c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
In conscious life, we achieve some sense of ourselves as reasonably unified, coherent selves, and without this action would be impossible. But all this is merely at the ‘imaginary’ level of the ego, which is no more than the tip of the iceberg of the human subject known to psychoanalysis. The ego is function or effect of a subject which is always dispersed, never identical with itself, strung out along the chains of the discourses which constitute it. There is a radical split between these two levels of being — a gap most dramatically exemplified by the act of referring to myself in a sentence. When I say ‘Tomorrow I will mow the lawn,’ the ‘I’ which I pronounce is an immediately intelligible, fairly stable point of reference which belies the murky depths of the ‘I’ which does the pronouncing. The former ‘I’ is known to linguistic theory as the ‘subject of the enunciation’, the topic designated by my sentence; the latter ‘I’, the one who speaks the sentence, is the ‘subject of the enunciating’, the subject of the actual act of speaking. In the process of speaking and writing, these two ‘I’s’ seem to achieve a rough sort of unity; but this unity is of an imaginary kind. The ‘subject of the enunciating’, the actual speaking, writing human person, can never represent himself or herself fully in what is said: there is no sign which will, so to speak, sum up my entire being. I can only designate myself in language by a convenient pronoun. The pronoun ‘I’ stands in for the ever-elusive subject, which will always slip through the nets of any particular piece of language; and this is equivalent to saying that I cannot ‘mean’ and ‘be’ simultaneously. To make this point, Lacan boldly rewrites Descartes’s ‘I think, therefore I am’ as: ‘I am not where I think, and I think where I am not.
— Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction
Being an atheist means you have to realise that when you die, that really is it. You've got to make the most of what you've got here and spread as much influence as you can. I believe that you only live through the influence that you spread, whether that means having a kid or making music....I don't believe in heaven or hell, I don't really believe in that version.
— Matthew Bellamy
We’re all the same. We all have the means to save ourselves and carry ourselves home.
— T.A. Miles, Darkside
Our expression and our words never coincide, which is why the animals don't understand us.
— Malcolm de Chazal
It's perfectly clear to me that religion is a myth. It's something we have invented to explain the inexplicable. My religion and the spiritual side of my life come from a sense of connection to the humankind and nature on this planet and in the universe. I am in overwhelming awe of it all: It is so fantastic, so complex, so beyond comprehension. What does it all mean -- if it has any meaning at all? But how can it all exist if it doesn't have some kind of meaning? I think anyone who suggests that they have the answer is motivated by the need to invent answers, because we have no such answers.
— Hugh Hefner
And the voice spoke even more deliberately: '...but remember what is under the ocean of clouds: eternity.'And suddenly that tranquil world, the world of such simple harmony that you discover as you rise above the clouds, took on an unfamiliar quality in my eyes. All that gentleness became a trap. In my mind's eye I saw that vast white trap laid out, right under my feet. Beneath it reigned neither the restlessness of men nor the living tumult and motion of cities, as one might have thought, but a silence that was even more absolute, a more final peace. That viscous whiteness was turning before my eyes into the boundary between the real and the unreal, between the known and the unknowable. And I was already beginning to sense that a spectacle has no meaning except when seen through a culture, a civilization, a professional craft.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars
The definition of 'Employment' by an employer, and, that by an employee, are seldom the same.
— Mokokoma Mokhonoana
When you win, the rules change, and you find you’ve lost
— David Mitchell, number9dream
Remember that you are here for more than a bunch of flesh.
— M.F. Moonzajer
Circumstance points to deeper meaning.
— T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph Over Death and Conscious Encounters with "The Divine Presence"
It's basically a joke." "I think it's cool," Julian says. "It's all about control, right?" He considers something. "It's not a joke. You should take it seriously. I mean, you're also one of the producers--" I cut him off. "Why have you been tracking this?" "It's a big deal and--" "Julian, it's a movie," I say. "Why have you been tracking this? It's just another movie." "Maybe for you." "What does that mean?" "Maybe for others it's something else," Julian says. "Something more meaningful." "I get where you're coming from, but there's a vampire in it.
— Bret Easton Ellis, Imperial Bedrooms
Even manifestly senseless suffering and death can have a meaning, can acquire a meaning. a hidden meaning.
— Hans Küng, On Being a Christian
Suddenly she bent down and kissed his fingers and went quickly away. But he sat for a long time in the gathering clouds trembling with happiness and trying to penetrate into the meaning of these things.
— Thorton Wilder
All words, in every language, are metaphors.
— Marshall McLuhan
Love is a cheap word. Anyone can say it, and few truly know what it means.
— Julianna Scott, The Holders
Each of us has his own inner concentration camp... We must deal with, with forgiveness and patience-as full human beings, as we are and what we will become.
— Viktor E. Frankl
When I reached the street I didn't know whether to go right or left. Soon I'd have to start acting like a person who cared about what happened to him.
