Quotes on Self

All decisions in the artistic execution of the work rest with pure intuition and cannot be translated into a self-analysis.

Painting what I experience, translating what I feel, is a great liberation. But it is also work, self-examination, consciousness, criticism, struggle.

The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self.

I think it's a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one's self.

Hunger, love, pain, fear are some of those inner forces which rule the individual's instinct for self preservation.

The 'I' casts off the illusion of the 'I' and yet remains 'I'. Such is the paradox of Self-realization. The Realized do not see any paradox in it. Consider the case of the worshipper. He approaches God and prays to be absorbed in Him. He then surrenders himself in faith and by concentration. And what remains afterwards? In the place of the original 'I', self-surrender leaves a residuum of God in which the 'I' is lost. That is the highest form of devotion or surrender and the peak of detachment.

We are inconsolable at being deceived by our enemies and being betrayed by our friends, yet we are often content in be being treated like that by our own selves.

The spirit is the true self. The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure.

The Self is not in the realm of thought. The Self is in the gap between our thoughts. The cosmic psyche whispers to us softly in the gap between our thoughts.

When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without getting entangled in it. The mind itself is a wonderful tool. Dysfunction sets in when you seek your self in it and mistake it for who you are.

All motivation is self-motivation. Your family, your boss, or your co-workers can try to get your engine going, but until you decide what to accomplish, nothing will happen.

I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places.

The great object of Education should be commensurate with the object of life. It should be a moral one; to teach self-trust: to inspire the youthful man with an interest in himself; with a curiosity touching his own nature; to acquaint him with the resources of his mind, and to teach him that there is all his strength.

By breaking down our sense of self-importance, all we lose is a parasite that has long infected our minds. What we gain in return is freedom, openness of mind, spontaneity, simplicity, altruism: all qualities inherent in happiness.

The Self alone exists. When you try to trace the ego, which is the basis of the perception of the world and everything else, you find the ego does not exist at all and neither does all this creation that you see.

My life's been too much of a self-created vocation. And there are times when I think I've done everything in the name of defiance.

In retrospect, all these exercises in self-gratification seem pure fantasy, what Pascal called, licking the earth.

It is, for example, axiomatic that we should all think of ourselves as being more sensitive than other people because, when we are insensitive in our dealings with others, we cannot be aware of it at the time: conscious insensitivity is a self-contradiction.

Self praise is no praise at all.

If men as individuals surrender to the call of their elementary instincts, avoiding pain and seeking satisfaction only for their own selves, the result for them all taken together must be a state of insecurity, of fear, and of promiscuous misery.

Freedom is the greatest fruit of self sufficiency.