Best loss & self Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Writers who get written about become self-conscious. They develop a regrettable habit of looking at themselves through the eyes of other people. They are no longer alone, they have an investment in critical praise, and they think they must protect it. This leads to a diffusion of effort. The writer watches himself as he works. He grows more subtle and he pays for it by loss of organic dash.”

Source: Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler

“Self-realization doesn't imply loss, gain, even transition; it's only a settling. The separate sounds on the beach, the birds, the waves, the wind. They all come together again, they blend, they harmonize.”

Self Together Sound Loss Wind Bird Gains Wave Self Realization Realization Beach Settling Transition Hinduism Together Again

Author:Frederick Lenz

“This loss of self contributes to illness in its myriad forms.”

Self Form Loss Health Illness His Loss

Author:Sidney Jourard

“Self-interest and mutual interest are inextricably linked. National interests can best be advanced through collective action, ... Calculate not just the human misery of the poor themselves. Calculate our loss: The aid, the lost opportunity to trade, the short-term consequences of the multiple conflicts; the long-term consequences on the attitude to the wealthy world of injustice and abject deprivation amongst the poor.”

“I never saw love as luck, as that gift from the gods which put everything else in place, and allowed you to succeed. No, I saw love as reward. One could find it only after one's virtue, or one's courage, or self-sacrifice, or generosity, or loss, has succeeded in stirring the power of creation.”

Love Self Loss Virtue Saws Sacrifice Creation Succeed Luck Rewards Generosity Stirring Self Sacrifice

Book:Harlot's Ghost: A Novel

Source: Harlot's Ghost: A Novel

“Losing ... really does say something about who you are. Among other things it measures are: do you blame others, or do you own the loss? Do you analyze your failure, or just complain about bad luck? If you're willing to examine failure, and to look not just at your outward physical performance, but your internal workings, too, losing can be valuable. How you behave in those moments can perhaps be more self-defining than winning could ever be. Sometimes losing shows you for who you really are.”

Ifs Looks Doe Self Sometimes Moments Shows Winning Loss Willing Losing Performances Blame Luck Who You Are Valuable Complaining Behave Internals Defining Bad Luck

Author:Lance Armstrong

“There is not unmitigated ill in the sharpest of this world's sorrows; I touch not the sore of thy guilt; but of human griefs I counsel thee, Cast off the weakness of regret, and gird thee to redeem thy loss: Thou has gained, in the furnace of affliction, self-knowledge, patience and humility, And these be as precious ore, that waiteth the skill of the coiner: Despise not the blessings of adversity, nor the gain thou hast earned so hardly, And now thou hast drained the bitter, take heed that thou lose not the sweet.”

Source: Tupper's Poetical Works: Proverbial Philosophy, A Thousand Lines, Hactenus

“We lost not only through death, but also by leaving and being left, by changing and letting go and moving on. And our losses include not only our separations and departures from those we love, but our conscious and unconscious losses of romantic dreams, impossible expectations, illusions of freedom and power, illusions of safety -- and the loss of our own younger self, the self that thought it would always be unwrinkled and invulnerable and immortal.”

“My main interest... is the love of truth, whether pleasant or not. Truth is self-sufficient, and there is nothing to which it can be subordinated without loss. When truth is made subservient to anything else, however great (say religion), it becomes impure and sordid.”

Made Self Interest Loss Truth Is Sufficient Pleasant Self Sufficient Subservient

Book:A History of Science: Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece

Source: A History of Science: Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece

“And when it is suggested that the inward feelings of power or inward monitions or losses of judgement are the germs out of which the divine machinery developed, I return that truth is just the reverse, that the presence of voices which had to be obeyed were the absolute prerequisite to the conscious stage of mind in which it is the self that is responsible and can debate within itself, can order and direct, and that the creation of such a self is the product of culture. In a sense, we have become our own gods.”

Mind Self Feelings Order Culture Voice Loss Stage Creation Divine Products Return Truth Is Conscious Direct Absolutes Responsible Debate Judgement Reverse Inward Machinery Germs Prerequisites

Author:Julian Jaynes

“A vampire is a flexible metaphor. You know, death, sex, change, stagnation, loss of self, loss of agency, having to keep one's real self secret, the possibility of something lasting forever: love, hate, grief.”

