Ego Quotes

In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.

This ego - the less there is of it, the nearer I am to that which I really am: the universal body.

There is no arena in which vanity displays itself under such a variety of forms as in conversation.

I do not wish to please him; I wish that he should wish to please me.

Negative states of mind, such as anger, resentment, fear, envy, and jealousy, are products of the ego.

The egoic madness, or dysfunction, becomes enormously amplified by the science and technology we all have developed.

The ultimate dragon is within you, it is your ego clamping you down.

When you grow up believing you are what you do, when you're done, you aren't.

I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.

The Art of Being: A state of wholeness in which the mind functions freely and easily, without the sensation of a second mind or ego standing over it with a club.

"Ego," sayest thou, and art proud of that word. But the greater thing - in which thou art unwilling to believe - is thy body with its big sagacity; it saith not "ego," but doeth it.

Every tyrant who ever lived has believed in freedom — for himself.

If you never assume importance, you never lose it.

The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated.

Many people who are going through the early stages of the awakening process are no longer certain what their outer purpose is. What drives the world no longer drives them. Seeing the madness of our civilization so clearly, they feel somewhat alienated from the culture around them. Some feel that they inhabit a no-man's-land between two worlds. They are no longer run by the ego, yet the arising awareness has not yet become fully integrated into their lives. Inner and outer purpose have not merged.

How to get rid of ego as dictator and turn it into messenger and servant and scout, to be in your service, is the trick.

Our ego is a monster that loves to sit at the head of the table, and I have learned that my ego is just as rude and loud and hungry as everyone else's. It doesn't matter how much you get; you are left wanting more.

If you have a strong ego [and] something good happens to an acquaintance of yours, [it] makes you feel bad. It's called envy. ... The ego thinks something has been taken away from you because somebody else has received something good. It's a complete illusion, but that's the madness of the ego.

If you wish to make a man your enemy, tell him simply, 'You are wrong.' This method works every time.

The decision to make the present moment into your friend is the end of ego.

I have the feeling that he would rather see a good cause fail than succeed if he were not the head of it.

Inside the Great Mystery that is, we don't really own anything. What is this competition we feel then, before we go, one at a time, through the same gate?

But the conceited man did not hear him. Conceited people never hear anything but praise.

Everyone is in love with his own ideas

We despise no source that can pay us a pleasing attention.

When a lion meets another with a louder roar, the first lion thinks the last a bore.

One thing Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't is self-effacing. Everything has to be the biggest. His money, his muscles, his movies and his machines.

There isA madman inside of youWho is always running for office

Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open.

Surrender becomes so much easier when you realize the fleeting nature of all experiences and that the world cannot give you anything of lasting value. You then continue to meet people, to be involved in experience and activities, but without the wants and fears of the egoic self. That is to say, you no longer demand that a situation, person, place, or event should satisfy you or make you happy. It's passing and imperfect nature is allowed to be.

Confronted by outstanding merit, there is no way of saving one's ego except by love

The whole movement of happiness, unhappiness, happiness, unhappiness, could be called unhappiness. You're suffering because your state of mind is in flux, moving back and forth. The ego's happiness is really a form of suffering, because it cannot live without unhappiness.

The particular egoic patterns that you react to most strongly in others and misperceive as their identity tend to be the same patterns that are also in you, but that you are unable or unwilling to detect within yourself.

Practice radical humility when it comes to your own accomplishments, and give credit everywhere except to your ego.

I don't like myself, I'm crazy about myself.

The ego is not only the unobserved mind, the voice in the head which pretends to be you, but also the unobserved emotions that are the body's reaction to what the voice in the head is saying.

As soon as the mind and mind identification return; you're no longer yourself but a mental image of yourself, and you start playing games and roles again to get your ego needs met.

The egotistical ambition to always want to earn more money harms both the company and the individual himself. That is the biggest weakness of many managers - the financial crisis has proven this.

There was one who thought himself above me, and he was above me until he had that thought.

All you need to know and observe in yourself is this: Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that's the ego in you.

You should never be so involved with your position/job that when the position is gone your entire self image is gone with it.

Do not abandon trust when your ego thinks things should be different than they are.

You become most powerful in whatever you do if the action is performed for its own sake rather than as a means to protect, enhance, or conform to your role identity.

I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.

What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering.

Those who suffer from an exaggerated sense of their own ability and accomplishment are continually subject to frustration, disappointment, and rage when reality intrudes and the world doesn't validate their idealized view of themselves.

Leaders who are kind of insecure or egocentric, they basically sabotage themselves.

The ego is entranced by ... names and ideas... However names and concepts only block your perception of this Great Oneness. Therefore it is wise to ignore them. Those who live inside their egos are continually bewildered.

Ever since time began the world has seemed stupid to those who aren't stupid themselves. It was to avoid that annoyance that I became stupid myself, as fast as ever I could. Sheer egoism, no doubt.

Every quarrel begins in nothing and ends in a struggle for supremacy.

In the unawakened state you don't use thought, but thought uses you. You are, one could almost say, possessed by thought, which is the collective conditioning of the human mind that goes back many thousands of years. You don't see anything as it is, but distorted and reduced by mental labels, concepts, judgments, opinions and reactive patterns.

Most men are so thoroughly subjective that nothing really interests them but themselves.

The ego is just waiting to identify with anything. Whether it's your misery or being a great meditator, it seeks some identification.

The vanity of others runs counter to our taste only when it runs counter to our vanity.

He had only one vanity; he thought he could give advice better than any other person.

What is commonly called 'falling in love' is in most cases an intensification of egoic wanting and needing. You become addicted to another person, or rather to your image of that person. It has nothing to do with true love, which contains no wanting whatsoever.

When one child says to another, "I can do this, I bet you can't"; "My dad has a bigger car than yours"; or, "My dad is stronger than yours." Children identify with this or that, trying to build up a sense of self - a mentally defined sense of self.

The 'you' who you think you are does not exist.

Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs; and lucky it is if the passion be not something as petty as a love of personal conquest over the philosopher across the way.

To me the ego is the habitual and compulsive thought processes that go through everybody's mind continuously. External things like possessions or memories or failures or successes or achievements. Your personal history.