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Self Quotes

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Self Quotes

“Before one goes through the gate one may not be aware there is a gate One may think there is a gate to go through and look a long time for it without finding it One may find it and it may not open If it opens one may be through it As one goes through it one sees that the gate one went through was the self that went through it no one went through a gate there was no gate to go through no one ever found a gate no one ever realized there was never a gate”

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Book:Knots
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“No one can genuinely love the world, which is too large to love entire. To love all the world at once is pretense or dangerous self-delusion. Loving the world is like loving the idea of love, which is perilous because, feeling virtuous about this grand affection, you are freed from the struggles and the duties that come with loving people as individuals.”

PeopleWorldLoveIdeasSelfFeelingsIndividualStruggleDangerousDutyAffectionDelusionVirtuousPretenseSelf Delusion
Book:The Complete Odd Thomas 8-Book Bundle: Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Brother Odd, Odd Hours, Odd Apocalypse, Odd Interlude, Deeply Odd, Saint Odd
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“Like Karl Kraus [Wittgenstein], was seldom pleased by what he saw of the institutions of men, and the idiom of the passerby mostly offended his ear - particularly when they happened to speak philosophically; and like Karl Kraus, he suspected that the institutions could not but be corrupt if the idiom of the race was confused, presumptuous, and vacuous, a fabric of nonsense, untruth, deception, and self-deception.”

IfsMenSelfSpeakRaceSawsHappenedEarsInstitutionsDeceptionConfusedNonsenseFabricOffendedSelf DeceptionUntruthIdiomPresumptuousVacuousPasserby
Author:Thomas Szasz
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“So long as men denounce each other as mentally sick (homosexual, addicted, insane, and so forth) so that the madman can always be considered the Other, never the Self mental illness will remain an easily exploitable concept, and Coercive Psychiatry a flourishing institution.”

MenLongSelfConceptsSickInstitutionsIllnessMental IllnessInsaneHomosexualPsychiatryMadmenFlourishing
Book:The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement
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“Iconography becomes even more revealing when processes or concepts, rather than objects, must be depicted for the constraint of a definite "thing" cedes directly to the imagination. How can we draw "evolution" or "social organization," not to mention the more mundane "digestion" or "self-interest," without portraying more of a mental structure than a physical reality? If we wish to trace the history of ideas, iconography becomes a candid camera trained upon the scholar's mind.”

IfsMindIdeasSelfRealityWishSocialProcessInterestImaginationObjectsEvolutionDrawsConceptsOrganizationCamerasStructureScholarDefiniteRevealingSelf InterestMundaneConstraintsDigestionCandidPortrayingSocial OrganizationIconographyCandid Camera
Book:Eight little piggies: reflections in natural history
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“I deem no government safe which is under the vassalage of any self-constituted authorities, or any other authority than that of the nation, or its regular functionaries.”

SelfGovernmentNationsSafeAuthoritySelf-government
Book:Life of Thomas Jefferson: with selections from the most valuable portions of his voluminious and unrivalled private correspondence : with portrait
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“For who can wonder that man should feel a vague belief in tales of disembodied spirits wandering through those places which they once dearly affected, when he himself, scarcely less separated from his old world than they, is for ever lingering upon past emotions and bygone times, and hovering, the ghost of his former self, about the places and people that warmed his heart of old?”

PeopleMenWorldFeelsShouldHeartSelfPastSpiritBeliefEmotionWonderGhostTalesWanderFormerAffectedVagueSpookyOld WorldLingeringHovering
Book:The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Other Stories
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“Possessed, as are all the fair daughters of Eve, of an hereditary propensity, transmitted to them undiminished through succeeding generations, to be 'soonmoved withtheslightesttouch of blame'; very little precept and practice will confirm them in the habit, and instruct them all the maxims, of self-justification.”

LittlesSelfPracticeGenerationsHabitSucceedDaughterFairsBlamePossessedJustificationMaximsPropensityHereditarySelf Justification
Author:Maria Edgeworth
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“To those who feel that their values are THE values, the less controlled systems necessarily present a spectacle of "chaos," simply because such systems respond to a diversity of values. The more successfully such systems respond to diversity, the more "chaos" there will be, by definition, according to the standards of ANY specific set of values- other than diversity or freedom as values. Looked at another way, the more self-righteous observers there are, the more chaos (and "waste") will be seen.”

WayFeelsSelfValuesBlackWasteDiversityStandardsChaosDefinitionsControlledRighteousObserversAnother WaySelf Righteous
Author:Thomas Sowell
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“Bread and beauty grow best together. Their harmonious integration can make farming not only a business but an art; the land not only a food-factory but an instrument for self-expression, on which each can play music to his own choosing.”