— Denis Johnson, The Name of the World
The crises of modern man are to a large extent religious ones, insofar as they are an awakening of his awareness to an absence of meaning.
— Mircea Eliade, Ordeal by Labyrinth: Conversations with Claude-Henri Rocquet
When we work creatively and productively with others, our experience of meaning can be profound. When we work directly for the good of others, meaning deepens in ways that reward us beyond measure. Whenever we go beyond satisfying our own personal needs, we enter the realm of what Frankl called "ultimate meaning." some call it connection to a higher self, to God, to our own spirit, to universal consciousness, to love, to the collective good. No matter what it's called, it is deep meaning and it transforms our lives.
— Alex Pattakos, Prisoners of Our Thoughts: Viktor Frankl's Principles for Discovering Meaning in Life and Work
Life must have its sacred moments and its holy places. We need the infinite, the limitless, the uttermost -- all that can give the heart a deep and strengthening peace.
— A. Powell Davies, Without Apology: Collected Meditations on Liberal Religion
The search for meaning in our lives takes us on paths large and small. When we go beyond ourselves-whether in forgiveness, unselfishness, thoughtfulness, generosity and understanding toward others-we enter into the spiritual realm of meaning. By giving beyond ourselves, we make our own lives richer. This is a truth long understood at the heart of all meaningful spiritual traditions. It's a mystery that can only be experienced. And when we do experience it, we are in the heart of meaning. We are no longer a prisoner of our thoughts.
— Alex Pattakos, Prisoners of Our Thoughts: Viktor Frankl's Principles for Discovering Meaning in Life and Work
A place without meaning is no place to be.
— Wayne Gerard Trotman, Veterans of the Psychic Wars
Love, Hope, and Reverence are realities of a different order from the senses, but they are positive and constant facts, always active, always working out mighty changes in human life.
— Elizabeth Blackwell
If the if isn't an if, what if is an if that if has to be replaced by an if that if shall never if that the place of if.
— Avakruth
One of the central tenets of the Western worldview is that one should always be engaged in some kind of outward task. Thus, the Westerner structures his time—including, sometimes, even his leisure time—as a series of discrete programmed activities which he must submit to in order to tick off from an actual or virtual list. One need only observe the expression on his face as he ploughs through yet another family outing, cultural event, or gruelling exercise routine to realise that his aim in life is not so much to live in the present moment as it is to work down a never-ending list. If one asks him how he is doing, he is most likely to respond with an artificial smile, and something along the lines of, ‘Fine, thank you – very busy of course!’ In many cases, he is not fine at all, but confused, exhausted, and fundamentally unhappy. In contrast, most people living in a country such as Kenya in Africa do not share in the Western worldview that it is noble or worthwhile to spend all of one’s time rushing around from one task to the next. When Westerners go to Kenya and do as they are wont to do, they are met with peels of laughter and cries of ‘mzungu’, which is Swahili for ‘Westerner’. The literal translation of ‘mzungu’ is ‘one who moves around’, ‘to go round and round’, or ‘to turn around in circles’.
— Neel Burton, The Art of Failure: The Anti Self-Help Guide
If there is one thing the psychic taught me, it's that people and events are rarely who and what we think they are. They are more meaningful, more worth our attention-part of some finely choreographed, eternal dance that we would be wise to bow down before in gratitude and humility.
— Leslie Morgan Steiner, Crazy Love
History is the nothing people write about a nothing.
— William Golding, Darkness Visible
It seems to me that there are three principal scales of time, the present moment, a human lifetime, and the eternal. The problem with modern man is not so much that he situates himself in the future of a human lifetime, since he fears death far too much to do that, but rather than he does not situate himself in any of these three scales of time. Instead, he is forever stuck somewhere in-between, this evening, tomorrow morning, next week, next Christmas, in five years’ time. As a result, he has neither the joy of the present moment, nor the satisfied accomplishments of a human lifetime, nor the perspective and immortality of the eternal.
— Neel Burton, Hide and Seek: The Psychology of Self-Deception
If only the physical aspects of hatha yoga are used, it is called ghatastha yoga (ghata means “physical effort”). Modern expressions like “fitness yoga” and “power yoga” that flourish within gym classes are within the same category, even if they do not derive from the original exercises’ rhythm and succession. In many instances “power yoga” has a positive effect on physical health; but if there is no aim to ease the mind, to gain self-insight and control of your thoughts, and to experience the divine within you and within the universe, the deeper meaning of yoga and - possibly life - is lost.
— Stig Åvall Severinsen, Breatheology
The whole purpose of the construction of The Bridge of Silver Wings was to provide a path leading to The River of Winged Dreams, or to serve as a resting place until the river’s deeper and truer nature revealed itself.
— Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams
Life is about finding . . .what works best for you.