Knows Real Self Hate Sex Loss Grief Secret Forever Possibility Metaphor Vampire Agency Lasting Flexible Love Hate Stagnation Real Self Forever Love Sex Change

Author:Kelly Link

“Anxiety may consist of the loss of psychological or spiritual meaning which is identified with one's existence as a self, i.e., the threat of meaninglessness.”

May Self Wisdom Spiritual Loss Existence Anxiety Threat Psychological Meaninglessness

Author:Paul Tillich

“All our suffering is associated with this pre-occupation. All loss and gain, pleasure and pain arise because we identify so closely with this vague feeling of selfness that we have. We are so emotionally involved with and attached to this "self" that we take it for granted.”

Self Feelings Pain Suffering Loss Pleasure Involved Gains Arise Granted Occupation Vague Pain And Pleasure

Author:Francisco Varela

“Businessmen are notable for a peculiarly stalwart character, which enables them to enjoy without loss of self-reliance the benefits of tariffs, franchises, and even outright government subsidies.”

Self Character Government Enjoy Loss Business Benefits Businessman Self Reliance Reliance Notable Subsidies Tariffs Stalwart

Book:the Uses of the Past

Source: the Uses of the Past

“The early symptoms of the disease [California Curse], which break out almost on arrival in Hollywood, are a sense of exaggerated self-importance and self-centeredness which naturally alienates all old friends. Next comes a great desire for and belief in the importance of money above all else, a loss of the normal sense of humor and proportion and finally, in extreme cases, the abandonment of all previous standards of moral value.”

“Manliness has been defined as assertion of the self. Womanliness has been defined as the nurturing of selves other than our own - even if we quite lose our own in the process. (Women are supposed to find in this loss their true fulfillment.) But every individual person is born both to assert herself or himself and to act out a sympathy for others trying to find themselves - in Christian terms, meant to love one's self as one loves others ... Jesus never taught that we should split up that commandment - assigning 'love yourself' to men, 'love others' to women. But society has tried to.”

Source: We Are All Part of One Another: A Barbara Deming Reader

“So much of my self worth was tied with my position. It felt like I was being enveloped in darkness. It was a sense of loss of enthusiasm, a loss of happiness, a significant decline in self worth.”

Self Felt Loss Darkness Position Significant Self Worth Enthusiasm Decline Tied My Self Worth

Author:Tom Johnson

“Those who know in their hearts that they are not really necessary -- and are entirely replaceable-- must inevitably be tempted to misrepresent the nature of their work and build up a false notion of its importance. A further alienation from truth takes place, a further loss of contact with reality. And one thing we can be sure of is that self-deception, whether on the level of the wind and the rain or on that of spiritual reality, must always come up against the real sooner or later, and that its destruction is very painful.”

“He comes to us in the brokenness of our health, in the shipwreck of our family lives, in the loss of all possible peace of mind, even in the very thick of our sins. He saves us in our disasters, not from them. He emphatically does not promise to meet only the odd winner of the self-improvement lottery. He meets us all in our endless and inescapable losing.”

Source: The Astonished Heart: Reclaiming the Good News from the Lost-and-found of Church History

“Our ego ideal is precious to us because it repairs a loss of our earlier childhood, the loss of our image of self as perfect and whole, the loss of a major portion of our infantile, limitless, ain't-I-wonderful narcissism which we had to give up in the face of compelling reality. Modified and reshaped into ethical goals and moral standards and a vision of what at our finest we might be, our dream of perfection lives on--our lost narcissism lives on--in our ego ideal.”

Source: Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

“What we grieve for is not the loss of a grand vision, but rather the loss of common things, events and gestures.... ordinariness is the most precious thing we struggle for, what the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto fought for. Not noble causes or abstract theories. But the right to go on living with a sense of purpose and a sense of self-worth--an ordinary life.”

“For of course one is never safe when in love. Growth is demanding and may seem dangerous, for there is loss as well as gain in growth. But why go on living if one has ceased to grow? And what more demanding atmosphere for growth than love in any form, than any relationship which can call out and requires of us our most secret and deepest selves?”

Ifs Wells May Self Seems Form Courses Grows Growth Loss Secret Dangerous Goes On Safe Gains Atmosphere

Book:Journal of a Solitude

Source: Journal of a Solitude

“The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self.”

