Self Quotations | Page 3

America was born out of a desire for self-determination, a longing for the human dignity that only independence can bring.

As a teacher I realize that what one learns in school doesn't serve for very much at all, that the only thing one can really learn is self understanding and this is something that can't be taught.

Body concentrates order. It continuously self-repairs. Every five days you get a new stomach lining. You get a new liver every two months. Your skin replaces itself every six weeks. Every year, 98 percent of the atoms of your body are replaced. This non-stop chemical replacement, metabolism, is a sure sign of life.

I suppose there must be idiots who dream of signing deals with publishers while fully intending to drink martinis in cool bars or ride around on skateboards. But the actual writers I know are experts in neurotic self-torture. Every page of writing is the result of a thousand tiny decisions and desperate acts of will.

Everyone has a private self and a public self.

On 'Into The Wild' I spent months risking my life and on 'Speed Racer' I spent 60 days acting in front of a green screen. No danger to my physical self, but I sure had to use my imagination.

When you hit 30, it's that time of self-reflection. Some people are a success. Some people feel like they haven't achieved what they wanted to. Some people are married, some have kids, some are still single.

The long-term solution in preventing another famine in Somalia is to promote self-reliance.

I did get bullied and I did get picked on and I did have that feeling in my gut of being incredibly self-conscious. I naturally gravitated towards my elders because I didn't know how to speak or be present with my peers.

A beautiful person is someone who stays true to themselves and their spirit; someone who is self-confident and can make you smile.

Self-respect is a question of recognizing that anything worth having has a price.

Every decade of my life I attempted to write a novel. But I had nothing to say. I was far too self-absorbed, and now I realize I was writing for others, so that they'd applaud me, see my genius, tell me how wonderful I am, or be jealous of my success.

Some of us have become so addicted to pointing fingers at others for all the wrong that happens in our lives that self-assessment has become synonymous with blaming the victim.

I have these accidents, these mistakes, these self-inflicted wounds, and then I tear my head to shreds about it for days.

I went to a motivational training course once, a course of self-discovery, and I found out after a week that my fear - it was not a fear of not being accepted - was a very violent fear of failure.

A self-fulfilling prophecy is an assumption or prediction that, purely as a result of having been made, cause the expected or predicted event to occur and thus confirms its own 'accuracy.'

There's something delicious about finding fault with something. And that can be including finding fault with one's self, you know?

If you first fortify yourself with the true knowledge of the Universal Self, and then live in the midst of wealth and worldliness, surely they will in no way affect you.

One must realise his Self in order to open the store of unalloyed happiness.

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.... In the beginner's mind there is no thought, 'I have attained something.' All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. We can really learn something.

A widely held, but rarely articulated, belief in our society is that the ideal self is bold, alpha, gregarious. Introversion is viewed somewhere between disappointment and pathology.

It is precisely because neither individuals nor small groups can be fully self-sufficient that cooperation is necessary to human survival and flourishing.

My capacity as a monk was to passionately believe utter nonsense, and when you're an actor you have to do the same thing. Also, Christianity used to have a lot to do with self-loathing and an acceptance of criticism and things like that which is terribly important for actors.

Being traditional is a choice for me. South Indian families bring up their children with a sense of freedom, self-respect and self-value. We do whatever we have to with earnestness and honesty, including being uninhibited. Yet we hold onto our roots.

You are as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fears; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.

If you're not happy about how you look, you have to question how much self-love you have.

A lot of presidential memoirs, they say, are dull and self-serving. I hope mine is interesting and self-serving.

Traveling is my form of self-education. Every stream I fish now is not as good as it used to be. Traveling is my form of self-education. Every stream I fish now is not as good as it used to be. If you keep your eyes open as you travel around, you realize we are destroying this planet.

The new world economic order is not an exercise in philanthropy, but in enlightened self-interest for everyone concerned.

The more self-centered and egotistical a guy is, the better ballplayer he's going to be.

Jobs are what give people a sense of fulfillment and self-reliance.

