Self Quotes - Page 10

• If happiness comes at all: which is by no means prearranged; it comes by the way, while you are seeking for something else. Something outside yourself, beyond yourself: in a brief absorption of self-forgetfulness.

  Caitlin Thomas

  Happiness, Mean, Way

  17 Copy quote

• ... the mere thought of going near a man who is not mellowly pickled, and whose breath reeks of his native fleshy self, is squeamishly unpalatable to me.

  Caitlin Thomas

  Men, Breaths, Mere

  6 Copy quote

• An artist’s work is almost entirely inquiry based and self-regulated. It is a fragile process of teaching oneself to work alone, and focusing on how to hone your quirky creative obsessions so that they eventually become so oddly specific that they can only be your own.

  Teresita Fernandez

  Teaching, Artist, Creative

  8 Copy quote

• The worst effect of tutelage is that it negates self-discipline, and therefore people suddenly released from it are almost bound to make fools of themselves.

  Suzanne La Follette

  Discipline, People, Fool

  4 Copy quote

• Words can enhance experience, but they can also take so much away. We see an insect and at once we abstract certain characteristics and classify it - a fly. And in that very cognitive exercise, part of the wonder is gone. Once we have labeled the things around us we do not bother to look at them so carefully. Words are part of our rational selves, and to abandon them for a while is to give freer reign to our intuitive selves.

  Jane Goodall

  Exercise, Giving, Intuition

  8 Copy quote

• There is such wonderful balm in self-imposed sacrifice.

  Baroness Orczy

  Sacrifice, Wonderful

  11 Copy quote

• Harris had the egotistical dogmatism of the self-made man who had painfully educated himself without contact with superior brains.

  Beatrice Webb

  Education, Men, Brain

  Beatrice Potter Webb (1963). “American diary, 1898”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ah, there is nothing more beautiful than the difference between the thought about sinful creatures which is natural to a holy being, and the thought about sinful creatures which is natural to a self-righteous being. The one is all contempt; the other, all pity.

  Alexander MacLaren

  Beautiful, Differences, Pity

  Alexander Maclaren (1859). “Sermons preached in Union chapel, Manchester”, p.34

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• if we continue with what is surely our greatest Western temptation, and think that in some way history owes us a solution, that we can, by pursuing our own most parochial self-interest, achieve in some miraculous way a consummation of world order, then we are heading not simply towards great disappointments, but towards disaster and tragedy as well.

  Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth

  Disappointment, Thinking, Order

  8 Copy quote

• Spring is strictly sentimental, self-regarding; but I burn more careless in the autumn bonfire.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Spring, Autumn, Sentimental

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, Claire Harman (1994). “The diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Virago Pr

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• A story demanded to be written, and that is why I have not answered your letter before: a wrong-headed story, that would come blundering like a moth on my window, and stare in with small red eyes, and I the last writer in the world to manage such a subject. One should have more self-control. One should be able to say, Go away. You have come to the wrong inkstand, there is nothing for you here. But I am so weakminded that I cannot even say, Come next week.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Eye, Next Week, Should Have

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, William Maxwell (1982). “Letters”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The free expression of resentment against one's parents represents a great opportunity. It provides access to one's true self, reactivates numbed feelings, opens the way for mourning and - with luck - reconciliation.

  Alice Miller

  Family, Opportunity, Expression

  27 Copy quote

• Woe to those who get what they desire. Fulfillment leaves an empty space where your old self used to be, the self that pines and broods and reflects. You furnish a dream house in your imagination, but how startling and final when that dream house is your own address. What is left to you? Surrounded by what you wanted, you feel a sense of amputation. The feelings you were used to abiding with are useless. The conditions you established for your happiness are met. That youthful light-headed feeling whose sharp side is much like hunger is of no more use to you.

  Laurie Colwin

  Success, Dream, Space

  9 Copy quote

• Prayer is intended to increase the devotion of the individual, but if the individual himself prays he requires no formula; he pours himself forth much more naturally in self-chosen and connected thoughts before God, and scarcely requires words at all. Real inward devotion knows no prayer but that arising from the depths of its own feelings.