— John-Talmage Mathis, For the (Soon) Unemployed: You Against Them
Isn't it true that there is a rare kind of person who perceives, as does a good dog, that life is doing something meaningful, and who discovers what it is and goes about doing it with a spirit of moderate hustle, and there is a not rare kind of person who perceives none of this and who goes about doing what is necessary in a spirit of aggrievedness?
— Padgett Powell, The Interrogative Mood
Life isn’t fair. It doesn’t make sense. This unfairness is felt by everyone, from the Las Vegas tunnel dweller all the way to the executive in the high-rise. To some, these “unfair” experiences become a chastening ball and chain attached for the remainder of life.
— John-Talmage Mathis, For the (Soon) Unemployed: You Against Them
Ever felt like you are more than flesh and bones and blood that decay back into cosmic dirt? You are. Your existence did not begin with your birth and it will not end with your death. Your soul lived before and will live on and on and on...so what you do now matters later. Choose wisely.
— Toni Sorenson
We want to hear the story first and let the meaning unfold, rather than to be present with expectations of a certain significance into which all behavior is then fitted.
— Erving Polster, Gestalt Therapy Integrated: Contours of Theory & Practice
We must abandon completely the notion of blaming the past for any kind of situation we're in and reverse our thinking and see that the past always flows back form the present. That now is the creative point of life. So you see its like the idea of forgiving somebody, you change the meaning of the past by doing that...Also watch the flow of music. The melody as its expressed is changed by notes that come later. Just as the meaning of a sentence...you wait till later to find out what the sentence means...The present is always changing the past.
— Alan W. Watts
Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.
— Georgia O'Keeffe
Was Du erlebst, kann keine Macht der Welt Dir rauben. (What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.) Not only our experiences, but all we have done, whatever great thoughts we may have had and all we have suffered, all this is not lost, though it is past; we have brought it into being. Having been is a kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind.
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
At least tell me you won? And that the scratches and dings were totally worth it." "Of course. They're always worth it," he says with a hidden meaning that only the two of us could ever understand.
— Jessica Sorensen, The Secret of Ella and Micha
Meaning lies in the confrontation of contradiction - the coincidencia apositorum. That’s what we really feel, not these rational schemes that are constantly beating us over the head with the “thou shalts” and “thou should”, but rather a recovery of the real ambiguity of being and an ability to see ourselves as at once powerful and weak, noble and ignoble, future-oriented, past-facing.
— Terence McKenna
Look everywhere. There are miracles and curiosities to fascinate and intrigue for many lifetimes:the intricacies of nature and everything in the world and universe around us from the miniscule to the infinite; physical, chemical and biological functionality; consciousness, intelligence and the ability to learn; evolution, and the imperative for life; beauty and other abstract interpretations; language and other forms of communication; how we make our way here and develop social patterns of culture and meaningfulness;how we organise ourselves and others; moral imperatives; the practicalities of survival and all the embellishments we pile on top; thought, beliefs, logic, intuition, ideas; inventing, creating, information, knowledge; emotions, sensations, experience, behaviour.We are each unique individuals arising from a combination of genetic, inherited, and learned information, all of which can be extremely fallible.Things taught to us when we are young are quite deeply ingrained. Obviously some of it (like don’t stick your finger in a wall socket) is very useful,but some of it is only opinion – an amalgamation of views from people you just happen to have had contact with.A bit later on we have access to lots of other information via books, media, internet etc, but it is important to remember that most of this is still just opinion, and often biased.Even subjects such as history are presented according to the presenter’s or author’s viewpoint, and science is continually changing. Newspapers and TV tend to cover news in the way that is most useful to them (and their funders/advisors), Research is also subject to the decisions of funders and can be distorted by business interests. Pretty much anyone can say what they want on the internet, so our powers of discernment need to be used to a great degree there too.Not one of us can have a completely objective view as we cannot possibly have access to, and filter, all knowledge available, so we must accept that our views are bound to be subjective. Our understanding and responses are all very personal, and our views extremely varied. We tend to make each new thing fit in with the picture we have already started in our heads, but we often have to go back and adjust the picture if we want to be honest about our view of reality as we continually expand it. We are taking in vast amounts of information from others all the time, so need to ensure we are processing that to develop our own true reflection of who we are.
— Jay Woodman
Whereas life separates meaning from emotion, art unites them. Story is an instrument by which you create such epiphanies at will, the phenomenon known as aesthetic emotion...Life on its own, without art to shape it, leaves you in confusion and chaos, but aesthetic emotion harmonizes what you know with what you feel to give you a heightened awareness and a sureness of your place in reality.
— Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting
Given the ease with which health infuses life with meaning and purpose, it is shocking how swiftly illness steals away those certainties…Time unused and only endured still vanishes, as if time itself is starving, and each day is swallowed whole, leaving no crumbs, no memory, no trace at all.
— Elisabeth Tova Bailey, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating
Just as the soul animates the body, so, in a way, meaning breathes life into a word.