Needs Giving Feels Persons Self Individual Loss Pay Millions Giving Up Anxious Identical

Book:Escape from Freedom

Source: Escape from Freedom

“In masturbation there is nothing but loss. There is no reciprocity. There is merely the spending away of a certain force, and no return. The body remains, in a sense, a corpse, after the act of self-abuse. There is no change, only deadening. There is what we call dead loss. And this is not the case in any act of sexual intercourse between two people. Two people may destroy one another in sex. But they cannot just produce the null effect of masturbation.”

Source: Phoenix: the Posthumous Papers of D. H. Lawrence by D. H. Lawrence (Illustrated)

“It has always appeared to me, that there is so much to be done in this world, that all self-inflicted suffering which cannot be turned to good account for others, is a loss - a loss, if you may so express it, to the spiritual world.”

Ifs World May Self Done Spiritual Suffering Loss This World Accounts Self Inflicted

Book:Companions of My Solitude

Source: Companions of My Solitude

“If you believe that weight loss requires self-deprivation, Im going to teach you otherwise.”

Ifs Believe Self Loss Teach Weight Weight Loss If You Believe Deprivation

Author:Robert Atkins

“In middle age we are apt to reach the horrifying conclusion that all sorrow, all pain, all passionate regret and loss and bitter disillusionment are self-made”

Made Self Age Pain Loss Middle Regret Sorrow Passionate Conclusion Bitter Middle Ages Disillusionment Self Made

Book:Hands Full of Living: Talks with American Women

Source: Hands Full of Living: Talks with American Women

“We must admit that today conformity is on the Left. To be sure, the Right is not brilliant. But the Left is in complete decadence, a prisoner of words, caught in its own vocabulary, capable merely of stereotyped replies, constantly at a loss when faced with truth, from which it nevertheless claimed to derive its laws. The Left is schizophrenic and needs doctoring through pitiless self-criticism, exercise of the heart, close reasoning, and a little modesty.”

“When we descend all the way down to the bottom of loss, and dwell patiently, with an open heart, in the darkness and pain, we can bring back up with us the sweetness of life and the exhilaration of inner growth. When there is nothing left to lose, we find the true self - the self that is whole, the self that is enough, the self that no longer looks to others for definition, or completion, or anything but companionship on the journey.”

Source: Broken Open: How difficult times can help us grow

“There are many kinds of loss embedded in a loss - the loss of the person, and the loss of the self you got to be with that person. And the seeming loss of the past, which now feels forever out of reach.”

Feels Kind Persons Self Past Loss Forever Seeming Embedded

Author:Meghan O'Rourke

“Many spiritual seekers who say their wish is to awaken don't actually want what they believe they do. This becomes clear sometimes at the approach to the brink of what feels like a void, where the obliteration of the egoic self seems imminent. With a shocked recognition of what is being asked, the person will recoil. The scale of the loss-the dissolution of the familiar self-is beyond what was bargained for.”

Want Feels Believe Persons Self Sometimes Seems Spiritual Wish Loss Clear Approach Scales Familiar Recognition Void Shocked Seekers Dissolution Recoil

Book:The Freedom of Being: At Ease with What Is

Source: The Freedom of Being: At Ease with What Is

“From self-knowledge flows the stream of humility, which never seizes on mere report, nor takes offense at anything, but bears every insult, every loss of consolation, and every sorry, from whatever direction they may come, patiently, with joy.”

May Self Joy Loss Humility Bears Flow Mere Sorry Streams Insult Reports Self Knowledge Offense Consolation

Author:St. Catherine of Siena

“The beauty in the losing is a loss finally of self-consciousness. There's a gorgeous moment that can happen in all kinds of places. It can happen with people, it can happen with nature, and it can happen with my eyes shut anywhere I am.”

People Kind Self Moments Happens Eye Loss Consciousness Losing All Kinds Gorgeous Self Consciousness

Author:Barbara Brown Taylor

“This relates to the concept of time and our ability as dreamers to reach across time to a past or future self and do some good. This is very important as it relates to soul loss and soul recovery.”

Important Soul Self Past Loss Ability Concepts Recovery Relate Dreamer Concept Of Time Future Self

Author:Robert Moss

“It can take years of tears to melt the hardness that develops in this world, covering our tender, gentler inner selves. Tears for every devastating loss, tears for every humiliating failure, tears for every repeated mistake. Those who honor those tears, and even honor them, are not failures at love but rather its true initiates. First the pain and then the power. First the heart breaks and then it soars.”

