Self Quotes

So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

William Shakespeare, "Hamlet", Act 4 scene 5

First mend yourself, and then mend others.

Jewish Prove

Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.

Samuel Johnson

He who makes a beast of himself relieves himself the pain of being a man.

Hunter S. Thompson

I was like a boy playing on the sea - Shore, and diverting myself 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

It is possible that the scrupulously honest man may not grow rich so fast as the unscrupulous and dishonest one but the success will be of a truer kind, earned without fraud or injustice. And even though a man should for a time be unsuccessful, still he must be honest better lose all and save character. For character is itself a fortune...

Samuel Smiles

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.

Henry David Thoreau

Tell no one the secret that you want to keep, although he may be worthy of confidence; for no one will be so careful of your secret as yourself.

Saadi, On the Duties of Society

We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

Werner Heisenberg

In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves... self - Discipline with all of them came first.

Harry S Truman

The art of being yourself at your best is the art of unfolding your personality into the person you want to be.... Be gentle with yourself, learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself, for only as we have the right attitude toward ourselves can we have the right attitude toward others.

Wilfred Peterson, This Week (Oct. 1, 1961)

Civilization is the distance man has placed between himself and his excreta.

Brian Aldiss

By constant self - Discipline and self - Control you can develop greatness of characte.

Grenville Kleise

Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.

Stephen Leacock, "Nonsense Novels", 1911

You are the lens in the beam. You can only receive, give, and possess the light as the lens does. If you seek yourself, you rob the lens of its transparency. You will know life and be acknowledged by it according to your degree of transparency, your capacity, that is, to vanish as an end, and remain purely as a means.

Dag Hammarskjold

Friends are relatives you make for yourself.

Eustache Descamps

Great grief does not of itself put an end to itself.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

I worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.

Groucho Marx

If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

Samuel Johnson

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Forgive many things in others; nothing in yourself.

Ausonius

Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door.

Kyle Chandle

May God defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies.

Voltaire

Any movement in history which attempts to perpetuate itself, becomes reactionary.

Marshal Tito

The self is not something ready - Made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action.

John Dewey

A human being is an animal suspended in webs of significance which he himself has spun.

Clifford Geertz, "Cultural Anthropology" by Nanda

It is certain that the real function of art is to increase our self - Consciousness; to make us more aware of what we are, and therefore of what the universe in which we live really is. And since mathematics, in its own way, also performs this function, it is not only aesthetically charming but profoundly significant. It is an art, and a great art.

John W. N. Sullivan

Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you and act accordingly.

Thomas Jefferson

The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy.

Dietrich Bonhoeffe

For the ordinary man is passive. Within a narrow circle home life, and perhaps the trade unions or local politics he feels himself master of his fate, but against major events he is as helpless as against the elements. So far from endeavouring to influence the future, he simply lies down and lets things happen to him.

George Orwell

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

Unless you are prepared yourself to profit by your chance, the opportunity will only make you ridiculous. A great occasion is valuable to you in proportion as you have educated yourself to make use of it.

Orison Swett Marden

I paint self - Portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.

Frida Kahlo

Think highly of yourself, for the world takes you at your own estimate.

Author Unknown

Would you hurt a man keenest, strike at his self - Love.

Lewis Lew Wallace

Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so.

John Stuart Mill