Fooling Oneself Quotes

When human consciousness stops fooling itself and looks at the situation straight on, it can't cope. ~ Fuminori Nakamura

The return to a favorite novel is generally tied up with changes in oneself that must be counted as improvements, but have the feel of losses. It is like going back to a favorite house, country, person; nothing is where it belongs, including one's heart. ~ Mary McCarthy

It is impossible to talk or to write without apparently throwing oneself helplessly open. ~ Herman Melville

One makes discoveries about oneself but more often one makes up discoveries. ~ Sara Levine

I've learned that health and healing come more from love and respect, for oneself and others, than from any specific therapeutic technique. The potential for self-healing and healing from within, both for individuals and communities, is a resource too often overlooked. (xiii) ~ Marie Balter

Those who seek eternity find a mind of infinity ~ Ana Claudia Antunes

As you begin to Awaken.. You discover yourself sitting in nature.. flowing like the river.. Trying to understand the purpose.. then realizing "Nature is Happening, that is its purpose".. You are just like the river flowing through nature.. Your purpose is to be like nature. Start Now.. in the precious moments.. for its the only time that exists. ~ Jonathan Bailey

It seems to be that way with most things. No one to do the really disagreeable jobs except oneself. ~ Kate DiCamillo

Every work of art is aggressive, Isabella. And every artist's life is a small war or a large one, beginning with oneself and one's limitations. To achieve anything you must first have ambition and then talent, knowledge, and finally the opportunity. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon

War makes men barbarous because, to take part in it, one must harden oneself against all regret, all appreciation of delicacy and sensitive values. One must live as if those values did not exist, and when the war is over one has lost the resilience to return to those values. ~ Cesare Pavese

To dance at all is to confront oneself. It is the art of honesty. ~ Shirley Maclaine

Chronically awkward people can feel like everyone else received a secret instruction manual at birth titled "How to be Socially Competent." For the awkward person, this dreamy manual would provide easy-to-understand, step-by-step instructions on how to gracefully navigate social life, avoid embarrassing faux pas, and rid oneself of the persistent anxiety that comes with being awkward. ~ Ty Tashiro

What may seem like a reasonable way of protecting oneself can look very different from the other side of the border. ~ Margaret MacMillan

I had reached a level of sophistication at which I could know I was fooling myself and still fool myself. ~ Wendell Berry

Never let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries. Continue steadfastly on one's way. ~ Gustav Mahler

Rare indeed, is the relationship in which the other is not cultivated for what one can get for oneself. ~ Anthony De Mello

I was the class clown so I was used to performing and fooling around in front of my friends. ~ Dominic Monaghan

Social cognitive theory rejects the dichotomous conception of self as agent and self as object. Acting on the environment and acting on oneself entail shifting the perspective of the same agent rather than reifying different selves regulating each other or transforming the self from agent to object ~ Albert Bandura

And this is the simple truth
that to live is to feel oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

It occurs to me that at the beginning one works passionately to learn photography. This takes years, and the craft is usually formed during this period. Then as time passes one finds oneself more in the role of serving the medium ... Then, as in the example of several masters that I have been privileged to know personally, it appears that by having devoted oneself totally to the medium, one becomes photography. ~ Ralph Gibson

The world's definitions are one thing and the life one actually lives is quite another. One cannot allow oneself, nor one's family, friends, or lovers - to say nothing of one's children - to live according to the world's definitions: one must find a way, perpetually, to be stronger and better than that. ~ James A. Baldwin

It is much more important to be oneself than anything else. Do not dream of influencing other people ... Think of things in themselves. ~ Virginia Woolf

Leave, instead. Get away for good, far from the life we've lived since birth. Settle in well-organized lands where everything really is possible. I had fled, in fact. Only to discover, in the decades to come, that I had been wrong, that it was a chain with larger and larger links: the neighborhood was connected to the city, the city to Italy, Italy to Europe, Europe to the whole planet. And this is how I see it today: it's not the neighborhood that's sick, it's not Naples, it's the entire earth, it's the universe, or universes. And shrewdness means hiding and hiding from oneself the true state of things. ~ Elena Ferrante

The great problem with the message of both religion and spirituality, today, is that the focus is placed upon alienating oneself into the light; instead of placing the focus on going and finding those who are in the darkness, and lighting a candle, and sitting with them, until they hurt no more. ~ C. JoyBell C.