World Years Firsts Heart Self Pain Loss Mistake Break This World Tears Honor Soar Inner Self Covering Heart Break Humiliating Initiate Hardness Devastating Loss

Author:Marianne Williamson

“The downfall of democratic institutions in Russia doesn't add to the self-confidence of either [Vladimir] Putin or his friends, as the loss of power could lead to repercussions in Russian society.”

Self Loss Institutions Add Democratic Self Confidence Russia Putin Downfall Repercussions

Author:Garry Kasparov

“When you become successful and a depression or any other unfavorable circumstance arises which causes you a loss or defeat, act on the self-motivator: Success is achieved by those who try and maintained by those who keep trying with a positive mental attitude. This is the way to avoid being crushed.”

Way Trying Self Causes Loss Attitude Successful Circumstances Defeat Arise Crushed Keep Trying Mental Attitude Becoming Successful Positive Mental Attitude

Author:W. Clement Stone

“No one else can take risks for us, or face our losses on our behalf, or give us self-esteem. No one can spare us from life's slings and arrows, and when death comes, we meet it alone.”

Giving Self Faces Loss Risk Self Esteem Esteem Spares Behalf Arrows Slings And Arrows

Author:Martha Beck

“I wanted her to see that the only life worth living is a life full of love; that loss is always part of the equation; that love and loss conjoined are the best opportunity we get to live fully, to be our strongest, our most compassionate, our most graceful selves.”

Self Wanted Opportunity Loss Strongest Compassionate Equations Worth Living Life Worth Living Love And Loss Best Opportunity

Author:Pam Houston

“Nothing gives a sadder sense of decay than this loss or suspension of the power to deal with unaccustomed things, and to keep up with the swiftness of the passing moment. [Speaking of self-posed isolation in old age.]”

Giving Self Moments Age Loss Deals Passing Passings Old Age Isolation Decay Suspension Swiftness Passing Moments

Author:Nathaniel Hawthorne

“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.”

Ifs World Self Loss Five Wife Arms Losing Dollars Legs Etc Hazards Chakra

Author:Soren Kierkegaard

“Ignore any loss of nerve, ignore any loss of self-confidence, ignore any doubt or confusion. Move on believing in love, in peace, and harmony, and in great accomplishment. Remember joy isn't a stranger to you. You are winning and you are strong. Love. Love first, love always, love forever.”

“If somthing is not right or real, dont loss your self. - Clarice Bean Dont look Now”

Ifs Looks Real Self Loss Beans

Author:Lauren Child

“Later, her first intense, serious love affair, yes then she'd lost something more tangible, if undefinable: her heart? her independence? her control of, definition of, self? That first true loss, the furious bafflement of it. And never again quite so assured, confident.”

Ifs Firsts Heart Self Lost Loss Serious Independence Affair Definitions Intense Assured Tangible Love Affair Furious

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“Because God is never cruel, there is a reason for all things. We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self-interest. The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one.”

Source: The Darkest Evening of the Year: A Novel

“I cannot conceive of a greater loss than the loss of one's self-respect.”

Self Loss Greater Wise Self Respect

Author:Mahatma Gandhi

“If we have not struggled/as hard as we can/at our strongest/how will we sense/the shape of our losses/or know what sustains/us longest or name/what change costs us,/saying how strange/it is that one sector/of the self can step in/for another in trouble,/how loss activates/a latent double, how/we can feed/as upon nectar/upon need?”

Ifs Knows Needs Self Hard Names Loss Steps Trouble Strange Cost Shapes Strongest Latent Activate Nectar

Book:Say Uncle: Poems

Source: Say Uncle: Poems

“no man who is resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention, still less can he afford to take the consequences, including the vitiation of his temper and the loss of self control, yield to larger things to which you show no more than equal rights, and yield to lesser ones though clearly your own, better give your path to a dog, than be bitten by him in contesting for the right, not even killing the dog, will cure the bite”

Source: The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Including the Full Text of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates Together with the Essay on Lincoln

“To laugh is to risk appearing a fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out to another is to risk involvement. To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self. To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure. But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.”

“There’s a hollow where he used to be, and it echoes with self-imposed loss.”

Self Used Loss Used To Be Echoes Hollow

Book:Grimspace

Source: Grimspace

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Loss Quotes