Knowing Who You Are Quotes

In order to deal with the chaos that exists in the world today, you need some grounding. That grounding best comes from knowing who you are. ~ Michael Ray

For most things in life, you need time: to learn a new skill, build a house, become an expert, make a cup of tea ... Time is useless, however, for the most essential thing in life, the one thing that really matters: self-realization, which means knowing who you are beyond the surface self - beyond your name, your physical form, your history, your story.
You cannot find yourself in the past or future. The only place where you can find yourself is in the Now.
Spiritual seekers look for self-realization or enlightenment in the future. To be a seeker implies that you need the future. If this is what you believe, it becomes true for you: you will need time until you realize that you don't need time to be who you are. ~ Eckhart Tolle

The ultimate dragon is within you, it is your ego clamping you down. ~ Joseph Campbell

Hell, in my opinion, is never finding your true self and never living your own life or knowing who you are. ~ John Bradshaw

I don't want to die and come back and not remember your face, Will. I don't want to spend another lifetime not knowing who you are! ~ Courtney Allison Moulton

Another thing about knowing who you are is that you know what you should not be doing, which can save you a lot of heartaches and false starts if you catch it early on. ~ Twyla Tharp

Not knowing who you are is a certain kind of hell. ~ Kelly Thompson

I thank God for my handicaps. For through them, I have found myself, my work and my God. ~ Helen Keller

Individual style is the correct balance of knowing who you are, what works fro you, and how to develop your own personality ~ Giorgio Armani

Be aware of yourself and know yourself. No matter how much you have learned and how much you know, if you don't know yourself you don't know anything. ~ Suzuki Shosan

In other words, we may, by fixing our attention almost fiercely on the facts actually before us, force them to turn into adventures; force them to give up their meaning and fulfill their mysterious purpose. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Style ... is knowing who you are ... ~ Gore Vidal

It's not about knowing who you are. It's about thinkin you got there without takin anything with you. Your notions about startin over. or anybody's. You dont start over. That's what it's about. Every step you take is forever. You can't make it go away. None of it. ~ Cormac McCarthy

Beware, gentle knight - the greatest monster of them all is reason. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

I could point out that it isn't always easy knowing who you are and what you want, because then you have no excuse for not trying to get it. ~ David Levithan

Finally Exi spoke. "There are some important things to remember always, no matter how hard life presses at you. One of these things is that wherever you are, and no matter for how long, there must be a home to hold you. You cannot know who you are unless you are contained in some way that gives you shape. Otherwise you are like a small wind, or like water losing itself in sand." He paused thoughtfully, looking at us, who had all stopped to listen. "You see," he continued, "at any place or time we have no way of knowing if we will be there a day or a week. We must let our destiny come to us. In one sense this is always true. Therefore it is needful for each of us to be defined-to live, not just wait to live. Do you understand? ~ Sheila Moon

The greatest power comes from love, from knowing who you are and standing proudly in it. ~ Sam J. Miller

I believe in knowing who you are but without limiting yourself to your own expectation of who you are. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices. ~ Benjamin Franklin

An amazing thing happens when you stop seeking approval and validation: You find it. People are naturally drawn like magnets to those who know who they are and cannot be shaken! ~ Mandy Hale

Replace risk with certainty. You have no worries about losing control if you aren't threatened. Once you are certain about yourself, external threats don't exist anymore, because threat is the same as fear, and knowing who you are is a fearless state. Who you are is the true self. Expanded awareness takes you closer to this true self; therefore, fear decreases. When that happens, the issue of control lessens. In its place you experience a state of increased freedom. ~ Deepak Chopra

An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are. He has to tell, because nobody else in the world can tell, what it is like to be alive. All I've ever wanted to do is tell that, I'm not trying to solve anybody's problems, not even my own. I'm just trying to outline what the problems are.