One narcissus among the ordinary beautiful
flowers, one unlike all the others! She pulled,
stooped to pull harder-
when, sprung out of the earth
on his glittering terrible
carriage, he claimed his due.
It is finished. No one had heard her.
No one! She had strayed from the herd.
(Remember: go straight to school.
This is important, stop fooling around!
Don't answer to strangers. Stick
with your playmates. Keep your eyes down.)
This is how easily the pit
opens. This is how one foot sinks into the ground. ~ Rita Dove

The judicious words of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), the first existentialist philosopher, are apropos to end this lumbering manuscript.
1."One must learn to know oneself before knowing anything else."
2."Life always expresses the results of our dominate thoughts."
3."Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are."
4."Personality is only ripe when a man has made the truth his own."
5."Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all."
6."Don't forget to love yourself."
7."Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom."
8."Life has its own hidden forces, which you can only discover by living."
9."The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, or read about, nor seen, but if one will, are to be lived."
10."Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown."
11."It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks, that we concentrate on only what is most significant and important."
12."To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself."
13."Since my earliest childhood, a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic, if it is pulled out I shall die."
14."A man who as a physical being is always turned to the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside of him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him."
15."Just as in earthly life lovers ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

I believe a lot in instinct. One should never dull it by wanting to know everything. One shouldn't ask too many questions but do what one does properly, never rush, and never torment oneself. ~ Josef Sudek

If your focus in life is on being productive, when things are not happening ... one has to ask oneself, 'Is this worth a grown man's time?' ~ Bob Corker

The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the root of all the evil that is in the world ~ Max Born

... there are certain questions that must never be asked. Of anyone. Even oneself. ~ Jenny Lynne

The secret of financial success is the willingness to adopt a warrior spirit in attitude, grace, and presence. This does not mean adopting an air of aggressiveness, but rather, a spirit of making treaties and pacts with oneself and others. "Warriors have an outlook of expecting a positive outcome, and a willingness to do whatever is needed to incur that outcome. It means not giving up, but allowing for flexibility, and to flow with the energy or chi as it moves along. Be strong, be vigilant for success, and be sensitive to the energy undercurrents, and you shan't go wrong. ~ Doreen Virtue

Art is important for it commemorates the seasons of the soul, or a special or tragic event in the soul's journey. Art is not just for oneself, not just a marker of one's own understanding. It is also a map for those who follow after us. As ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Anyone who has discovered Christ must lead others to him. A great joy cannot be kept to oneself. It has to be passed on. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

To let oneself be carried on passively is unthinkable. ~ Virginia Woolf

The acceleration of contemporary life also plays a role in this lack of being. The society of laboring and achievement is not a free society. It generates new constraints. Ultimately, the dialectic of master and slave does not yield a society where everyone is free and capable of leisure, too. Rather, it leads to a society of work in which the master himself has become a laboring slave. In this society of compulsion, everyone carries a work camp inside. This labor camp is defined by the fact that one is simultaneously prisoner and guard, victim and perpetrator. One exploits oneself. It means that exploitation is possible even without domination. ~ Byung-Chul Han

While it is always best to believe in oneself, a little help from others can be a great blessing. ~ — Uncle Iroh In Avatar: The Last Airbender

People often think faith consists of forcing oneself to accept something that one does not and cannot understand. Often we call people believers if they just accept what others tell them. Some seek faith by denying reason and forcing themselves into something that has not yet become a personal experience. God requires a different faith, though. He is content if you believe what you can experience. Be faithful and hold on to what you have, not to what you do not have. ~ Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt

The second element of true love is compassion. Compassion is the capacity to understand the suffering in oneself and in the other person. If you understand your own suffering, you can help him to understand his suffering. Understanding suffering brings compassion and relief. You can transform your own suffering and help transform the suffering of the other person with the practice of mindfulness and looking deeply. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Perhaps it is not love that motivates effective altruists but empathy, the ability to put oneself in the position of others and identify with their feelings or emotions. Writers like de Waal and Jeremy Rifkin have seized on the idea of empathy as, to use de Waal's words, "the grand theme of our time."4 Rifkin believes that civilization has spread the reach of empathy beyond the family and the community so that it covers all of humankind. ~ Peter Singer

Every attainment, every step forward in knowledge, follows from courage, from hardness against oneself, from cleanliness in relation to oneself. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Painting, especially much better than words, allows oneself to express the various stages of thought, including the deeper levels, the underground stages of the mental process. ~ Claes Oldenburg

After a cruel childhood, one must reinvent oneself. Then reimagine the world. ~ Mary Oliver

Sanity is to be found in accurate honesty to oneself. ~ David Bain