Losing Ourselves Quotes

• Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

  Thomas Merton

  Art, Fools Day, Finding Yourself

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.35, Shambhala Publications

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• Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Travel, Character

  116 Copy quote

• Until we lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.

  Henry Miller

  Self Control, Conformity, No Hope

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• Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.

  Henry Miller

  Fear, Inspiration, Giving

  Henry Miller (1972). “The Henry Miller reader”, Ayer Co Pub

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• The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly
  themselves.

  Thomas Merton

  Relationship, Unconditional Love, Reflection

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.177, Shambhala Publications

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• We are wont to condemn self-love; but what we really mean to condemn is contrary to self-love. It is that mixture of selfishness and self-hate that permanently pursues us, that prevents us from loving others, and that prohibits us from losing ourselves.

  Paul Valery

  Hate, Mean, Self

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• It is by losing ourselves in inquiry, creation & craft that we become something. Civilization is a continual gift of spirit: inventions, discoveries, insight, art. We are citizens, as Socrates would have said, & we have it available as our own.

  Paul Goodman

  Art, Discovery, Civilization

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• Characters on stage should be flat, like clothes in a fashion show: what you get should be no more than what you see. Psychological realism is repulsive, because it allows us to escape unpalatable reality by taking shelter in the “luxuriousness” of personality, losing ourselves in the depth of individual character. The writer's task is to block this manoeuvre, to chase us off to a point from which we can view the horror with a dispassionate eye.

  Elfriede Jelinek

  Fashion, Block, Character

  4 Copy quote

• We must protect ourselves from jihadis without losing ourselves.

  Rand Paul

  Losing, Protect

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• How much are we willing to lose from our already short lives by losing ourselves in our Blackberries, our iPhones, by not paying attention to the human being across from us who is talking with us, by being so lazy that we're not willing to process deeply?

  Joshua Foer

  Short Life, Talking, Iphone

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• When a family is free of abuse and oppression, it can be the place where we share our deepest secrets and stand the most exposed, a place where we learn to feel distinct without being better, - and sacrifice for others without losing ourselves.

  Letty Cottin Pogrebin

  Trust, Sacrifice, Father Son

  Letty Cottin Pogrebin (1983). “Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier”, McGraw-Hill Companies

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• Metaphors are our way of losing ourselves in semblances or treading water in a sea of seeming.

  Roberto Bolano

  Sea, Water, Way

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• Sometimes we can only find ourselves by first losing ourselves.

  Richard Paul Evans

  Firsts, Losing, Sometimes

  Richard Paul Evans (2014). “A Step of Faith: A Novel”, p.231, Simon and Schuster

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