I want to be stretched, shook up, to overreach myself, and to make you feel that way too. ~ James Baldwin

I learned from them that genuine decency and professional competitiveness weren't mutually exclusive. In fact, true integrity, a sense of knowing who you are and being guided by your own clear sense of right and wrong is a kind of secret weapon. They trusted in their own instincts. They treated people with respect. And over time, the company came to represent the values they live by. ~ Robert Iger

I'm so sorry I have this. I can't stand the thought of how much worse this is going to get. I can't stand the thought of looking at you someday, and this face I love, and not knowing who you are."
She traced the outline of his jaw and chin and the creases of his sorely out of practice laugh lines with her hands. She wiped the sweat from his forehead and the tears from his eyes.
"I can barely breathe when I think about it. But we have to think about it. I don't know how much longer I have to know you. We need to talk about what's going to happen."
He tipped his glass back, swallowed until there was nothing left, and then sucked a little more from the ice. Then he looked at her with a scared and profound sorrow in his eyes that she'd never seen there before.
"I don't know if I can. ~ Lisa Genova

I'm everything that you're not. ~ Ahmed Mostafa

You're so beautiful," said Alice. "I'm afraid of looking at you and not knowing who you are."
"I think that even if you don't know who I am someday, you'll still know that I love you."
"What if I see you, and I don't know that you're my daughter, and I don't know that you love me?"
"Then, I'll tell you that I do, and you'll believe me. ~ Lisa Genova

If you know who you are then your ego feels safe instead of fearful, and is more open to exploration. ~ Julia Woodman

The best advise is to take it all as if it had been your intention. ~ Joseph Campbell

I can't stand the thought of looking at you someday, this face I love, and not knowing who you are. ~ Lisa Genova

The reason for her love of maps. It's half worn away, the dot, and the red color is bleached. Yet it's there, flung down there on the map halfway between the lower left corner and its center, and next to it is written, "You are here."
Sometimes it's easier to go on living, not even knowing who you are, when at least you know precisely where you are while you go on not knowing ~ Fredrik Backman

The only true happiness lies in knowing who you are ... and making peace with it. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

Learning to live what you're born with is the process, the involvement, the making of a life. ~ Diane Wakoski

You guys want to get a brostitute?"
"Prostidudes!"
I laughed at them along with everyone else, the whole time knowing the truth about myself, that I wished I were so brave.
Not knowing who you are is a terrible feeling.
I've been called a "sellout" many times in life for the choices I've made in my musical career. But this experience, that moment--that's what it feels like to truly sell out. ~ Laura Jane Grace

realy i wish i knew me better. you knew that feel when you are motionless and your fear entwined with your regret ? a feeling of sadness, repentance, or disappointment over something that has happened or been done, i realy want to tell you how do i feel inside, but this feeling in me it sends me to 7 sky high, i always tried to hold it on, it makes me feel so strong after, may i look weirdo,i've been thinking too much and i've been asking and talking to myself like that "its there any point in making plans? ~ Marouane LAASSAFAR

I think part of maturity is knowing who you are. ~ Rob Lowe

Defeating fear of otherness means knowing who you are and what you're trying to accomplish and leveraging that otherness to our benefit. Knowing I'd never be invited into smoke-filled rooms or to the golf course, I instead requested individual meetings with political colleagues where I asked questions and learned about their interests, creating a similar sense of camaraderie. In business, I take full advantage of opportunities afforded to minorities but then always offer to share my learning with other groups that have similar needs - expanding the circle rather than closing myself off. Like most who are underestimated, I have learned to over-perform and find soft but key ways to take credit. Because, ultimately, leadership and power require the confidence to effectively wield both. ~ Stacey Abrams

Identity the greatest thing that ever happened to all humanity on earth. Identity the source of knowing who you are and where you come from. Identity the source of understanding yourself and makes you proud to be the person who you are, the daughter, the son of the Most High God. ~ Euginia Herlihy

A body can't prosper if a person don't know who they are. That makes you poor as a pea, not knowing who you are inside. That's worse than being anything in the world on the outside. ~ James McBride

