Happiness is a matter of one’s most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. – Iris Murdoch
It’s not only the most difficult thing to know one’s self, but the most inconvenient. – Josh Billings
A man needs to look, not down, but up to standards set so much above his ordinary self as to make him feel that he is himself spiritually the underdog. – Irving Babbitt
One of the great things about wrestling is how it interrogates this silly idea that you have one authentic self. – John Darnielle
I take risks, but I don’t lose respect for my real self. Because what’s going to happen afterwards? How are you going to get back? Is there going to be a train, or will it be after midnight and you can’t go home again? – Isabelle Adjani
The right of self defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals, and whether the attack be made by Spain herself or by those who abuse her power, its obligation is not the less strong. – James Monroe
The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action. – John Dewey
The spiritual self of each of us is that part of us that will never grow old, or ill, or die, but it must be nurtured and invigorated! – Joseph B. Wirthlin
I think the self is complicated, that at various times we are all various people, and wrestling actually does a lot with that. You have things like heel turns where a person goes from being a good guy to a bad guy. – John Darnielle
The essential self is innocent, and when it tastes its own innocence knows that it lives for ever. – John Updike
One thing I wish I could tell my younger self: take photos of everyday life, not special occasions; later, that’s what will be interesting to you. – Gretchen Rubin
I never had any question that my parents loved me. I had a real sense of self confidence. – Jeannette Walls
I developed a sense of self before moving to crazy Hollywood, which was really important. – Jane Levy
Doesn’t the fight for survival also justify swindle and theft? In self defence, anything goes. – Imelda Marcos
I know my 17-year-old self would read my bourgeois fiction, full of metaphors and rhythmic prose, with a sinking heart. – Jim Crace
The self thus becomes aware of itself, at least in its practical action, and discovers itself as a cause among other causes and as an object subject to the same laws as other objects. – Jean Piaget
What wild imaginations one forms where dear self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken! – Jane Austen
If you manifest your true self through nature and your normal surroundings, I find that the most eerie. Like when you see birds suddenly start flying in a different direction or when you see moths forming weird shapes, I think that’s the weirdest way to let yourself be known. – Holland Roden
We have to give feminism a shot. Out of sheer self preservation, we have to stand aside and let women run the show. – Irvine Welsh
Victory in physical battles requires strength, muscles, and skill; but the fight is never tougher and victory is never sweeter than in the battles over self. – John Bytheway
Once I actually get in the studio and I start working, I’m fine, but it’s just getting there and these hours of torment with myself and self doubt, thinking ‘I’m useless’ and ‘Who am I, conning myself into thinking I can do it again.’ – Imogen Heap
You just let your lower self go, and then it takes on all these aspects of the society – the city with horns blowing, the people yelling things at each other, and the all-in-all violence and chaos of the city. Put that on stage with music, and that’s what this is. – Alice Cooper
The painter… does not fit the paints to the world. He most certainly does not fit the world to himself. He fits himself to the paint. The self is the servant who bears the paintbox and its inherited contents. – Annie Dillard
