Self Quotes

“Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth But that our soft conditions and our hearts Should well agree with our external parts?”

“If we are true to ourselves, we can not be false to anyone.”

“There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean "the foolish face of praise," the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease, in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved but moved, by a low usurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face, with the most disagreeable sensation.”

“You have lost no reputation at all, unless you repute yourself such a loser.”

“I am a willow of the wilderness,Loving the wind that bent me.”

“What is originality? It is being one's self, and reporting accurately what we see and are.”

“Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother: I see by you I am a sweet-faced youth.”

“A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.”

“A man is the whole encyclopedia of facts. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man.”

“Egotism is a kind of buckram that gives momentary strength and concentration to men, and seems to be much used in Nature for fabrics in which local and spasmodic energy is required.”

“Thus inevitably does the universe wear our color, and every object fall successively into the subject itself. The subject exists, the subject enlarges; all things sooner or later fall into place. As I am, so I see; use what language we will, we can never say anything but what we are.”

“Every man has a choice between love of truth and love of repose. Love of repose brings him a solid reputation and peaceful life; love of truth keeps him in suspense. A man who loves truth respects the highest law of his being.”

“Though we travel the world over to find beauty, we must carry it with us or we find it not . . . The difference between landscape and landscape is small, but there is a great difference in beholders.”

“You are constantly invited to be what you are.”

“The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.”

“The only gift is a portion of thyself . . . the poet brings his poem; the shepherd his lamb. . . .”

“Be as thou wast wont to be.See as thou wast wont to see.”

“All the thoughts of a turtle are turtle”

“Every spirit makes its house, and we can give a shrewd guess from the house to the inhabitant.”

“My life is for itself and not for a spectacle.”

“A man is what he thinks about all day long.”

“Study me as much as you like, you will not know me, for I differ in a hundred ways from what you see me to be. Put yourself behind my eyes and see me as I see myself, for I have chosen to dwell in a place you cannot see.”

“Why should I be unhappy? Every parcel of my being is in full bloom.”

“The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.”

“Learning is but an adjunct to ourself, And where we are our learning likewise is.”