Narcissism Quotes

When you are 18, 19, 20, you're used to being photographed all the time, in a certain way. So, the narcissism becomes almost out of control. And the way that young women are photographed, they become addicted to this feedback of the image. ~ Marianne Faithfull

You don't believe that your friend could ever do anything great. You despise yourself in secret, even – no, especially – when you stand on your dignity; and since you despise yourself, you are unable to respect your friend. You can't bring yourself to believe that anyone you have sat at table with, or shared a house with, is capable of great achievement. That is why all great men have been solitary. It is hard to think in your company, little man. One can only think 'about' you, or 'for your benefit', not 'with' you, for you stifle all big, generous ideas. ~ Wilhelm Reich

Pragmatism, consumerism, self-help moralism, and narcissism are simply the symptoms of a disease that is, at its heart, theological: ~ Michael S. Horton

Narcissists provoke a fight, then blame you and then get mad at you when you get angry. ~ Tracy Malone

The narcissist, cut off from her spirituality, is one who spends unquantifiable energy supporting and maintaining and utterly and completely fake self, in denial of one's true self, trading it for glamour to compensate for a core of being that is simply wracked,a deep dark cold void; using and abusing others to maintain and sustain the false state. this fake self is contrived in absentia from the connectivity that even the most unaware take for granted. The narcissist doesn't see other human beings. ~ Stacey Scott Mae

They valued themselves. Once, they knew God valued them. Then they began to think there was no God, only blind forces. So they valued themselves, they loved themselves and attended to their natures - ~ A.S. Byatt

Without manners, violence enters the room. Without the decency of imagination, narcissism leads. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

There's the appeal of the young thief who robs you, and climbs back down off your cloud. It's possible to love that boy, in a wistful and hopeless way. It's possible to love his greed and narcissism, to grant him that which is beyond your own capacities: heedlessness, cockiness, a self-devotion so pure it borders on the divine. ~ Michael Cunningham

Like the medieval heretics that Norm Cohn wrote about in The Pursuit of the Millennium, the Beats cultivated an extreme narcissism that bordered on self-deification and that 'liberated them from all restraints' and allowed them to experience every impulse as a 'divine command'. What Norman Podhoretz observed of Ginsberg was also true of the Beats generally: they 'conjured up a world of complete freedom from the limits imposed by [bourgeois] responsibilities'. Podhoretz added, 'It was a world that promised endless erotic possibility together with the excitements of an expanded consciousness constantly open to new dimensions of being: more adventure, more sex, more intensity, more life'. Alas, the promise was illusory. Instead of an 'expanded consciousness', the Beats purchased madness, ruination, and, for many, an early death. Their attack on bourgeois responsibility led not to greater freedom but to greater chaos. The erotic paradise they envisioned turned out to be rife with misery. ~ Roger Kimball

It's also that comedians don't have the kind of narcissism that actors have. They're writers who perform their own material. It's more interesting. And they're sexy because they risk more. Stand-up comedians risk more than anyone. ~ Rachel Weisz

I'm battling with keeping my narcissism at bay as it is, so Twitter was not a good thing for that. ~ Joel Kinnaman

EGO stands for Exclude God's Opinion. We think we know everything. Do we really know everything about the working of physical, mental and spiritual world? Not even a tenth! ~ Maddy Malhotra

I bet it gets pretty lonely with only your ego for company. ~ Alexandra Bracken

The ethics of plagiarism have turned into the narcissism of small differences: because journalism cannot own up to its heavily derivative nature, it must enforce originality on the level of the sentence. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people. ~ Andre Dubus

Family doesn't mean they are like the Waltons. No contact is for you and it makes you stronger then you know. The hardest thing for an empath is walking away from family, we always hoped for the best. ~ Tracy Malone

There is no one story that will replace the American dream, but stories
like this one - and there are thousands - can inform the myth or myths
we create for building and preserving the next culture. In order to do so,
however, we must recognize that we cannot live without myth, for it is an
essential part of our humanity. If we attempt to do so - given the fact that
something in us needs myth - we
will only create more myths that echo
the American dream - with themes of heroism, greed, entitlement, narcissism,
exploitation, exceptionalism, and myriad abuses of power. How we prepare for and navigate collapse will provide the raw materials for the myths we make and will live by in a postindustrial world. ~ Carolyn Baker

I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity. ~ Diana Vreeland

The man reeks of mental illness. I can taste his pathology... Goes well with my palette. ~ Juditta Salem

If we are inspired only by literature that reflects our own interests, all reading becomes a form of narcissism. ~ Terry Eagleton

Narcissism makes people incapable of looking beyond themselves, beyond their own desires and needs. ~ Pope Francis

