Quotations About Self

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere. ~Agnes Repplier


In every part and corner of our life, to lose oneself is to be the gainer; to forget oneself is to be happy. ~Robert Louis Stevenson


The words "I am" are potent words; be careful what you hitch them to. The thing you're claiming has a way of reaching back and claiming you. ~A.L. Kitselman


The greatest hazard of all, losing one's self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed. ~The Sickness Unto Death

We are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves; it is civil war. ~Charles Caleb Colton


Sometimes at night I light a lamp so as not to see. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

The finest thing in the world is knowing how to belong to oneself. ~Michel de Montaigne, Of Solitude

Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book shown to him by heart, and his friends can only read the title. ~Virginia Woolf

At this very moment, you may be saying to yourself that you have any number of admirable qualities. You are a loyal friend, a caring person, someone who is smart, dependable, fun to be around. That's wonderful, and I'm happy for you, but let me ask you this: are you being any of those things to yourself? ~Phillip C. McGraw, The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom, 2003


It is often hard to bear the tears that we ourselves have caused. ~Marcel Proust

A wise man never loses anything if he have himself. ~Michel de Montaigne

We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us. ~W.B. Yeats


Who has not sat, afraid, before his own heart's curtain? ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, "The Fourth Elegy," translated from German by Albert Ernest Flemming


We do not deal much in facts when we are contemplating ourselves. ~Mark Twain


Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny. ~Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
Every man is his own ancestor, and every man his own heir. He devises his own future, and he inherits his own past. ~H.F. Hedge

Almost always it is the fear of being ourselves that brings us to the mirror. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin



My life should be unique; it should be an alms, a battle, a conquest, a medicine. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance


No one can drive us crazy unless we give them the keys. ~Doug Horton


When I look for my existence I do not look for it in myself. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

Many a one cannot loosen his own fetters, but is nevertheless his friend's emancipator. ~Friedrich Nietzsche


Some things become so completely our own that we forget them. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin


Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him. Then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, "This I am today; that I will be tomorrow." ~Louis L'Amour


Take the time to come home to yourself every day. ~Robin Casarjean

Everything that I bear within me bound, is to be found somewhere else free. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

You grow up the day you have your first real laugh, at yourself. ~Ethel Barrymore