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Self Quotes

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Self Quotes

“For the sake of my children and grandchildren, I hope that the human talent for self-destruction can be successfully controlled, or at least channelled into productive forms, but I doubt it. I think we are moving into extremely volatile and dangerous times, as modern electronic technologies give mankind almost unlimited powers to play with its own psychopathology as a game.”

ThinkingGivingHumansChildrenSelfPlayMovingFormGamesTechnologyDoubtModernMankindTalentDangerousDestructionSakeMy ChildrenProductiveControlledUnlimitedGrandchildrenSelf DestructionChildren And GrandchildrenPsychopathologyUnlimited Power
Author:J. G. Ballard
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“The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance.”

MeanEndsSelfFeelingsLeaderLandImportanceSurrenderFulfillmentFrustratedUnwantedPromised LandMeans To An End
Book:THE TRUE BELIEVER
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“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.”

SelfDreamMovingLostLeftLossImpossibleLetting GoIllusionExpectationsConsciousSafetyLeavingSeparationUnconsciousImmortalDepartureThose We LoveLetting Go And Moving OnConscious And UnconsciousYounger SelfIllusion Of Freedom
Author:Judith Viorst
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“The reputation of a Don Juan gives to a man the most dangerous power. Wise virgins resist it, but foolish virgins frequently yield to the desire to take a celebrated lover from a rival - even from a friend. This emotion is a complex one, mad up of vanity, respect for another woman's taste, and the need to establish self-assurance by winning a difficult victory. Don Juan chose his first mistresses; later he was chosen.”

MenNeedsGivingFirstsSelfDesireWinningDifficultEmotionWiseDangerousLoversVictoryTasteMadComplexesFoolishChosenReputationVanityYieldVirginsAssuranceRivalsMistressDon JuanAnother WomanJuanSelf Assurance
Author:Andre Maurois
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“Twenty-one years ago, when I first heard Mia Farrow had accused me of child molestation, I found the idea so ludicrous I didn't give it a second thought. We were involved in a terribly acrimonious breakup, with great enmity between us and a custody battle slowly gathering energy. The self-serving transparency of her malevolence seemed so obvious I didn't even hire a lawyer to defend myself. It was my show business attorney who told me she was bringing the accusation to the police and I would need a criminal lawyer.”

NeedsGivingYearsFirstsChildrenIdeasSelfShowsFoundEnergyHeardInvolvedBattleYears AgoTwentiesPoliceObviousCriminalsLawyerBreakupServingGatheringShow BusinessAccusedTransparencyAttorneyTwenty OneAccusationEnmitySelf ServingSecond ThoughtsCustodyMiaCriminal LawMalevolenceMolestation
Author:Woody Allen
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“When one becomes for an instant one's former self, that is to say different from what one has been for some time past, one's sensibility, being no longer dulled by habit, receives from the slightest stimulus vivid impressions which make everything that has preceded them fade into insignificance, impressions to which, because of their intensity, we attach ourselves with the momentary enthusiasm of a drunkard.”

Has BeensDifferentSelfPastHabitImpressionEnthusiasmFormerInstantIntensityFadesSensibilityVividStimulusMomentaryDrunkardsInsignificanceTimes Past
Book:In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV: Sodom and Gomorrah (A Modern Library E-Book)
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“It hath been said, that there is of nothing so much in hell as of self-will. The which is true, for there is nothing else there than self-will, and if there were no self-will, there would be no Devil and no hell. When it is said that Lucifer fell from Heaven, and turned away from God and the like, it meaneth nothing else than that he would have his own will, and would not be at one with the Eternal Will. So was it likewise with Adam in Paradise. And when we say Self-will, we mean, to will otherwise than as the One and Eternal Will of God willeth.”

IfsMeanSaidSelfWould BeHeavenHellEternalDevilGods WillParadiseAdamLuciferSelf Will
Author:Martin Luther
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“You know, whenever women make imaginary female kingdoms in literature, they are always very permissive, to use the jargon word, and easy and generous and self-indulgent, like the relationships between women when there are no men around. They make each other presents, and they have little feasts, and nobody punishes anyone else. This is the female way of going along when there are no men about or when men are not in the ascendant.”