Often times leaders can become so content with delegating others to find solutions to the problems that they are oblivious to the fact that they're part of it. ~ VaeEshia Ratcliff Davis

The balls it took to proclaim a creative profession, the narcissism. ~ Lauren Groff

I find that kind of "look at me" narcissism terribly inconsiderate. If you need attention that badly, set yourself on fire. ~ Joan Rivers

INTPs seem more inclined toward cerebral narcissism than most other types. While Vaknin sees the narcissist's chance of recovery as relatively slim, I tend to disagree, especially for those with milder cases. In my experience, as INTPs mature and develop, their need for ego affirmation gradually diminishes and is supplanted by a healthier sense of self-worth. ~ A.J. Drenth

The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president - with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln. ~ Barack Obama

The clarity of gender makes possible the human dialectic. Let the lines of balanced tension go slack and the structure dissolves into the ooze of androgyny and narcissism. ~ Bill Vaughan

Love doesn't die a natural death. Love has to be killed, either by neglect or narcissism. Those guilty of these two crimes of the heart always hide behind excuses convenient; too ashamed, lacking in integrity and courage to face the truth. To them, it is always something other than their own actions, desires and self-importance that dictate circumstances. For these people, so blind to truth, true love can never be fully experienced for they have never really given of themselves all that they are. ~ Frank Salvato

I didn't know what narcissism was until I beheld my own naricssus. ~ Charles Kuralt

Among all these stupid pretty women she had such a sense of power, of knowing almost everything better than they did. ~ Edith Wharton

Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have , so to speak , pawned a part of their narcissism. ~ Sigmund Freud

Don't talk about yourself; it will be done when you leave. ~ Wilson Mizner

Everything happens because there was a lesson you needed to learn. Move on from the messenger they were not the lesson. Find the lesson and you will never repeat it again. ~ Tracy A Malone

I think writers are the most narcissistic people. Well, I musn't say this, I like many of them, a great many of my friends are writers. ~ Sylvia Plath

Nothing is ever enough. This is far beyond garden-variety narcissism; Donald is not simply weak, his ego is a fragile thing that must be bolstered every moment because he knows deep down that he is nothing of what he claims to be. ~ Mary L. Trump

When we find that God's ways always coincide with our own ways, it's time to question who we're really worshipping, God or ourselves. The latter moves the nature of godliness from the King to our servant to a slave, a deduction into the realm of selfhood and then the lower, slavehood. It's a spiritual mathematics in that men who need God in his godhood are humble yet strong and spiritually ambitious while men who need a slave in their selfhood are ultimately paralyzed and will remain paralyzed. ~ Criss Jami

Love yourself' the social horde spouts from on high, mere moments later they frown at a bypassing narcissist. ~ Kevin Focke

Don't let fear of your unknown future paralyze you. You get to write the next chapter so get out your crayon. Dream it plan how you will get there and build it. ~ Tracy A Malone

For some, life may be a playground to undermine the brainwaves of others or simply a vainglorious game with an armory of theatrics, illustrating only bleak self-deception, haughty narcissism and dim deficiency in empathy. ("Another empty room") ~ Erik Pevernagie

To love others you've got to love yourself, but I love myself too much I've got no place for others. ~ Ahmed Mostafa

Narcissus weeps to find that his Image does not return his love. ~ Mason Cooley

As a counterpoint to sociopathy, the condition of narcissism is particularly interesting and instructive. Narcissism is, in a metaphorical sense, one half of what sociopathy is. Even clinical narcissists are able to feel most emotions are strongly as anyone else does, from guilt to sadness to desperate love and passion. The half that is missing is the crucial ability to understand what other people are feeling. Narcissism is a failure not of conscience but of empathy, which is the capacity to perceive emotions in others and so react to them appropriately. The poor narcissist cannot see past his own nose, emotionally speaking, and as with the Pillsbury Doughboy, any input from the outside will spring back as if nothing had happened. Unlike sociopaths, narcissists often are in psychological pain, and may sometimes seek psychotherapy. When a narcissist looks for help, one of the underlying issues is usually that, unbeknownst to him, he is alienating his relationships on account of his lack of empathy with others, and is feeling confused, abandoned, and lonely. He misses the people he loves, and is ill-equipped to get them back. Sociopaths, in contrast, do not care about other people, and so do not miss them when they are alienated or gone, except as one might regret the absence of a useful appliance that one has somehow lost. ~ Martha Stout

I was trapped in an awful spiral of insecure narcissism ~ Amy Poehler

Maybe a certain amount of narcissism is as essential to an actress as muscles are to a football lineman. ~ Velda Johnston

If I'm my biggest fan, the only person in the stadium is probably me. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Our enemy is [. . .] and all people like him, who never question their motives or doubt their desires. They are put on this earth to cause misery, because what they take so freely for themselves comes always at great cost to others. ~ Susan Rivers