— John of Salisbury, The Metalogicon of John of Salsibury: A Twelfth-Century Defense of the Verbal and Logical Arts of the Trivium
Poetry doesn’t pay. But I need it. And so do you.
— Cory Basil, Skinny Dipping in Daylight
…breaking the heart of someone you still love is a rare horror, not funny to anyone, except perhaps Satan…and even his pleasure would be spoiled by not having had a hand in it, by the dumb, wasteful accident of the thing. The Devil wants meaning just like the rest of us.
— Glenn Duncan
We think of ourselves as failures, rather than renounce our belief in the possibility of perfection. We hang on to the hope of eternal love by denying even its temporary validity. It´s less painful to think 'I'm shallow', 'She's self centred', 'We couldn't communicate', 'It was all just physical', than to accept the simple fact that love is a passing sensation, for reasons beyond our control and even beyond our personalities. But who can reassure himself with his own rationalizations? No argument can fill the void of a dead feeling -- that reminder of the ultimate void, our final inconstancy. We're untrue even to life.
— Stephen Vizinczey, In Praise of Older Women: The Amorous Recollections of András Vajda
I live completely without regret. Sure there are plenty of things that someone could second guess, but I see the path of life like driving down the road without a map. The thing is, some dark alleys open up in majestic places, and some bright and shiny highways to the top end in cliffs to the bottom. You never know until you get there. What I know for sure is that if many years ago I actually had a map to the path of life, the destination that I would have chosen is right here, with this family, in this place, and with these smiles. That makes anything that could have been regretful, the best decision in the world.
— Michael A. Wood Jr.
The true meaning and purpose of life is to give some meaning and purpose to your life.
— Steven Redhead, The Solution
...there is no map of the soul because we make it up as we go...
— John Geddes
We have no way of knowing, of course, why some are born in health and affluence, while others enter broken bodies or broken homes, or emerge into a realm of war or hunger. So we cannot give definite meaning to our place in the world, or to our neighbor's. But Plato's reflections should give us pause and invite both humility and hope. Humility, because if we chose our lot in life, there is every reason to suspect merit, and not disfavor, is behind disadvantaged birth. A blighted life may have been the more courageous choice--at least it was for Plato... So how can we feel pride in our own blessedness, or condescension in another's misfortune? And Plato's reflections should give us hope, because his myth reminds us that suffering can be sanctifying, that pain is not punishment ,and that the path to virtue is fraught with opposition.
— Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life
Don't be led away to think this part of the world important and that unimportant. Every corner of the world is important. No man knows whether this part or that is most so, but every man may do some honest work in his own corner.
— Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's Schooldays
She [Beatrice] alone was still real for him, still implied meaning in the world, and beauty. Her nature became his landmark - what Melville would call, with more sobriety than we can now muster, his Greenwich Standard ...
— Dan Simmons, Hyperion
Art indeed may not change anything, and yet on some very basic level, life is insupportable without it.
— Richard Matturro, Janey
There was going to be a spot for me in this joint, the earth, after all. It was never going to be a great match for someone as bright and strange as me, but books were going to make it survivable.
— Anne Lamott
I sort of kind of said something a little like that but maybe not clearly enough to sound like that... But it's what I meant.
— Mary Eva Swatek
Life has the meaning we give it, no more, no less.
— Steven Redhead, The Solution
The only obligation any artist can have is to himself. His works means nothing, otherwise. It has no meaning.
— Truman Capote
Life truly is what you make it. The purpose and meaning of life is the purpose and meaning that you give it.
— Steven Redhead, Keys to Creating Your Reality
I like the multiplicity of books, because each book is different in the mind of each reader. It's the same with this film - if 300 people are in a cinema watching it, they will all see a different film, so in a way there are thousands of different versions of "Caché (Hidden)". The point being that, despite what TV shows us, and what the news stories tell us, there is never just one truth, there is only personal truth.
— Michael Haneke
The books were a private part of me that I carried inside and guarded and didn't talk to anybody about
—  as long as I had the books I could convince myself I was different from the others and my life wasn't quite as stupid and pointless.
You can put anything into words, except your own life
— Max Frisch
There is, of course, always the personal satisfaction of writing down one's experiences so they may be saved, caught and pinned under glass, hoarded against the winter of forgetfulness. Time has been cheated a little, at least in one's own life, and a personal, trivial immortality of an old self assured. And there is another personal satisfaction: that of the people who like to recount their adventures, the diary-keepers, the story-tellers, the letter-writers, a strange race of people who feel half cheated of an experience unless it is retold. It does not really exist until it is put into words. As though a little doubting or dull, they could not see it until it is repeated. For, paradoxically enough, the more unreal an experience becomes - translated from real action into unreal words, dead symbols for life itself - the more vivid it grows. Not only does it seem more vivid, but its essential core becomes clearer. One says excitedly to an audience, 'Do you see - I can't tell you how strange it was - we all of us felt...' although actually, at the time of incident, one was not conscious of such a feeling, and only became so in the retelling. It is as inexplicable as looking all afternoon at a gray stone of a beach, and not realizing, until one tries to put it on canvas, that is in reality bright blue.
