#Identity Quotes

“The soul of this man is his clothes.”

“Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.”

“If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking. In the meantime, let me be that I am, and seek not toalter me.”

“O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love... 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.”

“My father names me Autolycus, who being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles.”

“Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that he is?”

“A poor thing, perhaps, but my own.”

“Thus play I in one person many people, And none contented: sometimes am I king; Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar, And so I am: then crushing penury Persuades me I was better when a king; Then am I king'd again: and by and by Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke, And straight am nothing: but whate'er I be, Nor I nor any man that but man is With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased With being nothing.”

“Polonius: Do you know me, my lord? Hamlet: Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.”

“My language! heavens!I am the best of them that speak this speech. Were I but where 'tis spoken.”

“Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.”

“My nature is subdued to what it works in, like the dyer's hand.”

“I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?”

“I am not merry, but I do beguile the thing I am by seeming otherwise.”

“Were I the Moor I would not be Iago. In following him I follow but myself; Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, But seeming so for my peculiar end. For when my outward action doth demonstrate The native act and figure of my heart In compliment extern, ’tis not long after But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at. I am not what I am”

“To die, is to be banish'd from myself; And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her, Is self from self: a deadly banishment! What light is light, if Silvia be not seen? What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by? Unless it be to think that she is by, And feed upon the shadow of perfection. Except I be by Silvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale; Unless I look on Silvia in the day, There is no day for me to look upon; She is my essence, and I leave to be, If I be not by her fair influence Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive.”

“Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”

“I remember the thought which occurred to me when some ingenious and spiritual foreigners came to America, was, Have you been victimized in being brought hither?--or, prior to that, answer me this, "Are you victimizable?”

“You know who you are, but know not who you could be.”

“A man cannot speak but he judges himself”

“An eye can threaten like a loaded and levelled gun, or it can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance for joy. ... One of the most wonderful things in nature is a glance of the eye; it transcends speech; it is the bodily symbol of identity.”

“Men are so charmed with valor that they have pleased themselves with being called lions, leopards, eagles and dragons, from the animals contemporary with us in the geologic formations.”

“When a man becomes cultivated, he develops a new respect for who he is. This causes him to be ashamed of his past identification of himself and others according to things, i.e. property.”

“Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; Take honour from me, and my life is done.”

“Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle;I am no traitor's uncle, and that word "grace"In an ungracious mouth is but profane.”

“Such as we are made of, such we be.”

“Adult males are what their moms designed them.”

“The common experience is, that the man fits himself as well as he can to the customary details of that work or trade he falls into, and tends it as a dog turns a spit. Then he is part of the machine he moves; the man is lost.”

“We must be our own before we can be another's.”

“We go to Europe to be Americanized.”

“But also the constituency determines the vote of the representative. He is not only representative, but participant. Like can onlybe known by like. The reason why he knows about them is, that he is of them; he has just come out of nature, or from being a part of the thing.”

“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.”

“Discuss unto me: art thou officer, Or art thou base, common, and popular?”

“Examine well your blood.”

“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.”

“You never know how you look through other people's eyes.”

“I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.”

“He that commends me to mine own content Commends me to the thing I cannot get. I to the world am like a drop of water That in the ocean seeks another drop, Who, falling there to find his fellow forth, Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself: So I, to find a mother and a brother, In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself.”

“Simply the thing that I am shall make me live.”

“Nations have lost their old omnipotence; the patriotic tiedoes not hold. Nations are getting obsolete, we go and live where we will.”

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

“Who is it that can tell me who I am?”

“I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.”

“No man can quite emancipate himself from his age and country, or produce a model in which the education, the religion, the politics, usages, and arts, of his times shall have no share.”

“A man is known by the books he reads, by the company he keeps, by the praise he gives, by his dress, by his tastes, by his distastes, by the stories he tells, by his gait, by the notion of his eye, by the look of his house, of his chamber; for nothing on earth is solitary but every thing hath affinities infinite.”

“Our statute is a currency which we stamp with our own portrait.”

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

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

“Every true man's apparel fits your thief.”

“One man in his time plays many parts.”