Quotessence
Home / Topics / Be Yourself Quotes

Be Yourself Quotes

Browse 902 quotes about Be Yourself.

Be Yourself Quotes

“Jack was the kind of guy you could take into any situation and he would figure out how to fit in. Wayne, not so much. So they didn't really ever bond." "You know what we therapists say about people who fit in in every situation?" "What?" "They have no inherent genuine personality. They aren't themselves, they are only who they think the current audience expects them to be. Flawed though some of Wayne's actions may seem to you, at the end of the day he sounds like someone who isn't afraid to just be himself, all day, every day. That takes a fairly strong sense of self, to not go against your natural instincts, to not try to make yourself into something you aren't in order to be better liked or more homogenous." "I never thought about it that way." "Most people don't. But if you look at some of the truly great minds and artists of our history, they are often people who didn't necessarily fit, who were outside the norm. Some of them had actual disorders, many of the great minds are now presumed to have some level of Asperger's or low-level autistic tendencies, but a lot of them were just left of center." "Are you saying that Wayne is a secret genius? Do I have a Jobs or Spielberg or something on my hands?" "Of course not. I'm just saying that fitting in, or caring about fitting in, isn't necessarily in and of itself the world's most desirable trait.”

“[...] if you're trying to show off for people, at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.”

“We are often told to just be ourselves but what does that really mean?...There is no 'just' in any of these statements, because it is hard. I think we are often told how to be; how to behave, how to look, what to believe, and there is no part of our lives that isn't put under scrutiny in this way. We all feel the pressure to conform. Sometimes it can be really challenging to be yourself, especially when it is at odds with the mainstream. I always showed up, but for a time, I masked how I really felt and what was important to me. I felt so stifled, it was as if I had chains wrapped around me. Looking back, I wish I could've been myself unconditionally from the get-go, but I was making decisions based on fear.”