ArtSelfPlayTogetherGrowsLandExpressionInstrumentsBreadFactoriesIntegrationFarmingHarmoniousSelf Expression
Book:The River of the Mother of God: and other Essays by Aldo Leopold
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“Ideas, like men, can become dictators. We Americans have so far escaped regimentation by our rulers, but have we escaped regimentation by our own ideas? I doubt if there exists today a more complete regimentation of the human mind than that accomplished by our self-imposed doctrine of ruthless utilitarianism.”

IfsMenMindHumansIdeasSelfTodayDoubtDoctrineAccomplishedHuman MindRulersDictatorRuthlessUtilitarianismRegimentation
Book:Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)
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“Christianity has held back any further advances in human consciousness for the past thousand years. And for the past century it's been in direct conflict with its illegitimate offspring, Communism (again with a capital C). Both ask the individual to sacrifice his self-interest to the higher goals of the organization. (Which is okay by me as long as it's voluntary; but as soon as either becomes too big - and takes on that damned capital C - they stop asking for cooperation and start demanding it.) Any higher states of human enlightenment have been sacrificed between these two monoliths.”

YearsHumansLongHas BeensTwoSelfStatesBigsPastAsksIndividualGoalInterestConsciousnessChristianitySacrificeCenturyHigherThousandConflictEnlightenmentDirectOkayOrganizationAskingCommunismCooperationThousand YearsSelf InterestOffspringHuman ConsciousnessHigher Goals
Author:David Gerrold
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“Science fiction, because it ventures into no man's lands, tends to meet some of the requirements posed by Jung in his explorations of archetypes, myth structures and self-understanding. It may be that the primary attraction of science fiction is that it helps us understand what it means to be human.”

MenHumansMayMeanSelfHelpingUnderstandingFictionLandScience FictionStructureMythAttractionPrimariesExplorationVentureRequirementsArchetypeJungSelf UnderstandingWhat It Means To Be Human
Author:Frank Herbert
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“Pornography reveals that male pleasure is inextricably tied to victimizing, hurting, exploiting; that sexual fun and sexual passion in the privacy of the male imagination are inseparable from the brutality of male history. The private world of sexual dominance that men demand as their right and their freedom is the mirror image of the public world of sadism and atrocity that men consistently and self-righteously deplore. It is in the male experience of pleasure that one finds the meaning of male history.”

MenWorldSelfPassionFunImaginationHurtPleasureDemandMirrorsMalesPrivacyTiedConsistentlyPornographyBrutalityInseparableDominanceAtrocitiesSadismMirror Image
Book:Pornography: men possessing women
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“While overeating would be seen by some as an indulgence of self, it is in fact a profound rejection of self. It is a moment of self-betrayal and self-punishment, and anything but a commitment to one's own well-being.”

WellsSelfMomentsFactsWould BeCommitmentProfoundBetrayalPunishmentWell BeingRejectionIndulgenceOvereatingSelf Betrayal
Book:A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever
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“Crossing out is an art that is, perhaps, even more difficult than writing. It requires the sharpest eye to decide what is superfluous and must be removed. And it requires ruthlessness toward yourself -- the greatest ruthlessness and self-sacrifice. You must know how to sacrifice parts in the name of the whole.”

KnowsInspirationalWritingArtSelfWholeEyeLiteratureNamesDifficultKnow HowSacrificeCrossingsSelf SacrificeSuperfluousRuthlessness
Author:Yevgeny Zamyatin
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“America was based on a big promise--a great big one: the Declaration of Independence. When you have to live with that in the house, that's quite a problem--particularly when you've got to make money and get ahead, open world markets, do all the things you have to, raise your children, and so forth. America is stuck with its self-definition put on paper in 1776, and that was just like putting a burr under the metaphysical saddle of America--you see, that saddle's going to jump now and then and it pricks.”

WorldChildrenSelfProblemBigsAmericaHousePromisePaperOur ChildrenRaisesIndependenceDefinitionsStuckMaking MoneyYour ChildrenNow And ThenDeclarationMetaphysicalDeclaration Of IndependenceGet AheadSaddlesBurrs
Author:Robert Penn Warren
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“Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions about himself. He is humiliated by his simian ancestry, and tries to deny his animal nature, to persuade himself that he is not limited by its weaknesses nor concerned in its fate. And this impulse may be harmless, when it is genuine. But what are we to say when we see the formulas of heroic self-deception made use of by unheroic self-indulgence?”

MenTryingMayMadeSelfUseGivenAnimalFateStrangeWeaknessConcernedNotionDenyGenuineDeceptionImpulseBeastFormulasHeroicIndulgenceSelf DeceptionAncestryHumiliatedCultivatingSelf Indulgence
Author:Upton Sinclair
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