Quotes on Self

The never-ending task of self improvement.

I once lay in a white hospital for the dying and the dying self, where some god pissed a rain of reason to make things grow only to die, where on my knees I prayed for LIGHT, I prayed for l*i*g*h*t, and praying crawled like a blind slug into the web where threads of wind stuck against my mind and I died of pity for Man, for myself, on a cross without nails, watching in fear as the pig belches in his sty, farts, blinks and eats.

Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help.

If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide, By self-example mayst thou be denied.

The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life.

When a woman starts to disentangle herself from patriarchy, ultimately she is abandoned to her own self.

My brother and I were able to fantasize far more extravagantly about our parents' tastes and desires, their aspirations and their vices, by scanning their bookcases than by snooping in their closest. Their selves were on their shelves.

What men and women need is encouragement. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened, not weakened ... Instead of always harping on a man's faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut ... Hold up to him his better self, his real self that can dare and do and win out! ... People radiate what is in their minds and in their hearts.

Clear communication between selves - the surface self and the deep self - is the enemy of self-doubt. It slays confusion.

All the stories and descriptions of that time without exception peak only of the patriotism, self-sacrifice, despair, grief, and heroism of the Russians. But in reality it was not like that...The majority of the people paid no attention to the general course of events but were influenced only by their immediate personal interests.

Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger.

Love is union with somebody, or something, outside oneself, under the condition of retaining the separateness and integrity of one's own self.

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

There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self.

That which is not, shall never be; that which is, shall never cease to be. To the wise, these truths are self-evident.

Self-control is strength. Right thought is mastery. Calmness is power.

An example I often use to illustrate the reality of vanity, is this: look at the peacock; it's beautiful if you look at it from the front. But if you look at it from behind, you discover the truth... Whoever gives in to such self-absorbed vanity has huge misery hiding inside them.