Freedom from obsession is not about something you do; it's about knowing who you are. It's about recognizing what sustains you and what exhausts you. What you love and what you think you love because you believe you can't have it. (p. 163) ~ Geneen Roth

Imagine looking in the mirror and not knowing who you are. An empty face staring back. No one. We rarely think about how much air is around us until we can't breathe. We always imagine what it would be like to be someone else, but when we do so, it's with the guise that beneath it all, we know who we really are. Take that away, and who are we? ~ Tal M. Klein

The concept, the label, is perpetually hiding from us all the nature of the real. ~ Joyce Cary

Authentic freedom is actually the freedom of knowing who you are, why you are here, your purpose in life and where you are going when you leave here. ~ Wayne Dyer

I don't want to be a passenger in my own life. ~ Diane Ackerman

[I]t is through knowing who you are not that the greatest obstacle to truly knowing yourself is removed. ~ Eckhart Tolle

My definition of freedom is knowing who you are, and then being it. No matter what anyone else is doing. And naked parties of course. ~ Pink

Fact is, knowing what you want and knowing who you are ... those are two separate things. One is complicated. The other isn't. You're trying to take something simple and make it hard, and there's enough hard things in life without you adding more for yourself. ~ Cora Carmack

When the state of observation is sustained, it changes the quality of your biological structure. The nerves are steady, the chemical system has an equilibrium, and there is relaxation, equipoise. You live in the clarity of knowing who you are. ~ Vimala Thakar

Vision is knowing who you are, where you're going, and what will guide your journey. ~ Ken Blanchard

The secret to feeling attractive, and to being attractive, is the confidence that comes from knowing who you are and what you believe in. ~ Diane Von Furstenberg

I may not know where you come from, but that's not the same as not knowing who you are. ~ Cameron Dokey

True beauty is knowing who you are and believing in yourself. Happy people know their purpose, have courage to fight for it and strength to keep going. ~ Rita Ora

Verily, I do not want to be like the ropemakers: They drag out their threads and always walk backwards. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The first single I released, 'Anything Goes,' is probably one of the best-written songs I've heard in a long time. It takes somebody knowing who you are. Sometimes writers know who an artist is and what they want to say and how they sing. I will never be opposed to cutting a song if somebody nails my life and what I'm going through. ~ Randy Houser

If you've decided who you want to be," Glenn said, "Accept all of it. The good, the bad, the ambiguous. Vulnerabilities and strengths. The anger, that's part of it. The fear for people you care about, that's a strength too. Doesn't feel very good while you're experiencing it, but it's a well you can tap. And with luck, knowing who you are means not having to waste time and effort on putting up a facade. Maybe that extra time and effort you have at your disposal will make the difference. ~ Wildbow

You come into this world, not knowing who you are, and sometimes, if you live long enough, you go out not knowing who you are. ~ Jonathan Winters

Confidence, not cockiness. Knowing who you are is confidence. Cockiness is knowing who you are and pushing it down everyone's throat. ~ Mila Kunis

Most truth's are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit. ~ Edward R. Murrow

Because orgasmic sex would lead to women's autonomy, knowing who you are and what we want: Women are not going to follow what some jackass tells us we must do. Not all women are going to get married, be monogamous and raise a family. It will destroy the current social structure based on a sexual double standard that we're currently living under. ~ Betty Dodson

Don't be afraid of who you're not.. Be afraid of never knowing who you are. Defend your authentic self. ~ Karen Laffey

Being happy with less is what makes a great human being, not a big house with marble floors, or everyone knowing who you are. ~ Yanni

Knowing who you are is half the peace of accepting yourself. ~ Christina Engela

The most important thing is to be whatever you are without shame. ~ Rod Steiger

To be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

How well do we actually know ourselves? Can we dare to say that we really know someone, like really, really know them? ~ Nico J. Genes