— Anne Morrow Lindbergh, North to the Orient
For days and weeks on end one racks one's brains to no avail, and, if asked, one could not say whether one goes on writing purely out of habit, or a craving for admiration, or because one knows not how to do anything other, or out of sheer wonderment, despair or outrage, any more than one could say whether writing renders one more perceptive or more insane. Perhaps we all lose our sense of reality to the precise degree to which we are engrossed in our own work, and perhaps that is why we see in the increasing complexity of our mental constructs a means for greater understanding, even while intuitively we know that we shall never be able to fathom the imponderables that govern our course through life?
— W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn
With the death of my father, it wasn't just the objects of everyday life that had changed; even the most ordinary street scenes had become irreplaceable mementos of a lost world whose every detail figured in the meaning of the whole.
— Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence
Not every conflict is necessarily neurotic; some amount of conflict is normal and healthy. In a similar sense suffering is not always a pathological phenomenon; rather than being a symptom of neurosis, suffering may well be a human achievement, especially if the suffering grows out of existential frustration... Existential frustration is neither pathological or pathogenic.
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
A translator, caught in the space between two tongues. Such people tend to come a little bit unglued from the task of trying to convey meaning from one code to the other. The transfer is never safe, the meaning changes in the channel — becomes tinted, adulterated, absurd, stronger.
— Elena Mauli Shapiro, 13 rue Thérèse
To deal with history [life] means to abandon one's self to chaos but to retain a belief in the ordination and the meaning. It is a very serious task.
— Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game
Reading is accumulating knowledge. But not only that. Reading offers us every day what religion promises us for a posthumous and improbable future: the possibility of living beyond what our lifetime allows us to.
— Camilo Gomes Jr.
The answer is simple: if you cannot find meaning inherent in life right now, as you live it in this visible world, the addition of an infinite amount more of the same isn't about to somehow make it any more meaningful! Add a whole string of zeroes to a zero and watch what happens.
— Robert M. Price
The process of leniency involves accepting the reality of the current situation and finding a satisfying meaning therein, as opposed to misconstruing or denying the facts of the situation.
— Sandra L. Schneider
NOTHING MAKES SENSE. Do not look for any sense in things. It is not there. It is you who ascribe it to what you live or get to know. A defeat or a victory is neither a message from the gods nor a trick of fate. Neither means anything — and, if they seem to, it is but an interpretation you yourself make of them —, inasmuch as things in themselves are only indifference and silence. So, do not waste your precious time in looking for signs everywhere around you. Try and interpret happenings, those which bleed and those which make you smile, as maturing experiences. Oh, yes, what is most important: live!
— Camilo Gomes Jr.
Whether you believe in God or are an atheist, you cannot deny that the empirical facts of science have nothing to do with whether or not freedom and good are real or worth destroying ourselves for. Meaning must come from the individual in touch with his or her own soul. To discover how to recover our sanity and freedom, we must know ourselves from within.
— Carlton D. Pearson, God Is Not a Christian, Nor a Jew, Muslim, Hindu...: God Dwells with Us, in Us, Around Us, as Us
Success is meaningless without fulfilment - both begin within
— Rasheed Ogunlaru
Meaning grows in the mind, but the shape and form of the act remains.
— Ralph Ellison
I create lies for people in order for them to find something true about themselves. I teach people that lies are doors that opens up to truth. Either you accept the lie, or you run away from it, thus, eliminating the meaning behind it, and what is could have accomplished.
— Lionel Suggs
examination of its own history and of the forms of thought given the name “philosophy” indicates that “philosophy” has itself borne many fundamentally different meanings through the years, and from one school or movement to another.
— Gregory B. Sadler
The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.
— Mark Twain
When you're different, sometimes you don't see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn't.
— Jodi Picoult, Change of Heart
There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn't matter anymore.
— Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls
The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.
— Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism
I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.
— Frederick Douglass
I'm Dylan. I'm so cool. I want to date myself, but I don't know how! You want to date me instead? You're so lucky!
— Rick Riordan, The Lost Hero
I am beginning to measure myself in strength, not pounds. Sometimes in smiles.
— Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls
The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.
— C.G. Jung
Everything that happens to you is a reflection of what you believe about yourself. We cannot outperform our level of self-esteem. We cannot draw to ourselves more than we think we are worth.
— Iyanla Vanzant
for once, you believed in yourself. you believed you were beautiful and so did the rest of the world.
— Sarah Dessen, Keeping the Moon
As long as you look for someone else to validate who you are by seeking their approval, you are setting yourself up for disaster. You have to be whole and complete in yourself. No one can give you that. You have to know who you are - what others say is irrelevant.