There is a reason why conservatives talk about 'government' and not 'self-government,' because to refer to the latter is to concede that 'the government' is really the most basic product of our political commonwealth, that it is what we produce among ourselves so as to order the production of everything else that we do together.

Set me a task in which I can put something of my very self, and it is a task no longer; it is joy; it is art.

Breast cancer is being detected at an earlier, more treatable stage these days, largely because women are taking more preventive measures, like self-exams and regular mammograms. And treatment is getting better too.

I start with something that makes me angry or confused, and then I write about it. It's a form of self-help.

A complete life may be one ending in so full an identification with the oneself that there is no self left to die.

It's not like my old self - I'm not in character anymore, I'm me. I'm not hiding behind that anymore.

The goal of art was the vital expression of self.

Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave. What you WANT is irrelevant, what you've CHOSEN is at hand. You and I are essentially infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices.

Everyone thinks these are self-portraits but they aren't meant to be. I just use myself as a model because I know I can push myself to extremes, make each shot as ugly or goofy or silly as possible.

I think a lot of self-identity and inner-personal development is hampered by consumerism and capitalism because we see ourselves as a reflection of the TV, rather than as a reflection of the people who are around us, truly.

Housework is work directly opposed to the possibility of human self-actualization.

And partly, the worst thing you could do in my family was need something from someone. So physical strength represented an avenue of self-sufficiency to me.

For me, the first fact of human existence is the human body. But if you embrace the reality of the human body, you embrace mortality, and that is a very difficult thing for anything to do because the self-conscious mind cannot imagine non-existence. It's impossible to do.

I think if I were to express my wish, it would be that we are more regionally self-reliant. And I dont mean people being survivalists, I mean regionally self-reliant. So that you have these individual cells. The idea of having different solutions in different areas, so that we have a very robust, durable civilization.

The key thing is, even if you only have a couple of hours a month, those two hours shoulder-to-shoulder, next to one student, concentrated attention, shining this beam of light on their work, on their thoughts and their self-expression, is going to be absolutely transformative, because so many of the students have not had that ever before.

Tell him, on the contrary, that he needs, in the interest of his own happiness, to walk in the path of humility and self-control, and he will be indifferent, or even actively resentful.

What is required from members of Congress and the public alike is a new spirit of devotion to the national welfare beyond party or self-interest.

Marxism is always open, always critical, always self-critical.

A guy who's actually self destructive is quite fun to play.

My friends tell me that I've calmed down, that I seem more centered. I don't know, I think my inner self was more hollow before, which made me more scattered, and more needy to get laughs

To me, redneck is a sense of self and a way of life.

Whoever undertakes to create soon finds himself engaged in creating himself.

Once I actually get in the studio and I start working, I'm fine, but it's just getting there and these hours of torment with myself and self doubt, thinking 'I'm useless' and 'Who am I, conning myself into thinking I can do it again.'

And yet because of my attempt at sincerity I have been condemned, hooted at, reviled; filthy rumors have been circulated about me, not about my characterizations but about me personally, my private self.

But Socialism, alone, can bring self-determination of their peoples.

To take refuge with an inferior is to betray one's self.

There are rules in advertising, and those rules are self-imposed by the client companies because they don't want their products to be seen as dishonest.

To become self-aware, people must be allowed to hear a plurality of opinions and then make up their own minds. They must be allowed to say, write and publish whatever they want. Freedom of expression is the most basic, but fundamental, right. Without it, human beings are reduced to automatons.

If people could understand how much pleasure they could have by themselves, I think everyone would be a lot saner. I think that people really need a dose of quality time with one's self.

January is always a good month for behavioral economics: Few things illustrate self-control as vividly as New Years resolutions. February is even better, though, because it lets us study why so many of those resolutions are broken.

There's great sadness and life doesn't work out like you would want, on a lot of levels, but there's no need to feel all alone. This happens to everybody, so there's no self-pity. This is the ride that humans are on, and all of it is essential for our natural part of it.

International law says people fighting for self-determination can use force in order to achieve their independence.

