of all the self - Fulfilling prophecies in our culture, the assumption that aging means decline and poor health is probably the deadliest.

Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy, 1980

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.

Seneca

Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I knew a man who gave up smoking, drinking, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself.

Johnny Carson, people magazine special issue

More important than talent, strength, or knowledge is the ability to laugh at yourself and enjoy the pursuit of your dreams.

Amy Grant

Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension.

Johann von Goethe

Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.

Martin Luther King Jr.

The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw.

Havelock Ellis, Impressions and Comments (1914)

There will always be one who loves, and one who lets himself be loved.

W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

Be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which and be pointed out by your finger.

Cicero

A man reserves his true and deepest love not for the species of woman in whose company he finds himself electrified and enkindled, but for that one in whose company he may feel tenderly drowsy.

Sir Thomas More

Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.

Albert Schweitze

The two important things I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of an endeavor is taking the first step, making the first decision.

Robyn Davidson

Never lose sight of this important truth, that no one can be truly great until he has gained a knowledge of himself, a knowledge which can only be acquired by occasional retirement.

Johann Georg von Zimmermann

I began by telling the president that there was a cancer growing on the presidency and that if the cancer was not removed... the president himself would be killed by it.

John Dean

If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not a poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.

Rainer Maria Rilke

His mother called such people ignorant and superstitious, but his father only shook his head slowly and puffed his pipe and said that sometimes old stories had a grain or two of truth in them and it was best not to take chances. It was why, he said, he crossed himself whenever a black cat crossed his path.

Stephen King

God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy power, Thy love and Thy way of life. May I do Thy will always. Amen.

Alcoholics Anonymous Praye

Are you bored with life Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.

Dale Carnegie

Make yourself familiar with the angels, and behold them frequently in spirit for without being seen, they are present with you.

Saint Francis de Sales

I count him braver who conquers his desires than him who conquers his enemies for the hardest victort is the victory over self.

Aristotle

Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit of which Nature herself is animated.

Auguste Rodin

When the opponent expand, I contract, When he contracts, I expand, And when there is an opportunity, I do not hit - - It hits all by itself.

Bruce Lee

A little flesh, a little breath, and a Reason to rule all - That is myself.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, "Meditations", book 2.

The people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now concerns itself no more, and longs eagerly for just two things - Bread and circuses!

Juvenal, Satires

Give yourself something to work toward - - Constantly.

Mary Kay Ash

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Isaac Newton, From Brewster, Memoirs of Newton (1855)

I wish everybody would have to have an electric thing implanted in our heads that gave us a shock whenever we did something to disobey the president. Then somehow I get myself elected president.

Jack Handey Deep Thoughts

I myself prefer my New Zealand eggs for breakfast. After she was pelted with eggs during a walkabout on New Zealand visit.

Elizabeth II

I have always regarded myself as the pillar of my life.

Meryl Streep

The wicked can have only accomplices, the voluptuous have companions in debauchery, self - Seekers have associates, the politic assemble the factions, the typical idler has connections, princes have courtiers. Only the virtuous have friends.

Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire

It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself.

Betty Friedan

A clergyman is one who feels himself called upon to live without working at the expense of the rascals who work to live.

Voltaire

Life is a library owned by an author. It has a few books which he wrote himself, but most of them were written for him.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else.

Judy Garland, to her daughter, Liza Minelli

The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honor you can bestow on him. It means that you recognize his superiority to yourself.

Joseph Sobran