Quotes on Identity

OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.

Food is not rational. Food is culture, habit, craving and identity.

That which exists possesses identity; he could keep it out of existence by refusing to identify it.

The most powerful force in the human psyche is people's need for their words and actions to stay consistent with their IDENTITY - how we define ourselves.

Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?

My husband had a very strong identity and was successful in his life. Thank God for that. There's no way I can control him. I wouldn't stay married to him if I felt I could. I can readily take my business personality into the home. But he forces me to be a partner rather than the boss.

They can romanticize us so, mirrors, and that is their secret: what a subtle torture it would be to destroy all the mirrors in the world: where then could we look for reassurerance of our identities? I tell you, my dear, Narcissus was so egotist...he was merely another of us who, in our unshatterable isolation, recognized, on seeing his reflection, the beautiful comrade, the only inseparatable love...poor Narcissus, possibly the only human who was ever honest on this point.

You have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity.

Values can set a company apart from the competition by clarifying its identity and serving as a rallying point for employees. But coming up with strong values - and sticking to them - requires real guts.

Ones real life is often the life that one does not lead.

When you have a global mush, people lose their identity, they become pseudonyms, they have no investment and no consequence in what they do.

Enjoying fiction requires a shift in selfhood. You give up your own identity and try on the identities of other people, adopting their perspectives so as to share their experiences. This allows us to enjoy fictional events that would shock and sadden us in real life.

To find a clear identity for the team - that is not about buying certain players for a lot of money. It is about getting players who want to play the right way.

Enshrined in a language is the whole of a community's history and a large part of its cultural identity. The world is a mosaic of visions. To lose even one piece of this mosaic is a loss for all of us.

It is so powerful when we can leave behind our ordinary identities, no longer think of ourselves primarily as a conductor, or writer, or salesclerk, and go to a supportive environment to deeply immerse in meditation practice.

It is the individual's task to differentiate himself from all the others and stand on his own feet. All collective identities . . . interfere with the fulfillment of this task. Such collective identities are crutches for the lame, shields for the timid, beds for the lazy, nurseries for the irresponsible. . . .

Intersectionality is an analytic sensibility, a way of thinking about identity and its relationship to power. Originally articulated on behalf of black women, the term brought to light the invisibility of many constituents within groups that claim them as members but often fail to represent them.

Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.

One thing I struggled with early in my career was the delicate balance between my performance and my identity. When things on the field went well, I was cheerful and felt important. When things went poorly, my countenance and self-concept plummeted, and I was not pleasant to be around.

That is the magic of travel. You leave your home secure in your own knowledge and identity. But as you travel, the world in all it's richness intervenes. You meet people you could not invent; you see scenes you could not imagine. Your own world, which was so large as to consume your whole life, becomes smaller and smaller until it is only one tiny dot in time and space. You return a different person.

My being Muslim is only one part of my identity. But particularly in India and the world over, a concerted effort is being made to diminish all other aspects of identity and only take your religious identity as who you are.