Self Perception Quotes

I really think I am where I am in spite of my training, not because of it. I don't know how unique my work is, because I never compare it.

The worst man is the one who sees himself as the best.

I'm really very embarrassed about my guitar playing, in one way, because it's very poor. I can never move but I can make a guitar speak.

A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.

I don't think I've ever read poetry, ever. I'm not really book-smart.

We are not satisfied with real life; we want to live some imaginary life in the eyes of other people and to seem different from what we actually are.

The greatness of man cannot be seen in the hours of comfort and convenience, but rather in moments of conflict/adversity

We often bore others when we think we cannot possibly bore them.

I consider myself to be just one among 7 billion human beings. If I were to think of myself as different from others, or as something special, it would create a barrier between us. What makes us the same is that we all want to lead happy lives and gather friends around us. And friendship is based on trust, honesty and openness.

To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.

A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise.

Likewise, every time somebody interjects to speak of my honesty there is someone who quivers inside me.

I am very little of a traveler.

I was born to love - but none of you wanted to believe it, and that misunderstanding was crucial in forming my character. It's true that nature was strangely inconsistent in giving me a warm heart, but also a face that was like a stone mask and a tongue that was heavy and slow. She refused me what she bestowed freely on even the most loutish of my fellow men. . . . People judged my inner character by my outer covering, and like a sterile fruit, I withered under the rough husk I couldn't slough off.

The truth is that the first changes are so slow they pass almost unnoticed, and you go on seeing yourself as you always were, from the inside, but others observe you from the outside.

Perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything.

I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.

Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences them, is not something dreadful also.

I'm a much happier guy than a lot of people think I am.

By amusing myself with all these games, all this nonsense, all these picture puzzles, I became famous... I am only a public entertainer who has understood his time.

One of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way we've internalized a sense of limitation; how so many in our community have come to expect so little from the world and from themselves.

Let a man once see himself as others see him, and all enthusiasm vanishes from his heart.

The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself.

I have always been rather better treated in San Francisco than I actually deserved.

Me. A bad boy. For eating boiled peanuts in the graveyard. Go figure.

Moderation sees itself as beautiful; it is unaware that in the eye of the immoderate it appears black and sober and consequently ugly-looking.

I enjoy the way I look, but it's a joke.

I'm pretty as a girl.

Every man needs a blind eye and a deaf ear, so when people applaud, you'll only hear half of it, and when people salute, you'll only see part of it. Believe only half the praise and half the criticism.

Beauty is truth's smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror.

Now I'm living out my life in a corner, trying to console myself with the stupid, useless excuse that an intelligent man cannot turn himself into anything, that only a fool can make anything he wants out of himself.

Please don't use the word tough. People might get the impression that I don't care. And I do care, very deeply. Resilient, I think.

Pride works from within; it is the direct appreciation of oneself.

By nature, I suppose I have a languorous disposition

I must to the barber's, monsieur, for methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face.

I alone have the mind of a fool, and am all muddled and vague. The people are so smart and bright. While I am just dull and confused.

Whether a man hides his bad qualities and vices or confesses them openly, his vanity wants to gain an advantage by it in both cases: just note how subtly he distinguishes between those he will hide his bad qualities from and those he will face honestly and candidly.

Only I am clumsy, like drifting on the waves of the sea, without direction.

Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.

I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb... and I also know that I'm not blonde.

A passport picture is a photo of a man that he can laugh at without realizing that it looks exactly the way his friends see him.

What is a face, really? Its own photo? Its make-up? Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter? That which is in front? Inside? Behind? And the rest? Doesn't everyone look at himself in his own particular way? Deformations simply do not exist.

If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self.

My doctor told me that I really should lose some weight. "You're mildly obese," he said. And I thought, "Well, who couldn't afford to lose 20 or 30 pounds?" He said, "Well, a person in your category." I said, "What is that category, doctor?" He said, "Well, you're what I call upwardly middle aged." And I said, "I forgive you for everything."

I'll never be happy. I believe I'll die alone. I would want it that way. I've been a loner all my life with my secrets and my pain. I'm really lost, but I'm trying to find myself. I'm really a sad, pathetic case. My whole life has been a waste. I've been a failure. I just want to escape.

When someone criticizes you, it defines who they are, not who you are.

There is something about riding down the street on a prancing horse that makes you feel like something, even when you ain't a thing.

I never utter my real feelings about anything. My lighter, superficial side will always be too quick for the deeper side of me, and that's why it always wins.

I'm very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That's my cultural historical background, my genetic make-up, but it's not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.

I'm considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I've never been bored in my life.

Do I think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? WEll, I am afraid I sometimes do (and those are, no doubt, my worst moments).

To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.

As a man I am flawed, but my music is perfect.

They think I’m simpleminded because I seem to be happy. Why shouldn’t I be happy? I have everything I ever wanted and more. Maybe I am simpleminded. Maybe that’s the key: simple.

Neither do the ignorant love wisdom or desire to become wise; for this is the grievous thing about ignorance, that those who are neither good nor beautiful think they are good enough, and do not desire that which they do not think they are lacking.

Whatever good things people say of us, they tell us nothing new.

Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter, wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others who are within his sphere of action: and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life.

Frankly, I've never considered my own figure so exceptional; until quite recently, I seldom gave it any thought at all

The doctors are all agreed that I am suffering for want of society. Was never a case like it. First, I did not know that I was suffering at all. Secondly, as an Irishman might say, I had thought it was indigestion of the society I got.

A man's personal defects will commonly have with the rest of the world precisely that importance which they have to himself. If he makes light of them, so will other men.