Quotes on Self

Calm mind brings inner strength and self-confidence, so that's very important for good health.

Most of us still caged within careers chosen for us by our not entirely worldly 18-22 year old selves.

A friend once asked me what qualities were needed for SAS. I would say to be self-motivated and resilient; to be calm, yet have the ability to smile when it is grim; to be unflappable, be able to react fast and to have an ‘improvise, adapt and overcome’ mentality.

Sincerity does not only complete the self; it is the means by which all things are completed. As the self is completed, there is human-heartedness; as things are completed, there is wisdom. This is the virtue of one’s character, and the Way of joining the internal and external. Thus, when we use this, everything is correct.

Let every student enter the school with this advice. No matter how good the school is, his education is in his own hands. All education must be self education.

Perhaps the greatest barrier to revival on a large scale is the fact that we are to interested in a great display. We want an exhibition; God is looking for a man who will throw himself entirely on God. Whenever self-effort, self-glory, self-seeking or self-promotion enters into the work of revival, then God leaves us to ourselves.

Accountability is the essence of democracy. If people do not know what their government is doing, they cannot be truly self-governing. The national security state assumes the government secrets are too important to be shared, that only those in the know can see classified information, that only the president has all the facts, that we must simply trust that our rulers of acting in our interest.

Consciousness turns out to consist of a maelstrom of events distributed across the brain. These events compete for attention, and as one process outshouts the others, the brain rationalizes the outcome after the fact and concocts the impression that a single self was in charge all along.

The sovereignty of one's self over one's self is called Liberty.

When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness. And when we stop clinging, we can begin to be happy.

Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays

Those who are self-righteous are not prominent.

And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance.

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.

One's self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very unpleasant to find deprecated.

One of the things we know is that you cannot motivate other people, but you can remove the obstacles that stop them from motivating themselves. All motivation is self-motivation.

We must keep on trying to solve problems, one by one, stage by stage, if not on the basis of confidence and cooperation, at least on that of mutual toleration and self-interest.

Why is erasing desire seen as so important? If the subjugation of the self is the point of the self what's the point in having a self? It's like someone handing you a leaflet which says throw this leaflet away.

An essential aspect of maturing is developing the ability to take increasing responsibility for our own lives—to become increasingly self-directed

We all become well-disguised mirror image of anything that we fight too long or too directly. That which we oppose determines the energy and frames the questions after a while. Most frontal attacks on evil just produce another kind of evil in yourself, along with a very inflated self-image to boot.

Only in the context of the great encounter with Jesus can a real authentic struggle take place. The encounter with Christ does not take place before, after, or beyond the struggle with our false self and its demons. No, it is precisely in the midst of this struggle that our Lord comes to us and says, as he said to the old man in the story: ‘As soon as you turned to me again, you see I was beside you.’