So our narcissism has bared forth an unflattering nakedness that shames our species. But this is humanity. This is our condition. ~ Zack Love

Narcissism: It's Primal. No Productive Control of Energy: Seeks constant fresh sources of stimulation and is highly energized running from human-object to human-object, activity to activity, but does not accomplish anything and never evolves or learns from activities and the many people recycled through. ~ Lynna Kivela

Although every country thought itself superior in its own way, was there ever a country that coined so many "super" terms from the federal bank of its narcissism, was not only superconfident but also truly superpowerful, that would not be satisfied until it locked every nation of the world into a full nelson and made it cry Uncle Sam? ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen

It would be pathological narcissism to assume that that person had to live how I live. ~ Bryan Fuller

It is not worthiness the Narcissist feels when he or she communicates "I deserve." Narcissistic entitlement has nothing to do with genuine self-esteem, which comes from real accomplishment and being true to one's own ideals. Individuals who feel entitled to respect without giving it in return, or who expect rewards without effort, or a life free of discomfort, are forfeiting any power they might have to shape their own destiny. They assume an essentially passive role and count on outside forces to make them happy. When what they expect doesn't happen, they feel impotent. By claiming entitlement, they demand to live in the fantasy world of the one-year-old child. No wonder they're enraged.

Entitlement and the rage that comes with it are tip-offs to the arrest in healthy development that is narcissism. ~ Sandy Hotchkiss

Still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.

Narcissism, the unstable self, the fractured ego, Maud thought, who am I? A matrix for a susurration of texts and codes?It was both a pleasant and an unpleasant idea, this requirement that she think of herself as intermittent and partial. There was the question of the awkward body. The skin, the breath, the eyes, the hair, their history, which did seem to exist. ~ A.S. Byatt

Where there is much pride or much vanity, there will also be much revengefulness.

- On Psychology ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Politicians generally act as if there is no cost to reconnecting with voters by building new New Deals. But the whole exercise of writing law out of New Deal nostalgia is a form of national narcissism. Call it New Deal narcissism. ~ Amity Shlaes

Narcissism and self-deception are survival mechanisms without which many of us might just jump off a bridge. ~ Todd Solondz

Grandiosity is when we are wrapped up in winning life's false contest. This happens only when we live to impress the abusive parents in our heads, not when we are soberly and philosophically working to advance civilization. ~ Steven Franssen

When you can identify the insecurities inside the person that is hurting you then you can begin to heal. It isn't about you. It is about their past. ~ Shannon L. Alder

I am who I am! Weird , impatient, imperfect! I think it's good ! ~ Gunjan Bugde

We react constantly through life. Breathing, noticing, thinking, swallowing, feeling, and moving are all reactions. Most reactions are not really observed because they are commensurate with their stimuli, but a triggered reaction stands out because it is out of sync with what is actually taking place. When we are triggered, we have unresolved pain from the past that is expressed in the present. The present is not seen on its own terms. The real experience of the present is denied. Although reacting to the past in the present may make sense within the triggered person's logic system, it can have detrimental effects on those around them who are not the source of the pain being expressed, but are being punished nonetheless. They are acting in the present, but are being made accountable for past events they did not cause and cannot heal. The one being falsely blamed is also a person, and this burden may hurt their life. The person being triggered is suffering, but they often make other people suffer as well. There is narcissism to Supremacy, but there is also a narcissism to Trauma, when a person cannot see how others are being affected. Although the triggered person may be made narcissistic and self-involved by the enormity of their pain, both parties are in fact equally important. And it is the job of the surrounding communities to insist on this. ~ Sarah Schulman

It might look like your enemies are winning, but be ready God is about to flip the script. ~ Shannon L. Alder

The hated man is the result of his hater's pride rather than his hater's conscience. ~ Criss Jami

There's a definition of narcissism that when a parent is narcissistic, instead of the child seeing himself reflected in the mother's face and the mother's joy, the child of the narcissistic parent feels like, 'What can I do to make her okay, to make her happy?' ~ Susan Sullivan

Walter had never liked cats. They'd seemed to him the sociopaths of the pet world, a species domesticated as an evil necessary for the control of rodents and subsequently fetishized the way unhappy countries fetishize their militaries, saluting the uniforms of killers as cat owners stroke their animals' lovely fur and forgive their claws and fangs. He'd never seen anything in a cat's face but simpering incuriosity and self-interest; you only had to tease one with a mouse-toy to see where it's true heart lay ... cats were all about using people ~ Jonathan Franzen

