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Quote by Rifa Coolheart

“Our perception of how others perceive us is often a construct of our own minds. It may not necessarily align with the reality of how others truly see us. This discrepancy between perception and reality can lead us to form a self-image based on assumptions and interpretations. Consequently, we may come to believe that we possess certain characteristics or qualities simply because we perceive ourselves to be that way.”

Quote by Rifa Coolheart

Work

Toxic Self-Love: A Guide To Understanding Narcissism In Yourself

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Rifa Coolheart

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“No man can see over his own height. Let me explain what I mean. You cannot see in another man any more than you have in yourself. Your own level strictly determines the extent to which he comes within your understanding. If your intelligence is unawakened, mental qualities in another, even though they be of the highest kind, will have no effect on you at all… his higher mental qualities will no more exist for you than colors exist for those who cannot see.”

“The first time I was ever called ugly, I was thirteen. It was a rich friend of my brother Carlton's, over to shoot guns in the field. "Why you crying girl?" Constantine asked me in the kitchen. I told her what the boy had called me, tears streaming down my face, "Well? Is you?" I blinked, paused my crying. "Is I what?" "Now you look a here, Eugenia" - because Constantine was the only one who'd occasionally follow Mama's rule. "Ugly live up on the inside. Ugly be hurtful, mean person. Is you one a them peoples?" "I don't know. I don't think so." I sobbed. Constantine sat down next to me, at the kitchen table. I heard the cracking of her swollen joints. She pressed her thumb hard in the palm of my hand, something we both knew meant 'Listen. Listen to me.' "Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision." Constantine was so close, I could see the blackness of her gums. "You gone have to ask yourself, 'Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?' She kept her thumb pressed hard in my hand. I nodded that I understood. I was just smart enough to realize she meant white people. And even though I still felt miserable, and knew what I was, most likely, ugly, it was the first time she ever talked to me like I was something besides my mother's white child. All my life I'd been told what to believe about politics, coloreds, being a girl. But with Constantine's thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.”