Humility: The realization of our dependence on God. I have always had strong feelings about that word regardless of what anyone's background might be. One of the common denominators of greatness is acknowledging that dependence. As power comes from Charity, power also comes from knowing who you are, a divine offspring of a divine being. ~ Hyrum W. Smith

If you can be absolutely comfortable with not knowing who you are, then what's left is who you are
the Being behind the human, a field of pure potentiality rather than something that is already defined. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Knowing who you are begins in the mind. ~ Bebe Moore Campbell

Maybe knowing where you belong is not equal to knowing who you are. ~ Jodi Picoult

I think understanding your life as a story is a really terrific way of kind of knowing where you are and knowing who you are. ~ Donald Miller

The snake that cannot shed its skin perishes. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Each person's only hope for improving his lot rests on recognizing the true nature of his or her basic personality, surrendering to it, and becoming who he or she really is. ~ Sheldon B. Kopp

Reality is hard to see through the adrenaline rush of a new love. It's easy to project your hopes and dreams onto a relationship when it's new and exciting, but the truth is that it is only in knowing who you are at your core and staying true to yourself that you can possibly see the difference between passion and real love. ~ Jennifer Lopez

I was brought up to believe that how I saw myself was more important than how others saw me. ~ Anwar Sadat

There is an elegance to knowing who you are that will help you unfold a sweet tolerance for yourself. Knowing and liking yourself will then allow you to be kind and compassionate to others, deeply aware that they want the same things: love and contentment. ~ Margaux Bergen

What's it gonna be like, dying? To go to sleep and never, never, never wake up.

Well, a lot of things it's not gonna be like. It's not going to be like being buried alive. It's not going to be like being in the darkness forever.

I tell you what - it's going to be as if you never had existed at all. Not only you, but everything else as well. That just there was never anything, there's no one to regret it - and there's no problem.

Well, think about that for a while - it's kind of a weird feeling when you really think about it, when you really imagine.

[The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are ] ~ Alan W. Watts

You think you can go into all those auditions not knowing who you are? The work came after I found my sense of self - when I wasn't so manic and desperate. ~ Jenifer Lewis

To live is to be born every minute. Death occurs when birth stops. ~ Erich Fromm

A lot of people never find the person God created them to be. They're too busy trying to live up to other people's expectations, or they try to create themselves in the image of a person they admire or envy. Just because we respect someone or think their life might be more exciting than ours doesn't mean God created us to be just like them. Sometimes we have to ignore the people in our lives so we can hear the voice of God ... But making a decision to put someone else first out of love isn't the same thing as putting them first out of fear. Because you're afraid they won't love you if you don't act the way they might want you to. ~ Nancy Mehl

Here's the thing. No matter how many possessions you have, you never feel secure. As soon as you get one thing, there's always something else you "need". And also, you have the added problem of worrying about losing the stuff you already have. Some of the most insecure people I know are multimillionaires. True security can only come from knowing who you are and what you are here to do. ~ Karen Kingston

Your gender identity is who you are. Sexual identity is who you bounce that off of. ~ Andrew Solomon

Discovery of purpose is a continuous activity, and revelation of it is an ongoing process ... The most fortunate people on earth are those who have found a calling that is bigger than they are, a reason for living that moves them and fills their lives with constant passion, aliveness, and growth. Your soul's true purpose is to be the love that you are! ~ Glenda Green

Where has God promised to fulfill our every whim according to the minutia of our earthly desires? Where has He promised to keep us from suffering or disappointment? Things He did not spare His own Son? You were raised in one of the finest manors in the borough, by a man and woman who could not have loved you better. You have been given the best education, the best of everything. You are of sound mind and limb, and yet you dare to rail at God? I for one grow weary of it. Now leave off simpering like an ungrateful brat and make something of this new life you've been given. ~ Julie Klassen

