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Self Forgetfulness Quotes

Browse 32 quotes about Self Forgetfulness.

Self Forgetfulness Quotes

“The author writes that key FDR aide Harry Hopkins was in such poor health near the end of his boss's second term that one observer said he didn't know how Hopkins could possibly report to the president. But, at the onset of war and genuine national emergency, Hopkins was animated with a new sense of purpose.”

HumilityMissionMinistryDiscipleshipSelf Forgetfulness
Book:No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
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“The main obstacle to success he soon discovered to be Letty's exceeding distrust of herself. I would not be mistaken to mean that she had too little confidence in herself; of that no one can have too little. Self-distrust will only retard, while self-confidence will betray. The man ignorant in these things will answer me, "But you must have one or the other." "You must have neither," I reply. "You must follow the truth, and, in that pursuit, the less one thinks about himself, the pursuer, the better. Let him so hunger and thirst after the truth that the dim vision of it occupies all his being, and leaves no time to think of his hunger and his thirst. Self-forgetfulness in the reaching out after that which is essential to us is the healthiest of mental conditions. One has to look to his way, to his deeds, to his conduct--not to himself. In such losing of the false, or merely reflected, we find the true self. There is no harm in being stupid, so long as a man does not think himself clever; no good in being clever, if a man thinks himself so, for that is a short way to the worst stupidity. If you think yourself clever, set yourself to do something; then you will have a chance of humiliation. With good faculties, and fine instincts, Letty was always thinking she must be wrong, just because it was she was in it--a lovely fault, no doubt, but a fault greatly impeditive to progress, and tormenting to a teacher.”

ConfidenceSelf ConfidenceSelf ForgetfulnessSelf Distrust
Book:Mary Marston
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“Sometimes, it is true, a sense of isolation enfolds me like a cold mist as I sit alone and wait at life’s shut gate. Beyond there is light, and music, and sweet companionship; but I may not enter. Fate, silent, pitiless, bars the way…Silence sits immense upon my soul. Then comes hope with a smile and whispers, ‘there is joy is self-forgetfulness.’ So I try to make the light in others’ eyes my sun, the music in others; ears my symphony, the smile on others’ lips my happiness.”

JoySufferingNatureGratitudeDisabilitySelf Forgetfulness
Book:The Open Door
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“All human life, we may say, consists solely of these two activities: (1) bringing one’s activities into harmony with conscience, or (2) hiding from oneself the indications of conscience in order to be able to continue to live as before. Some do the first, others the second. To attain the first there is but one means: moral enlightenment — the increase of light in oneself and attention to what it shows. To attain the second — to hide from oneself the indications of conscience—there are two means: one external and the other internal. The external means consists in occupations that divert one’s attention from the indications given by conscience; the internal method consists in darkening conscience itself. As a man has two ways of avoiding seeing an object that is before him: either by diverting his sight to other more striking objects, or by obstructing the sight of his own eyes—just so a man can hide from himself the indications of conscience in two ways: either by the external method of diverting his attention to various occupations, cares, amusements, or games; or by the internal method of obstructing the organ of attention itself. For people of dull, limited moral feeling, the external diversions are often quite sufficient to enable them not to perceive the indications conscience gives of the wrongness of their lives. But for morally sensitive people those means are often insufficient. The external means do not quite divert attention from the consciousness of discord between one’s life and the demands of conscience. This consciousness hampers one’s life; and in order to be able to go on living as before, people have recourse to the reliable, internal method, which is that of darkening conscience itself by poisoning the brain with stupefying substances. One is not living as conscience demands, yet lacks the strength to reshape one’s life in accord with its demands. The diversions which might distract attention from the consciousness of this discord are insufficient, or have become stale, and so—in order to be able to live on, disregarding the indications conscience gives of the wrongness of their life—people (by poisoning it temporarily) stop the activity of the organ through which conscience manifests itself, as a man by covering his eyes hides from himself what he does not wish to see.”

SufferingConscienceAddictionIntoxicationSelf ForgetfulnessSpiritual DiseaseThe Unlived Life
Book:Why do men stupefy themselves?: And other writings
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“There is a Greek proverb: ‘Each is furthest from himself’. It is open to many interpretations, but this is what it means to me: because we look out from within ourselves at the world around us, we tend, in a rather fundamental sense, to overlook ourselves. We are the dark centre, or the invisible origin, of the world with which we interact. At the heart of our concern with ourselves is a taking-for-granted, which prevents us from noticing at the deepest level that we exist. ‘I need this’, ‘I want that’, ‘I must do the other’ distracts us from the fact that ‘I’, the one who needs, wants, must do, is ourself; or that there is one who needs, wants, must do, and that one is I. In unremitting pursuit of our direct and indirect self-interests, and our responsibilities, we look away from the self that is interested and bears responsibility. It is presupposed but unvoiced.”