KnowsMenWayLittlesSelfUseLiteratureEasyFemaleKingdomsGenerousImaginaryJargonSelf Indulgent
Book:Putting questions differently: interviews with Doris Lessing, 1964-1994
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“Spirituality is much wider than any particular religion, and in the larger ideas of it that are now coming on us even the greatest religion becomes no more than a broad sect or branch of the one universal religion, by which we shall understand in the future man's seeking for the eternal, the divine, the greater self, the source of unity and his attempt to arrive at some equation, some increasing approximation of the values of human life with the eternal and the divine values.”

MenHumansIdeasSelfValuesSpiritualityGreaterDivineParticularSourceEternalUniversalUnitySeekingHuman LifeBranchesBroadsEquationsSectsApproximationValue Of Human Life
Book:Bulletin
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“India of the ages is not dead nor has she spoken her last creative word; she lives and has still something to do for herself and the human peoples. And that which must seek now to awake is not an anglicised oriental people, docile pupil of the West and doomed to repeat the cycle of the occident's success and failure, but still the ancient immemorable Shakti recovering her deepest self, lifting her head higher towards the supreme source of light and strength and turning to discover the complete meaning and a vaster form of her Dharma.”

PeopleHumansStillsSelfLightAgeLastsFormCreativeSourceHigherIndiaWestAncientSupremeAwakeRepeatsCyclesDoomedLiftingDharmaSuccess And FailurePupilsRecoveringDocileShakti
Author:Sri Aurobindo
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“So far as discipline is concerned, freedom means not its absence but the use of higher and more rational forms as contrasted with those that are lower or less rational. A free discipline controls the individual by appealing to his reason and conscience, and therefore to his self-respect; while an unfree control works upon some lower phase of the mind, and so tends to degrade him. It is freedom to be disciplined in as rational a manner as you are fit for.”

MindMeanSelfReasonUseFormIndividualHigherDisciplineFitConscienceConcernedAbsenceRationalSelf RespectPhasesDegradeUnfree
Book:Human Nature and the Social Order
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“If the man succeeds in becoming indifferent to the opinions of his neighbors he runs into another danger, that of a distorted and extravagant self of the pride sort, since by the very process of gaining independence and immunity from the stings of depreciation and misunderstanding, he has perhaps lost that wholesome deference to some social tribunal that a man cannot dispense with and remain quite sane.”

IfsMenSelfRunningLostSocialProcessOpinionDangerHe ManPrideBecomingSucceedIndependenceNeighborSaneIndifferentMisunderstandingExtravagantImmunityDeferenceTribunalsDepreciation
Book:Human Nature and the Social Order
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“There is perhaps no sort of self more subject to dangerous egotism than that which deludes itself with the notion that it is not a self at all, but something else. It is well to beware of persons who believe that the cause, the mission, the philanthropy, the hero, or whatever it may be that they strive for, is outside of themselves, so that they feel a certain irresponsibility, and are likely to do things which they would recognize as wrong if done in behalf of an acknowledged self.”

IfsFeelsBelieveWellsMayPersonsSelfDoneCertainCausesSubjectsDangerousHeroStriveNotionMissionsPhilanthropyBehalfEgotismIrresponsibility
Author:Charles Horton Cooley
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“In the days of witchcraft it used to be believed that if one person secretly made a waxen image of another and stuck pins into the image, its counterpart would suffer tortures, and that if the image was melted the person would die. This superstition is almost realized in the relation between the private self and its social reflection. They seem to separate but are darkly united, and what is done to the one is done to the other.”

IfsPersonsMadeSelfDoneSeemsUsedSufferingDiesSocialUnitedReflectionRelationStuckUsed To BeTortureSuperstitionsPinsWitchcraftCounterparts
Book:Human Nature and the Social Order
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“Perhaps the enemies of liberty are such only because they judge it by its loud voice. If they knew its charms, the dignity that accompanies it, how much a free man feels like a king, the perpetual inner light that is produced by decorous self-awareness and realization, perhaps there would be no greater friends of freedom than those who are its worst enemies.”

IfsMenFeelsSelfLightWould BeVoiceLibertyEnemyGreaterWorstAwarenessJudgingKingsDignitySelf AwarenessRealizationLoudCharmPerpetualFree ManAccompanyWorst EnemyInner LightLoud Voices
Author:Jose Marti
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“Before games are played in common, no rules in the proper sense can come into existence. Regularities and ritualized schemas are already there, but these rites, being the work of the individual, cannot call forth that submission to something superior to the self which characterizes the appearance of any rule.”