— Nic Sheff
Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.
— Norman Vincent Peale
My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.
— Henry Ford
I don't want everyone to like me
—  I should think less of myself if some people did.
Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.
— André Gide
Why should we worry about what others think of us, do we have more confidence in their opinions than we do our own?
— Brigham Young
Self pity becomes your oxygen. But you learned to breathe it without a gasp. So, nobody even notices you're hurting.
— Paul Monette
People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people's minds, as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues.
— Elizabeth Gaskell
I... There was a time when I stopped talking. Just like you. My reasons were a little bit different, but I think the feelings of being ashamed of myself and hating myself are the same. Here, it says to "like yourself." What does that mean? Good things- how are you supposed to find them? I only know things that I hate about myself. Because that's all I know, I hate myself. But even if you force yourself to find good things, it feels so empty. It doesn't work that way. People like your teacher just don't get it. I think when you hear someone say they like you, for the first time, then you can begin to like yourself. I think when someone accepts you, for the first time, you feel like you can forgive yourself a little. You can begin to face your fears with courage.
— Natsuki Takaya
The only person that deserves a special place in your life is someone that never made you feel like you were an option in theirs.
— Shannon L. Alder
A monster that refused, sometimes, to behave like a monster. When a monster stopped behaving like a monster, did it stop being a monster? Did it become something else?
— Kristin Cashore, Graceling
Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.
— Louise L. Hay, You Can Heal Your Life
Your self esteem is like a notch below Kafka's.
— Woody Allen, Manhattan
Believe in yourself up here and it will make you stronger than you could ever imagine.
— Sarah Dessen, Keeping the Moon
I used to be self conscious about my height, but then I thought, fuck that, I'm Harry Potter.
— Daniel Radcliffe
I don't entirely approve of some of the things I have done, or am, or have been. But I'm me. God knows, I'm me.
— Elizabeth   Taylor
I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
There are so many more important things to worry about than how you're perceived by strangers.
— Dennis Lehane
Never underestimate yourself
— Carolyn Mackler, The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things
I'm not a wannabe. I'm who I wannabe.
— Hawk Nelson
I've always been told my presence brightened up any room. One might think that went doubly for dank underground cell." (Jace)
— Cassandra Clare, City of Glass
It’s hard to feel desire when you don’t feel desirable
— Christine Feehan, Safe Harbor
People who repeatedly attack your confidence and self-esteem are quite aware of your potential, even if you are not.
— Wayne Gerard Trotman
There's always this one girl. She's desperate and she's weird and she's jealous, and you're stuck with her, no matter how hard you try to get her off your back. Just throw some really fucked-up self-esteem issues into the mix and you have Kara.
— Courtney Summers, Some Girls Are
You've been criticising yourself for years and it hasn't worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.
— Louise L. Hay
If you don't like yourself, you can't like other people. -- Lazarus Long.
— Robert A. Heinlein
Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who holds a low opinion of himself.
— Anthony Trollope, Orley Farm
At every given moment we are absolutely perfect for what is required for our journey.
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
I have known friendship love, parental love, romantic love, family love and unrequited love in my life time, but the only love that made a difference was self love. You don't need confirmation from the world or another person that you matter. You simply do matter. When you finally believe that truth and live it then you can do amazing things with your life!
— Shannon L. Alder
If you want me, you'll have to earn me. And, mister, I don't come cheap.
— Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Fancy Pants
When people speak of great men, they think of men like Napoleon - men of violence. Rarely do they think of peaceful men. But contrast the reception they will receive when they return home from their battles. Napoleon will arrive in pomp and in power, a man who's achieved the very summit of earthly ambition. And yet his dreams will be haunted by the oppressions of war. William Wilberforce, however, will return to his family, lay his head on his pillow and remember: the slave trade is no more.
— Charles Fox
What defines you isn't how many times you crash but the number of times you get back.
— Sarah Dessen, Along for the Ride
Though the funny thing about never being asked for anything is that after a while you start to feel like maybe you don’t have anything worth giving.
— Lev Grossman, The Magician King
I’m nothing great. But I’m a rose… I’m a rose whether I’m admired or not, I’m a rose whether anyone’s crazy about me or not… Like I said, nothing great. Just a rose… But, do you know what it means to be a rose, my friend? Being a rose means ‘freedom.’ It means not existing by the praises of Others or not ceasing to exist by their disapproval.
— Serdar Özkan
People simply feel better about themselves when they’re good at something.
— Stephen R. Covey, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness
Self-esteem isn't everything
—  it's just that there's nothing without it.
The greater a child’s terror, and the earlier it is experienced, the harder it becomes to develop a strong and healthy sense of self.
— Nathaniel Branden, Six Pillars of Self-Esteem
If the map doesn't agree with the ground the map is wrong
— Gordon Livingston, Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now
I’d learned to avoid mirrors. They never seemed to show me what I wanted to see.
— Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone
Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.
— Nathaniel Branden, Six Pillars of Self-Esteem
The only real conflict you will ever have in your life won’t be with others, but with yourself.
— Shannon L. Alder
I exist as I am, that is enough,If no other in the world be aware I sit content,And if each and all be aware I sit content.One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself.
— Walt Whitman
Unrequited love is the only emotion that allows sane people to taste the “life sentence” of someone with bipolar disorder. The longer they hang onto a lost cause the more unstable they look to everyone else. They contradict their own belief systems and statements, by circling the drain with two competing emotions—love and hate.
— Shannon L. Alder
I am bigger than the box I'm in.
— Rachel Cohn
Good for you and be proud of yourself because you have your priorities in order. Be proud of yourself if you are responsible, reliable, persistent, and take your job and education seriously.
— Ana Monnar, Express Yourself 101 For Your Eyes Only
The first step toward being loved is learning to love what you see when you look in the mirror.
— Tadahiko Nagao
Okay listen, you think I'm so inconsequential? Then try this on for size. All those who see unworthiness when they look at me and are given thereby to denying me value - to you I say, I'm not talking about being AS GOOD as you. I hereby declare myself BETTER than you. 
— Sidney Poitier, The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography
In yourself right now is all the place you've got.
— Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood
Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival.
— Martha Gellhorn, Travels With Myself and Another
You all have your own distinct personal backgrounds. Of course some of you come from rich families, some from poor families. But circumstances beyond your control like that shouldn’t determine who you are. You must all realize what you’re worth on your own.
— Koushun Takami, Battle Royale
Aren't fairy godmothers supposed to be nice and make you feel better about yourself?...No, you're confusing fairy godmothers with sales clerks.
— Janette Rallison, My Fair Godmother
As you become more aligned with the truth of who you are, the question of liking yourself goes away. It is a natural state of being.
— Rachel Archelaus
Be real. Embrace that you have weakness. Because everyone does. Embrace that your body is not perfect. Because nobody’s is. Embrace that you have things you can’t control. We all have a list of them.
— Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing
When I loved myself enough, I no longer needed things or people to make me feel safe.
— Kim McMillen, When I Loved Myself Enough
Our choices in life are made according to our sense of our own worth.
— Kaylan Pickford
Believe in yourself and the world will follow suit.
— Tadahiko Nagao, Kokology: The Game of Self-Discovery
Your value is in your individuality.
— Dorla Rudd Jenkins
If you care about what people think about you, you will end up being their slave. Reject and pull your own rope.
— Auliq Ice
The articles were extremely eye-opening. Not just in Teen Vogue but in Seventeen and CosmoGirl as well. They were all about being yourself, staying natural, loving your body as is, and going green! The messages were the exact opposite of Vik and Viv's.Hmmmmm. Frankie turned to face the full-length mirror that was up against the yellow wardrobe. She opened her robe and examined her body. Fit, muscular, and exquisitely proportioned, she agreed with the magazines. So what if her skin was mint? Or her limbs were attached with seams? According to the magazines, which were - no offense! - way more in touch with the times than her parents were, she was suppose to love her body just the way it was. And she did! Therefor if the normies read magazines (which obviously they did, because they were in them), then they would love her, too. Natural was in.Besides she was Daddy's perfect little girl. And who didn't love perfect?
— Lisi Harrison, Monster High
Teasing is very often a sign of inner misery.
— Christopher Hitchens, Arguably: Selected Essays
Self respect, self worth and self love, all start with self. Stop looking outside of yourself for your value.
— Rob Liano
Don't water your weeds
— Harvey MacKay
When virtues are pointed out first, flaws seem less insurmountable.
— Judith Martin
Real self-worth comes from mastery, from getting good at something. It doesn't matter what. Then you don't have to worry about empty compliments. You don't worry about what other people think. You have self-respect.
— Albert Borris, Crash Into Me
How can you get through to yourself?
— Alexandra Katehakis, Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Reflections on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence
Endow yourself with healthy self-esteem. What is the feeling tone in your life that radiates in you and makes you shine, that makes you feel whole, that makes you feel your heart? That feeling tone, which we long to hear from others, is the tone we want to practice with ourselves. That’s where we want to live with ourselves. It doesn’t happen from the outside in. That’s why it’s called self-esteem.
— Alexandra Katehakis, Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Reflections on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence
The desire to be cool is—ultimately—the desire to be rescued.
— Chuck Klosterman, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto
When you express "purity" which is the truth about yourself, you feel a love for yourself that is expressed by self-respect, self-esteem, and self-confidence!
— Tae Yun Kim, Seven Steps to Inner Power
You do not need to pay attention to those voices within you that create pain, or make you feel less competent, smart or able.
