Many Selves Quotes

In our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever ... listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, It is all one vast awakened thing. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It's a dream already ended. ~ Jack Kerouac

I have had to give up so much, so many selves and lives already. I have grown up and out of the rubble of my old lives, of things and people I have cared for ... ~ Lauren Oliver

Every one, as you ought to know, has a beast-self - and a bird-self, and a stupid fish-self, ay, and a creeping serpent-self too - which it takes a deal of crushing to kill! In truth he has also a tree-self and a crystal-self, and I don't know how many selves more - all to get into harmony. You can tell what sort a man is by his creature that comes oftenest to the front. ~ George MacDonald

As we go within the self, we discover that all the voices of our past lives are still there. As we peel ourselves, which is a process very much like peeling an onion, we discover that there are many selves within the self. ~ Frederick Lenz

We are many, many selves. We're not just a finite being. The selves don't necessarily speak in words. But they are you. ~ Frederick Lenz

I was already dozing off in the shade, dreaming that the rustling trees were my many selves explaining themselves all at the same time so that I could not make out a single word. My life was a beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding, always on the verge! Think of it! ~ Charles Simic

As our great American philosopher William James has said, an individual has as many selves as there are individuals whom he knows. There isn't the slightest hypocrisy in this, but only pragmatic ethics. For not all persons are worthy of our acquaintance, and not all persons require equal time from us. You save your most valuable 'personality' for the most valuable persons you know. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Consumption is not bad, but when done at excessive proportions it turns out to be not just bad, but downright deadly for the self as well as the society, as the society itself is a collective functional expression of many selves. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Maybe Shakespeare was right. Maybe all the world was a stage. Maybe without the act everything would fall apart. The key to happiness wasn't being yourself, because what did that even mean? Everyone had many selves. No. The key to happiness is finding the lie that suits you best. ~ Matt Haig

We all carry many selves, but in the end, these are just phantoms of possibility, nothing more than ghosts of broken destinies. ~ A. Lee Martinez

You thought that you were the permanent part of your own experience, the net that held it all together - until you discovered that there were many selves, dissolving into one another so quickly over time that the buildings and the trees and even the pavement turned out to have more substance than you did. ~ Nell Freudenberger

As a human being you are capable of a higher level of perception than you may now be cognizant of. You are not really who you think you are. There are many selves inside you, not just one. ~ Frederick Lenz

But remember, my reader, whom I hope to have travel far with me through time and space remember, please, my reader, that I have thought much on these matters that through bloody nights and sweats of dark that lasted years long I have been alone with my many selves to consult and contemplate my many selves. ~ Jack London

If you dig deeply, you will find that you are not a singular self but that there are many selves, many voices within you. The more conscious you are of those selves and the more you let them find expression through you, the more complete you will be. ~ Frederick Lenz

The core of my personality consists of many selves. ~ Hans Bender

Once I knew, then I forgot. It was as if I had fallen asleep in a field only to discover at waking that a grove of trees had grown up around me.
"Doubt nothing, believe everything," was my friend's idea of metaphysics, although his brother ran away with his wife. He still bought her a rose every day, sat in the empty house for the next twenty years talking to her about the weather.
I was already dozing off in the shade, dreaming that the rustling trees were my many selves explaining themselves all at the same time so that I could not make out a single word. My life was a beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding, always on the verge! Think of it!
My friend's empty house with every one of its windows lit. The dark trees multiplying all around it. ~ Charles Simic

It makes sense for us to want a symptom, an 'it' to go away. If we begin to sense that we are made up of many selves ... then we might instead say, 'the anxious part of me is really suffering. I wonder how we might help her'.

There is often a palpable softening as we gaze on a person inside who has value apart from the distressing symptom.

We also may sense more clearly that this experience isn't all of us, but belongs to a part who has had encounters that give this anxiety context and meaning.

The change of pronoun, granting personhood, may move us into a more right-centric way of perceiving, which also opens us to a more both/and perspective of broad acceptance, arouses our warm curiosity, expands receptivity to the present moment. It can really be a very profound change. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don't worry. It's all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don't know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It's a dream already ended. There's nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born ~ Jack Kerouac

You have so many autumns: so many selves, waiting to be shaken down. ~ Zhou Mengdie

You want to lash out at the parts of your self that seem to hold you back. At moments like that, it's important to be able to sit down and speak gently within yourself, as if saying a prayer or reading a poem. Whichever part of you is unhappy, reassure it: accept your many selves, and allow them to speak both to you and to each other. ~ William Sieghart

The task of remembering one's many selves is a difficult liberatory task. ~ María Lugones