Question not who you are, we are all created by one God. ~ Abdulazeez Henry Musa

I think you're talking shit. You think we don't all feel like that? Like we're crazy, like we're not a real person, like we don't exist? Everyone feels that way sometimes. I can remember talking to you when you lost your bag. So what? You can't remember and that's not a bad thing. It doesn't make me better than you. I'm a stranger to you, but here's what I see:
I see a girl who has suffered a terrible damage to her brain. Someone who, it seems, is shut away by her parents to keep her safe. But inside there is a vibrant person, a traveler, and her memory of this boy Drake has propelled her into action. I think, Flora, that you came here not to find Drake but to find yourself. It wasn't Drake--he's an unlikely romantic hero, really--it was you. Didn't you come here, perhaps, because you heard him talking about the place he was going to, and it called to you?"
I don't know what to say. I don't say anything.
" Our come from Oslo, and Svalbard called me, even though I'm not really the rugged adventurous type. Like you, I had to come. Some of us are meant to be here. We need this place...We need to be small specks in wild nature, by the pole. The midnight sun. The midday darkness. The northern lights. It called to you, Flora, and you answered. You overcame everything, and you came here, alone. You are the bravest person I've ever met. ~ Emily Barr

On Friday night, you stole the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you will not have my hate. I don't know who you are and I don't want to know. You are dead souls. If that God for whom you blindly kill made us in his image, every bullet in my wife's body will have been a wound in his heart.

So, no, I will not give you the satisfaction of hating you. That is what you want, but to respond to your hate with anger would be to yield to the same ignorance that made you what you are. You want me to be scared, to see my fellow citizens through suspicious eyes, to sacrifice my freedom for security. You have failed. I will not change.

I saw her this morning. At last, after days and nights of waiting. She was as beautiful as when she went out on Friday evening, as beautiful as when I fell madly in love with her more than twelve years ago. Of course I'm devastated by grief, I grant you that small victory, but it will be short-lived. I know that she will be with us every day and that we will see each other in the paradise of free souls to which you will never have access.

There are only two of us – my son and myself – but we are stronger than all the armies of the world. Anyway, I don't have any more time to waste on you, as I must go to see Melvil, who is waking up from his nap. He is only seventeen months old. He will eat his snack as he does every day, then we will play as we do every day, and all his life this ~ Antoine Leiris

Religion is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life, before you're born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you're dead. A celestial North Korea. Who wants this to be true? Who but a slave desires such a ghastly fate? I've been to North Korea. It has a dead man as its president, Kim Jong-Il is only head of the party and head of the army. He's not head of the state. That office belongs to his deceased father, Kim Il-Sung. It's a necrocracy, a thanatocracy. It's one short of a trinity I might add. The son is the reincarnation of the father. It is the most revolting and utter and absolute and heartless tyranny the human species has ever evolved. But at least you can f#$%ing die and leave North Korea! ~ Christopher Hitchens

To the people who love you, you are beautiful already. This is not because they're blind to your shortcomings but because they so clearly see your soul. Your shortcomings then dim by comparison. The people who care about you are willing to let you be imperfect and beautiful, too. (20) ~ Victoria Moran

In their moral justification, the argument of the lesser evil has played a prominent role. If you are confronted with two evils, the argument runs, it is your duty to opt for the lesser one, whereas it is irresponsible to refuse to choose altogether. Its weakness has always been that those who choose the lesser evil forget quickly that they chose evil. ~ Hannah Arendt

Not everyone who sleeps, wakes up the next day. You are blessed.Be happy. ~ Manoj Arora

