Self

"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.”"

"Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes."

"It is my ambition and desire to so administer the affairs of the government while I remain President that if at the end I have lost every other friend on earth I shall at least have one friend remaining and that one shall be down inside me."

"Self-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue."

"My dear Watson," said [Sherlock Holmes], "I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers.”"

"My first girlfriend cheated on me when I was 15 years old, and I processed in my mind that she cheated on me because I was not good enough. And I remember my walk home after I found out, and I remember just vowing to myself that I would never not be good enough again."

"The wise treat self-respect as non-negotiable, and will not trade it for health or wealth or anything else."

"The “noble” person has a completely naïve and non-reflective awareness of his own value and of his fullness of being, an obscure conviction which enriches every conscious moment of his existence, as if he were autonomously rooted in the universe. This should not be mistaken for “pride.” Quite on the contrary, pride results from an experienced diminution of this “naïve” self-confidence. It is a way of “holding on” to one’s value, of seizing and “preserving” it deliberately. ... His naïve self-confidence is by no means “compounded” of a series of positive valuations based on specific qualities, talents, and virtues: it is originally directed at his very essence and being."

"We must beware of any attempt to make hatred in any form the basis of action. Most emphatically each of us needs to stand up for his own rights; all men and all groups of men are bound to retain their self-respect, and demanding this same respect from others, to see that they are not injured and that they have secured to them the fullest liberty of thought and action. But to feed fat a grudge against others, while it may or may not harm them, is sure in the long run to do infinitely greater than harm to the man himself."

"Anything that encourages pauperism, anything that relaxes the manly fiber and lowers self-respect, is an unmixed evil."

"There is a certain dignity of manner independent of fortune, a certain distinctive air which seems to mark us out for great things. It is a value we set upon ourselves without realizing it, and by means of this quality we claim other men’s deference as our due. This does more to set us above them than birth, honors, and merit itself."

"The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone."

"Honor is self-esteem made visible in action."

"Since the world does not really believe in God, in the long run the God-fearing person must really love himself. The God-fearing person does not love what the world loves, but then what is left—God and himself. The world takes God away, and therefore the God-fearing person loves himself. The world regards the fear of God as self-love."

"If we look only to self even in spiritual things, it is still selfishness though possibly on a somewhat higher plane than before."

"Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us."

"We are too much haunted by ourselves; we project the central shadow of ourselves on every thing around us. And then comes in the gospel to rescue us from this selfishness. Redemption is this — to forget self in God."

"There is a sickly habit that men get of looking into themselves, and thinking how they are appearing. We are always unnatural when we do that. The very tread of one who is thinking how he appears to others becomes dizzy with affectation. He is too conscious of what he is doing, and self-consciousness is affectation. Let us aim at being natural. And we can only become natural by thinking of God and duty, instead of the way in which we are serving God and duty."

"We can neither change nor overpower God's eternal suffrage against selfishness and meanness."

"Think about yourselves; about what you want, what you like, what respect people ought to pay to you, what people think of you; and then to you nothing will be pure. May God keep our hearts pure from that selfishness which is the root of all sin."

"O Lord, self-renunciation is not the work of one day, nor children's sport; yea, rather in this word is included all perfection."

"The selfish man cuts away the sand from under his own feet, he digs his own grave; and every time, from the beginning of the world until now, God Almighty pushes him into the grave and covers him up."

"Alas! how many souls there are full of self, and yet desirous of doing good and serving God, but in such a way as to suit themselves; who desire to impose rules upon God as to His manner of drawing them to Himself. They want to serve and possess Him, but they are not willing to be possessed by Him."

"Show me the man who would go to heaven alone if he could, and I will show you one who will never be admitted there."

"If you seek in the spirit of selfishness, to grasp all as your own, you shall lose all, and be driven out of the world, at last, naked and forlorn, to everlasting poverty and contempt."

"If we desire to do what will please God, and what will help men, we presently find ourselves taken out of our narrow habits of thought and action; we find new elements of our nature called into activity; we are no longer running along a narrow track of selfish habit."

"A man as he goes down in self, goes up in God. It is interesting to trace this in the experience of the apostle Paul, as gathered from his Epistles. In the year of our Lord 59, he is the least of the apostles, and not f1t to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the church of God. In the year of our Lord 64, after four years more of growth in grace, he is "less than the least of all saints." But in the year of our Lord 65, and not long before he was about to receive his crown in heaven, he is "the chief of sinners.""

"Did any man at his death ever regret his conflicts with himself, his victories over appetite, his scorn of impure pleasure, or his sufferings for righteousness' sake?"

"The very heart and root of sin is in an independent spirit. We erect the idol self; and not only wish others to worship, but worship ourselves."

"Deliver me, O Lord, from that evil man, myself."

"Less, less of self each day, And more, my God, of Thee!"

"Esto, ut nunc multi, dives tibi pauper amicis."

"Chacun chez soi, chacun pour soi."

"Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion."

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live."

"I hold, in truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things."

"Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight."

"Twin-sister of Religion, Selfishness! Rival in crime and falsehood, aping all The wanton horrors of her bloody play; Yet frozen, unimpassioned, spiritless, Shunning the light, and owning not its name, Compelled by its deformity to screen With flimsy veil of justice and of right Its unattractive lineaments that scare All save the brood of ignorance; at once The cause and the effect of tyranny; Unblushing, hardened, sensual and vile; Dead to all love but of its abjectness; With heart impassive by more noble powers Than unshared pleasure, sordid gain, or fame; Despising its own miserable being, Which still it longs, yet fears, to disenthrall."

"Thus suicidal selfishness, that blights The fairest feelings of the opening heart, Is destined to decay, whilst from the soil Shall spring all virtue, all delight, all love, And judgment cease to wage unnatural war With passion's unsubduable array."

"What need we any spur but our own cause, To prick us to redress?"

"The behavioral foundations of capitalism do, of course, continue to engage attention, and the pursuit of self-interest still occupies a central position in theories about the workings and successes of capitalism. But in these recent theories, interests are given a rather different—and much more "positive"—role in promoting efficient allocation of resources through informational economy as well as the smooth working of incentives, rather than the negative role of blocking harmful passions."

"It is self-love and its offspring self-deception, which shut the gates of heaven, and lead men, as if in a delicious dream, to hell."

"Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonour'd and unsung."

"The most terrible thing is to develop in a child selfishness and stinginess, as these vices will limit the growth of a child's mind."

"Selfishness is the most terrible scourge of humanity, the source of destruction, and, first of all, self-destruction."

"All your life, you have heard yourself denounced; not for your faults, but for your greatest virtues. You have been hated, not for your mistakes, but for your achievements. You have been scorned for all those qualities of character which are your highest pride. You have been called selfish for the courage of acting on your own judgment and bearing sole responsibility for your own life. You have been called arrogant for your independent mind. You have been called cruel for your unyielding integrity. You have been called anti-social for the vision that made you venture upon undiscovered roads. You have been called ruthless for the strength and self-discipline of your drive to your purpose."

"Selfishness does not mean only to do things for one's self. One may do things, affecting others, for his own pleasure and benefit. This is not immoral, but the highest of morality."

"When you're comfortable within yourself, you don't care about others' problems or the challenges they face in life. However, when you're in distress, the memories of those you've abandoned leaving in dire situations, come back to haunt you. How selfish humans are!"

"To reside in someone's memory, one must set aside selfishness, as selfishness and fond memories cannot coexist in the same space."

"I am not sure that it is best for us, once safe and secure on the Rock of Ages, to ask ourselves too closely what this and that experience may signify. Is it not better to be thinking of the Rock, not of the feet that stand upon it?"