Self KnowledgeSelf Forgetfulness
Book:I Am: A Philosophical Inquiry into First-Person Being
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“A holy person makes you see things in yourself and around you that you had not seen before; that is to say, enlarges the world rather than shrinking it. ...Holiness [is] not an extra special kind of goodness... [or] competing levels of how good you are. It's ...about being involved in the world. A holy person is somebody who is not afraid to be at the tough points in the centre of what it's like to be a human being... this boils down to something extremely simple and extremely difficult, which is that holy people, however much they may enjoy being themselves, are not obsessively interested in themselves. They allow you to see not them, but the world around them. They allow you to see not them, but God. You come away from them feeling not, "Oh, what a wonderful person," but "What a wonderful world," "What a wonderful God," or even, with surprise, "What a wonderful person I am too.”

DiscipleshipSelf ForgetfulnessHoly People
Book:Being Disciples: Essentials of the Christian Life
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“That which especially distinguishes a high order of man from a low order of man, that which constitutes human goodness, human nobleness, is surely not the degree of enlightenment with which men pursue their own advantage; but it is self-forgetfulness; it is self-sacrifice; it is the disregard of personal pleasure, personal indulgence, personal advantage, remote or present, because some other line of conduct is more right.”

MenHumansSelfOrderLinesPleasureSacrificeGoodnessDegreesLowsEnlightenmentAdvantagePursueIndulgenceDisregardForgetfulnessSelf SacrificeSelf Forgetfulness
Author:James Anthony Froude
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“Happiness lies outside yourself, is achieved through interacting with others. Self-forgetfulness should be one's goal, not self-absorption. The male, capable of only the latter, makes a virtue of an irremediable fault and sets up self-absorption, not only as a good but as a Philosophical Good.”

ShouldSelfLyingGoalVirtueCapablePhilosophicalFaultsMalesLatterForgetfulnessInteractingAbsorptionSelf AbsorptionInteracting With OthersSelf Forgetfulness
Author:Valerie Solanas
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“By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbour actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbour, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain.”

IfsBelieveHas BeensSoulSelfRealityCertainGrowsPerfectDoubtLove YouStriveActiveYour SoulImmortalityNo DoubtNeighbourForgetfulnessSelf Forgetfulness
Book:The Brothers Karamazov (English Russian Edition illustrated): Братья Карамазовы (англо-русская редакция иллюстрированная)
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“The really wonderful moments of joy in this world are not the moments of self-satisfaction, but self-forgetfulness. Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and contemplating your own greatness is pathological. At such moments we are made for a magnificent joy that comes from outside ourselves.”

WorldMadeSelfMomentsJoyWonderfulThis WorldGreatnessStandingEdgesSatisfactionContemplatingMagnificentForgetfulnessCanyonsGrand CanyonSelf-satisfactionWaste Of LifeSelf ForgetfulnessWonderful MomentsStanding On The Edge
Author:John Piper
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“For with eyes made clear by many tears, and a heart softened by the tenderest sorrow, she recognized the beauty of her sister's life—uneventful, unambitious, yet full of the genuine virtues which 'smell sweet, and blossom in the dust', the self-forgetfulness that makes the humblest on earth remembered soonest in heaven, the true success which is possible to all.”

HeartMadeSelfEyeEarthHeavenVirtueClearTearsSweetSorrowSmellGenuineDustRememberedForgetfulnessTrue SuccessSelf Forgetfulness
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Louisa May Alcott (Illustrated)
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“But what after all, behind appearances, is this seeming mystery? We can see that it is the Consciousness which had lost itself returning again to itself, emerging out of its giant self-forgetfulness, slowly, painfully, as a Life that is would be sentient, half-sentient, dimly sentient, wholly sentient and finally struggles to be more than sentient, to be again divinely selfconscious, free, infinite, immortal.”

SelfWould BeLostGrowthBehindsConsciousnessMysteryMindfulnessConsciousInfiniteAppearanceGiantsImmortalEmergingSelf ConsciousSeemingForgetfulnessSelf Forgetfulness
Author:Sri Aurobindo
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