The woman [Cadsuane] looked at the battered tea things as if she had all the time in the world. "Now you know," she said at last, calm as ever, "that I know your future, and your present. The Light's mercy fades to nothing for a man who can channel. Some see that and believe the Light denies those men. I do not. Have you begun to hear voices, yet?"
"What do you mean?" he asked slowly. He could feel Lews Therin listening.
[...]
"Some men who can channel begin to hear voices." She spoke almost absently, frowning at the flattened sphere of silver and gold. "It is a part of the madness. Voices conversing with them, telling them what to do." The teapot drifted gently to the floor by her feet. "Have you heard any?"
[...]
"I will ask the questions," Rand said firmly. "You seem to forget. I am the Dragon Reborn." You are real, aren't you? he wondered. There was no answer. Lews Therin? Sometimes the man did not answer, but Aes Sedai always drew him. Lews Therin? He was not mad; the voice was real, not imagination. Not madness. A sudden desire to laugh did not help.
Cadsuane sighed. "You are a young man who has little idea where he is going or why, or what lies ahead. You seem overwrought. Perhaps we can speak when you are more settled. Have you any objection to my taking Merana and Annoura away for a little while? I've seen neither in quite some time."
Rand gaped at her. She swooped in, insulted him, threatened him, casually announced she knew about ~ Robert Jordan

The scientists not only sanctified human feelings, but also found an excellent evolutionary reason to do so. After Darwin, biologists began explaining that feelings are complex algorithms honed by evolution to help animals make correct decisions. Our love, our fear and our passion aren't some nebulous spiritual phenomena good only for composing poetry. Rather, they encapsulate millions of years of practical wisdom. When you read the Bible you are getting advice from a few priests and rabbis who lived in ancient Jerusalem. In contrast, when you listen to your feelings, you follow an algorithm that evolution has developed for millions of years, and that withstood the harshest quality-control tests of natural selection. Your feelings are the voice of millions of ancestors, each of whom managed to survive and reproduce in an unforgiving environment. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

But Agon did not force this prison upon you. He is the jailer of many, but you are the one who possesses the keys to your own cell. He may hunt you, but he did not lock you away here, nor force upon you the choices you have made these last few years. Your prison is in your mind, where you limit yourself, where you take on the voice of the Beast and speak to yourself the way he would if he could only get to you. But he does not need to if you will do the work for him. Fear is what locked you away, Ifferon, and fear is a tool of Agon. When you fear you open the gate that lets him into your mind. His greatest weapon is fear, for it drives strong men to madness. So why then be afraid? ~ Dean F. Wilson

Be what you must, because who you are is all of us. ~ Ross Caligiuri

Your body produces a lot less testosterone each and every single year no matter who you are. We are all human, nobody is super human. ~ Ronnie Coleman

Who are you?" Rosemary said in amazement. She had never seen men like these before. Cloaks of green and brown fell from their broad shoulders and every hand gripped a round shield an evil-looking spear. Beneath the thick yellow hair, eyes glinted hard and wild.
One of the men rode near and peered down at Rosemary. Unlike the rest, he was clean-shaven and pleasant-looking, and she was surprised to see that he was no older than herself. Nonetheless his blond-red hair was bound with golden circlet and he was obviously the leader. He suddenly smiled at her and his eyes were bright with humour and curiosity.
"It is hardly your place to question us, girl."
He reached out and touched her hair.
"Hair like the night...and such strange clothing. But you are fair-faced. Whose slave might you be? ~ O.R. Melling

If what you achieve today is equal to what you achieved yesterday, then you are at a loss. And if what you have achieved today is less than what you achieved yesterday, then you are deprived from the Almighty's blessings. Anyone who is not progressing, is in fact regressing, and if you are regressing, then you might as well be dead. ~ Ali Ibn Abi Talib

It's not about who they think you are, it's about who you know you are. ~ Kathryne Guillerm

Remember like where you've come from. Know who you are. ~ Harry Styles

You are who you are. Don't be ashamed of yourself. At all. Surround yourself with people who cheer you on. ~ Jessica Park

She knew by some sure instinct that when you had come right up against it, as Jeff had, you had no use for people who advised you to brace up, or who pointed out bright spots. She know that there is nothing so infuriating, when you are bearing all you can, as shallow, unrealistic optimism from someone who has not experienced the same disaster. ~ Elswyth Thane