SelfGamesIndividualCommonExistenceAppearanceSuperiorsSubmissionRiteRegularitySchemas
Book:The Moral Judgement of the Child
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“The relations between parents and children are certainly not only those of constraint. There is spontaneous mutual affection, which from the first prompts the child to acts of generosity and even of self-sacrifice, to very touching demonstrations which are in no way prescribed. And here no doubt is the starting point for that morality of good which we shall see developing alongside of the morality of right or duty, and which in some persons completely replaces it.”

WayFirstsChildrenPersonsSelfParentDoubtSacrificeDutyMoralityRelationStartingAffectionDevelopingGenerosityNo DoubtMutualTouchingSpontaneousDemonstrationConstraintsSelf SacrificeStarting PointPromptsChildren And Parents
Book:The Moral Judgement of the Child
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“The wife of a self-admirer must expect a very cold and negligent husband.”

SelfWifeColdHusbandAdmirer
Book:A collection of the moral and instructive sentiments, maxims, cautions, and reflexions, contained in the histories of Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison: Digested under proper heads, with references to the volume, ...
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“Hollywood's two polar types are the cynically drunken writer aggressively nursing a ten-year-old reputation and the theatrically self-conscious hermit who strides the boulevard in sandals, home-made shorts and a prophetic beard, muttering against the Age of the Machines.”

YearsMadeTwoSelfHomeAgeTypeTenConsciousHollywoodMachinesReputationLos AngelesBeardNursingSelf ConsciousStridePropheticShortsHermitsSandalsBoulevardMuttering
Book:Exhumations: Stories, Articles, Verses
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“We accepted a definition of ourselves which confined the self to the source and to the limitations of conscious attention. This definition is miserably insufficient, for in fact we know how to grow brains and eyes, ears and fingers, hearts and bones, in just the same way that we know how to walk and breathe, talk and think - only we can't put it into words. Words are too slow and too clumsy for describing such things, and conscious attention is too narrow for keeping track of all their details.”

ThinkingKnowsWayHeartSelfFactsEyeGrowsWalksAttentionBrainKnow HowSourceConsciousEarsFingersTrackDefinitionsDetailsBonesBreatheAcceptedLimitationConfinedDescribingClumsyInsufficient
Author:Alan Watts
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“Courage is worthy of respect when displayed in the maintenance of legitimate claims and in the repelling of aggressions, bodily or other. Courage is worthy of yet higher respect when danger is faced in defence of claims common to self and others, as in resistance to invasion. Courage is worthy of the highest respect when risk to life or limb is dared in defence of others.”

SelfCommonCourageRiskDangerHigherHighestClaimsWorthyResistanceAggressionLimbsInvasionDefenceMaintenanceRepelling
Book:The Study of Sociology
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“Is it stupidity or is it moral cowardice which leads men to continue professing a creed that makes self-sacrifice a cardinal principle, while they urge the sacrificing of others, even to the death, when they trespass against us? Is it blindness, or is it an insance inconsistency, which makes them regard as most admirable the bearing of evil for the benefit of others, while they lavish admiration on those who, out of revenge, inflict great evils in return for small ones suffered? Surely our barbarian code of right needs revision, and our barbarian standard of honour should be somewhat changed.”

MenNeedsShouldSelfEvilMoralPrinciplesSacrificeChangedReturnBenefitsStandardsRegardStupidityRevengeCodeUrgesAdmirationHonourCowardiceCreedsBlindnessAdmirableSelf SacrificeBarbariansCardinalsRevisionInconsistency
Book:Works: The study of sociology
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“As there must be moderation in other things, so there must be moderation in self-criticism. Perpetual contemplation of our own actions produces a morbid consciousness, quite unlike that normal consciousness accompanying right actions spontaneously done; and from a state of unstable equilibrium long maintained by effort, there is apt to be a fall towards stable equilibrium, in which the primitive nature reasserts itself. Retrogression rather than progression may hence result.”

MayLongSelfStatesDoneActionFallResultsEffortConsciousnessProduceNormalCriticismContemplationStablePerpetualPrimitiveModerationProgressionEquilibriumUnstableMorbidRight ActionSelf Criticism
Author:Herbert Spencer
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