17 Quotes About Selfhood

This collection of wise quotes on selfhood will help you find your own identity and live the life you want for yourself. How many times each day do you mean to say one thing, and say another instead, because you’re worried about what others might think? How often do you wake up in the morning with one idea in mind for what you want to accomplish, only to find yourself doing something else because of social pressures or personal anxieties? No lifetime, no matter how successful, will be truly rewarding or happy if you cannot learn to love yourself and be yourself. It may seem hard, but great people throughout history who have struggled to find their identities, too. Just as they rose to the challenge, you too can learn how to be yourself.

1
When we find that God's ways always coincide with our own ways, it's time to question who we're really worshipping, God or ourselves. The latter moves the nature of godliness from the King to our servant to a slave, a deduction into the realm of selfhood and then the lower, slavehood. It's a spiritual mathematics in that men who need God in his godhood are humble yet strong and spiritually ambitious while men who need a slave in their selfhood are ultimately paralyzed and will remain paralyzed. Criss Jami
2
Once he said to her: 'You are like me; you are different from other people. You are Kamala and no one else, and within you there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat any time and be yourself, just as I can. Few people have that capacity and yet everyone could have it. Hermann Hesse
3
Everyone knows the experience of encountering other persons only under the aspect of how they intersect with our projects, and of noticing them only insofar as we have to notice them in order to interact with them as we pursue our goals. But from time to time we realize more keenly that the other with whom we are dealing is a person, and then we feel the irreverence and the arrogance of our attitude. We become aware of a certain violence with which we have been treating other persons; we realize that we have to draw back and grant them a space in which to be themselves as persons, and that we have to cease seeing them exclusively in relation to our projects. John F. Crosby
Following all the rules leaves a completed checklist. Following your...
4
Following all the rules leaves a completed checklist. Following your heart achieves a completed you. Ray A. Davis
Benazir Bhutto doesn't cease to exist the moment she gets...
5
Benazir Bhutto doesn't cease to exist the moment she gets married. I am not giving myself away. I belong to myself and I always shall. Benazir Bhutto
6
[Grief] is everything. It is the fabric of selfhood, and beautifully chaotic. It shares mathematical characteristics with many natural forms. Max Porter
7
I realize that humans cannot bear very much reality. Most lives are a flight from selfhood. Most prefer the truths of the stable. You stick your heads into the stanchions and munch contentedly until you die. Others use you for their purposes. Not once do you live outside the stable to lift your head and be your own creature. Muad'Dib came to tell you about that. Without understanding his message, you cannot revere him! . Frank Herbert
8
Finding your "self-culture" is hero's work. I liken it to the journey of a warrior who is preparing for battle. There is no violence in the battle, but there is a plan of attack and a methodology that you need to employ to complete the journey. Page 12 Victoria LorientFaibish
9
Find your "self-culture" is hero's work. I liken it to the journey of a warrior who is preparing for battle. There is no violence in the battle, but there is a plan of attack and a methodology that you need to employ to complete the journey. Page 12 Victoria LorientFaibish
10
When we learn to speak, we learn to translate. Octavio Paz
11
We build a self-image from stored memories including a swarm of physical and social interactions, evocative emotions, and other associative experiences. Selfhood also comes from the language, symbols, and artifacts, which potent combinations create cultural beliefs. We build a self upon real as well as imaginary experiences. A person’s rational and irrational beliefs forge a sense of self. The books that we read, the music we listen to, the films we watch, and what church or other social gatherings we attend constitute meaningful activities that congeal and work together to shape our sense of identity. Cultural determinants drive how we work, play, worship, and raise our children. Culture has its own sources of reinforcement that can influence members of society to adopt an interdependent, communal sense of self, or an independent, individualistic sense of self. Culture is not fate, but none of us is immune from the great octopus of culture; its tentacles touch us every direction that we turn. Our self-identity is subtlety influenced by the prevailing political-social culture as well as affected by our perceived social status, economic or otherwise. Kilroy J. Oldster
12
Hold tight to what is most yourself, Don't squander it, don't let your life Be governed by what disturbs you. Abu AlAla AlMaarri
13
The struggle is not with others, but within us, to do what we are called to do John Geddes
14
When you’re here, an i in the Ocean, you’re no longer waiting for something to happen or to change. When you’re here you have what you seek. Your heart opens to the gift you receive, that you are. JeanPierre Weill
15
There are a great number of ego defenses, and the combinations and circumstances in which we use them reflect on our personality. Indeed, one could go so far as to argue that the self is nothing but the sum of its ego defenses, which are constantly shaping, upholding, protecting, and repairing it. The self is like a cracked mask that is in constant need of being pieced together. But behind the mask there is nobody at home. . Neel Burton
16
All my life, I've been trying to fill an emptiness inside. But that emptiness... I've built myself around it. Filling it in would be like filling in the empty space within a cathedral. Blake Charlton