#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.”

“Wherever we go, whatever we do, self is the sole subject we study and learn.”

“The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward sensesare still truly adjusted to each other.”

“The only true gifts are a portion of yourself.”

“The first thing the intellect does with an object is to class it along with something else. But any object that is infinitely important to us and awakens our devotion feels to us also as if it must be sui generis and unique. Probably a crab would be filled with a sense of personal outrage if it could hear us class it without ado or apology as a crustacean, and thus dispose of it. 'I am no such thing,' it would say; 'I am MYSELF, MYSELF alone.”

“How can we know the dancer from the dance?”

“Man lives in only one small room of the enormous house of his consciousness.”

“... I am the same personal being who in old times upon the Earth had those experiences.”

“Choose a self and stand by it.”

“Between what a man calls me and what he simply calls mine the line is difficult to draw. We feel and act about certain things that are ours very much as we feel and act about ourselves.”

“True love is a discipline in which each divines the secret self of the other and refuses to believe in the mere daily self.”

“I long for truth, and yetI cannot stay from thatMy better self disowns,For a man's attentionBrings such satisfactionTo the craving in my bones.”

“There is a voice inside which speaks and says, "This is the real me!"”

“We are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves.”

“The self persists like a dying star, In sleep, afraid.”

“The most natively interesting object to a man is his own personal self and its fortunes. We accordingly see that the moment a thing becomes connected with the fortunes of the self, it forthwith becomes an interesting thing.”

“Individuality is founded in feeling”

“Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.”

“Am I alone in my egotism when I say that never does the pale light of dawn filter through the blinds of 52 Tavistock Square but I open my eyes and exclaim, "Good God! Here I am again!" not always with pleasure, often with pain; sometimes in a spasm.”

“A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living.”

“For every seeing soul, there are two absorbing facts - I, and the abyss.”

“Silence is a solvent that destroys personality, and gives us leave to be great and universal.”

“I was in a queer mood, thinking myself very old: but now I am a woman again - as I always am when I write.”

“We are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.”

“I am rooted, but I flow.”

“I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given, and solitude in which to unfold my possessions.”