But I tend to think of the expressive part of me as rather tedious - never curious or responsive, but blind and self-serving.

We're so very focused on ourselves and on self-promotion. It goes on all day with Facebook and Twitter and Instagram.

Music has always been such an amazing tool for me to access self and emotion.

When somebody says that all statements are false, the obvious problem is that as an assertion it's self-defeating.

If you manifest your true self through nature and your normal surroundings, I find that the most eerie. Like when you see birds suddenly start flying in a different direction or when you see moths forming weird shapes, I think that's the weirdest way to let yourself be known.

The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals.

We admire elephants in part because they demonstrate what we consider the finest human traits: empathy, self-awareness, and social intelligence. But the way we treat them puts on display the very worst of human behavior.

Love of our neighbour, then, has just the same respect to, is no more distant from, self-love, than hatred of our neighbour, or than love or hatred of anything else.

There's almost a fear that if you understood too deeply the way you arrived at choices, you could become self-conscious. In any case, many ideas which are full of personal meaning seem rather banal when you put words to them.

Deep down, the Iraqi people want the United States out. And their self-determination should be respected.

The reason that I'm an actor, or an artist, is ultimately because I'm trying to paint a self-portrait, and the most complete and beautiful self-portrait that you can.

I love the sad songs with their maudlin, self-deprecating, almost funny lyrics. As an Englishman, they make a lot of sense.

I liked the military life. They teach you self-sufficiency early on. I always say that I learned most of what I know about leadership in the Marine Corps. Certain basic principles stay with you - sometimes consciously, mostly unconsciously.

Strange bonds of trust and self-deception tend to grow between journalists and their subjects.

My self-confidence didn't come from my appearance, it came from other things that I did. But certainly not my appearance.

When I draw my caricature self-portrait, I always do a huge smile.

I cannot consistently, with self respect, do other than I have, namely, to deliberately violate an act which seems to me to be a denial of everything which ideally and in practice I hold sacred.

Like most people of my generation, I fell in love with the philosophy of existentialism. There is no particular religious tradition in my work. There is only one psychological assertion that I would insist upon. That is: the SELF takes precedence.

I feel self-doubt whether I'm doing something hard or easy.

Mark Twain created a new type of literature and not a lot of people can say that. Not a lot of people can say they're absolutely original and completely self-made.

Why are young adults so self-centered and always seeking instant gratification? Because older adults, often in positions of power, paint them that way.

The profession of a prostitute is the only career in which the maximum income is paid to the newest apprentice. It is the one calling in which at the beginning the only exertion is that of self-indulgence; all the prizes are at the commencement. It is the ever-new embodiment of the old fable of the sale of the soul to the Devil. The tempter offers wealth, comfort, excitement, but in return the victim must sell her soul, nor does the other party forget to exact his due to the uttermost farthing.

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.

It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.

I do have, at different times, a certain kind of self-consciousness in the world, an insecurity.

There's a danger in Hollywood of becoming self-obsessed.

Everyone in society should be a role model, not only for their own self-respect, but for respect from others.

So many self-help ideas are like meringue - you take a big bite, and there's nothing there.

You punch me, I punch back. I do not believe it's good for one's self-respect to be a punching bag.

Democracy actually requires that the whole public be able to see common problems and address them and step outside of their own sort of narrow self-interest to do so.

Fashion is ultimately a form of self-expression. Thats why I love trying out new things.

I think most people act in their self-interest.

Relationships are give-and-take, and when you're a tennis player, you're certainly not giving. You have to be self-absorbed. It has to be about you.

Self-pity is never useful. It tends to distort like a fun-house mirror.

In a storm of struggles, I have tried to control the elements, clasp the fist tight so as to protect self and happiness. But stress can be an addiction, and worry can be our lunge for control, and we forget the answer to this moment is always yes because of Christ.

I was a very self-righteous 15-25 year old. Anyway, I wake up every morning and thank God I'm not a kid anymore.

Drugs have nothing to do with the creation of music. In fact, they are dumb and self indulgent. Kind of like sucking your thumb!