  Wilhelm von Humboldt

  Prayer, Real, Feelings

  27 Copy quote

• She who only finds her self-esteem
  In others' admiration, begs an alms;
  Depends on others for her daily food,
  And is the very servant of her slaves;
  Tho' oftentimes, in a fantastic hour,
  O'er men she may a childish pow'r exert,
  Which not ennobles but degrades her state.

  Joanna Baillie

  Self Esteem, Men, May

  Joanna Baillie (1853). “The dramatic and poetical works of Joanna Baillie”, p.27

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• In Christ we see the strength of achievement, and the strength of endurance. He moved with a calm majesty, like the sun. The bloody sweat, and the crown of thorns, and the cross, were full in His eyes; but He was obedient unto death. In His perfect self-sacrifice we see the perfection of strength; in the love that prompted it we see the perfection of beauty. This combination of self-sacrifice and love must be commenced in every Christian; and when it shall be in its spirit complete in him, then will he also be perfect in strength and beauty.

  Mark Hopkins

  Christian, Eye, Sacrifice

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p.61, 1895.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• From so much of this seriously-intended pornography there rises, even when it is lewdly or boisterously comic, the acrid smell, unmistakable, of self-dislike.

  Storm Jameson

  Smell, Comic, Pornography

  4 Copy quote

• There is as much vanity in self-scourgings as in self-justification.

  Storm Jameson

  Vanity, Self Justification, Justification

  Storm Jameson (2011). “The Journal of Mary Hervey Russell”, p.22, A&C Black

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• My dogs, the only creatures on the planet marked by my singular nurturing imprint, have all turned out to be rude and self-absorbed. In all likelihood, if they were children instead of dogs, I would have foisted more Charlie Sheens or Kardashians onto our crumbling culture.

  Merrill Markoe

  Dog, Children, Rude

  7 Copy quote

• Visitors should conform as much as possible to the habits and customs of the house. They should be moderate in their demands for personal attendance. They should not carry their moods into the drawing-room or to the table, and, whether they are bored or not, should be ready to contribute as much as in their power to an atmosphere of pleasure. If the above involves too much self-sacrifice, then an invitation to visit should by no means be accepted.

  Elisabeth Marbury

  Mean, Sacrifice, Drawing

  5 Copy quote

• This it is that gives a majesty so pure and touching to the historic figure of Christ; self-abandonment to God, uttermost surrender, without reserve or stipulation, to the guidance of the Holy Spirit from the Soul of souls; pause in no darkness; hesitation in no perplexity, recoil in no extremity of anguish, but a gentle unfaltering hold of the invisible Hand, of the Only Holy and All Good--these are the features that have made Jesus of Nazareth the dearest and most sacred image to the heart of so many ages.

  James Martineau

  Jesus, Heart, Invisible Hand

  James Martineau (1905). “A Martineau year book: Extracts from sermons”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we listen to our self-love, we shall estimate our lot less by what it is than by what it is not; shall dwell upon its hindrances and be blind to its possibilities; and, comparing it only with imaginary lives, shall indulge in flattering dreams of what we should do if we had but power, and give if we had but wealth, and be if we had no temptations.

  James Martineau

  Dream, Indulge In, Giving

  James Martineau (1905). “Tides of the Spirit: Selections from the Writings of James Martineau”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Self-love leads men of narrow minds to measure all mankind by their own capacity.

  Jane Porter

  Men, Mind, Capacity

  Sir Philip Sidney, Jane Porter (1807). “Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I was brought up among the sort of self-important women who had a husband as one has an alibi.

  Anita Brookner

  Husband, Important

  4 Copy quote

• Up, then, with speed, and work;
  Fling ease and self away--
  This is no time for thee to sleep--
  Up, watch, and work, and pray!

  Horatius Bonar

  Sleep, Watches, Ease

  Horatius Bonar (1858). “Hymns of Faith and Hope ... Third edition”, p.262

  10 Copy quote

  Show source