— Sanaya Roman, Living with Joy: Keys to Personal Power and Spiritual Transformation
It’s probably unfair to expect the world at large, or even most people, to see us for all we are. It is essential, however, that we see ourselves for all we are. (413)
— Victoria Moran, Younger by the Day: 365 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Body and Revitalize Your Spirit
Telling yourself you like the way you look is easy. Believing it is an entirely different kettle of whales.
— Andrew Biss, The Impressionists
Thank you very Much, I enjoyed myself
— Richard Feynman
Surely a good therapist should produce a Dorian Gray-style portrait from under the couch so the patient can see the person they really are.
— Rosamund Lupton, Sister
Sooo, I'm tired of people thinking I'm a freak. I know you can't relate to that but -""Get over it already, will ya?" Candace stood. "You're not Smellody anymore. You're pretty. You can get hot guys now. Tanned ones with good vision. Not geeky hose jousters." She shut the window. "Don't you ever want to use your lips as something other than veneer protectors?"Melody felt a familiar pinch behind her eyes. Her throat dried. Her eyes burned. And then they came. Like salty little paratroopers, tears descended en masse. She hated Candace thought she had never made out with a boy. But how could she convince a seventeen-year-old with more dates than a fruitcake that Randy the Starbucks cashier (aka Scarbucks, because of his acne scars) was a great kisser? She couldn't.
— Lisi Harrison, Monster High
A low self-image is usually not based upon facts
—  it's mismanaged memory.
Then there was the realisation that I didn't actually feel that much better when I was thin(ner). In fact the 'thin' version felt worse because I lived with hunger clawing at my stomach all the time, and in fear that I was going to get fat again. After years of neuroticism I'd finally understood those who loved me would continue to put up with me fat or thin, and those who didn't ignored me. As a middle-aged woman I was pretty much invisible anyway. To pass unnoticed through an image-obsessed society is surprisingly liberating.
— Helen Brown, After Cleo
I looked at him nonplussed. I realized that I have spent so many years being on a diet that the idea that you might actually need calories to survive has been completely wiped out of my consciousness. Have reached point where believe nutritional ideal is to eat nothing at all, and that the only reason people eat is because they are so greedy they cannot stop themselves from breaking out and ruining their diets.
— Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary
In the story of Ugly Duckling, when did the Ugly Duckling stop feeling Ugly? When he realized that he was a Swan. Each of us has something Special, a swan of some sort, hidden inside somewhere. But until we recognize that it's there, what can we do but splash around, treading water? The Wise are Who They Are. They work with what they've got and do what they can do.
— Benjamin Hoff
But now that she had achieved knighthood, and thought and acted as she wanted and decided, for one has to act in this way in order to save this world, she neither noticed nor cared that all the people around her thought she was insane.
— Kathy Acker
But then the pastors and men of God can only be human,--cannot altogether be men of God; and so they have oppressed us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces, and fine linen, and purple, and, alas, sometimes, mere luxury and idleness.
— Anthony Trollope, Phineas Redux
I’m ALL about the Alternative.
— Solange nicole
To honor the self is to be willing to think independently, to live by our own mind, and to have the courage of our own perceptions.
— Nathaniel Branden
Self-pity is the most destructive of all narcotics.
— Sebastian Horsley
The attempt to force human beings to despise themselves is what I call hell.
— André Malraux
The diet industry is making a lot of money selling us fad diets, nonfat foods full of chemicals, gym memberships, and pills while we lose a piece of our self-esteem every time we fail another diet or neglect to use the gym membership we could barely afford.
— Portia de Rossi, Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain
You may not be the smartest, richest or best looking person but you're probably not the dumbest, ugliest or poorest either.
— Rob Liano
Showing your true self sometimes don't give you any benefit, but at least you do honest to your self and God.
— Olivia Sinaga
In the inner courtroom of my mind, mine is the only judgment that counts.
— Nathaniel Branden, Six Pillars of Self-Esteem
Be yourself, you're already fully equipped to succeed at that.
— Rob Liano
But there were certain moments in life that forever defined one as a person - in one's own estimation, anyway. And one's own self esteem, when all was said and done, was of far more importance than the fickle esteem of one's peers.
— Mary Balogh, At Last Comes Love
I take a few quick sips. "This is really good." And I mean it. I have never tasted tea like this. It is smooth, pungent, and instantly addicting."This is from Grand Auntie," my mother explains. "She told me 'If I buy the cheap tea, then I am saying that my whole life has not been worth something better.' A few years ago she bought it for herself. One hundred dollars a pound.""You're kidding." I take another sip. It tastes even better.
— Amy Tan, The Kitchen God's Wife
Stagnation is self-abdication.
— Ryan Talbot
Clones fit in. Freaks stand out. Ask me which one I prefer.
— Joanne Harris, The Girl with No Shadow
You know men. We have delicate egos.""I wouldn't describe Jace's ego as delicate.""No, Jace is sort of the antiaircraft artillery tank of male egos," Simon admitted.
— Cassandra Clare