If it has anything to do with me, it has nothing to do with sacrifice. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Who told you that everything you think is right? When did you realise that everything you believe is set in stone? Can you choose the correct answer from below? Pick the right feeling – the right answer!
| 4 + 4 = 8 | 2 x 4 = 8 | 6 + 2 = 8 | 3 + 5 = 8 |
They are all correct, aren't they? So how can you feel that everything you know is the correct answer to life and, thus, you are validated to play God? ~ Sijdah Hussain

The popular advice is we just need more confidence, more assurance, more chutzpah. But the issue with confidence is how we try to achieve it. Too often we try to win high self-regard in cheap ways. We undermine others, or we compare our achievements to those of the weakest around us. We conform to cultural norms, believing that what society values is what we value and that how society defines success is how we must define success. These cheap self-confidence tricks are unsustainable and can lead to narcissism during good times and depression during hard times. ~ Rich Karlgaard

It won't matter if you turned cartwheels in bed for him and performed circusworthy stunts. ~ Serena Prince

A hit man's character is defined above all by narcissism, that complex mix of egotism and self-hatred. ~ Suketu Mehta

In social networks, the function of "friends" is primarily to heighten narcissism by granting attention, as consumers, to the ego exhibited as a commodity. ~ Byung-Chul Han

A degree of narcissism is necessary, I suppose, to look in the pool to see your reflection. (Bono) ~ Bono

Most love, I've observed, is narcissism at its finest and most cunning. Love is always about how you feel but not necessarily how the other person feels. The notion that simply because you love someone they should be willing to love you in return. ~ Kat Savage

Golden sees parental uninterest in collective solutions as part of a larger "decline in the social contract" ... "As a scholar, I'm very disturbed that we have more [media] articles about toxins in the home than the fact that we don't have universal prenatal care, she says. "We've moved from collective concern about infant and child welfare into this very privatized focus on "my child" and this intensive child-rearing. ~ Emily Matchar

In public narcissists are charming, kind and caring. This confuses the victim because you believe that role too. When the mask falls the victim is shocked by the evil they see. ~ Tracy Malone

If I am indeed my own god, I'd better start praying to myself to get myself out of myself. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Invalidation is about dismissing your experiences, thoughts and above all your emotions. Indeed the intention is to not even allow you to have those thoughts, experiences and emotions. It‟s a way of invading your head and reprogramming it. It‟s psychological abuse (messing with your thoughts) and emotional abuse (messing with your feelings). ~ Danu Morrigan

When you are with a Narcissist, The charm you saw only comes out when they need something. ~ Tracy Malone

Face your fears, by creating a plan. We are usually afraid of the unknown, so expose it, plan it and conquer your fears. ~ Tracy A Malone

Yes, what would Russia be without me?" he [Tsar Nicholas I] said to himself, again sensing the approach of the unpleasant feeling. "Yes, what would, not just Russia, but Europe be without me?" And he remembered his brother-in-law, the king of Prussia, and his weakness and stupidity and shook his head. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Criticism is the fountainhead of control. ~ Susan Forward

Meditation is a way to be narcissistic without hurting anyone ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

For example, when I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. ~ Brene Brown

Narcissism is as profitable to a model as scruffiness is to a homeless person. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

When a person consistently hurts others it is because they deeply hurt within theirself. They disconnect from that side of them that is accountable for their actions. They cast empathy to the darkest part of their soul and choose to live life not in God's light, but the superficial light of significance (compliments, achievements, status, personal gain, other people's approval and ego). This dimmed light will never be greater than the one God gives to those that consistently show compassion, mercy and empathy. These light deprived souls are the ones that will be the hardest to rescue from hell. ~ Shannon L. Alder

Everyone says Oscar Wilde was a dandy, but he wasn't - he was an aesthete. He took pleasure in food and stuff like that. Dandyism is much more austere - much more Calvinistic, more neurotic - it oscillates between narcissism and neurosis. ~ Sebastian Horsley

Narcissism isn't vanity, Anna. We're all narcissists to a degree. A measure of narcissism is healthy. But out of balance, what was once appropriate self-confidence becomes grandiose, pathological, and destructive. You have little regard for those around you. You do what you will with a libertine's abandon. Boredom sets in. A bored woman is a dangerous woman. ~ Jill Alexander Essbaum

He's satisfied with himself. If you have a soul you can't be satisfied. ~ Graham Greene

I no longer see Descartes' statement as arbitrary. It is representative of our culture's narcissism. This narcissism leads to a disturbing disrespect for direct experience and a negation of the body. ~ Derrick Jensen

Writing is taking a risk, and it is actually fighting invisible and invincible enemies. They are over-confidence, stupidity, expectation and narcissism. ~ Andrea Hirata

Having invented himself, the narcissist sees no problem in recasting that which he had designed in the first place. The narcissist is his own repeated Creator - hence his grandiosity. ~ Sam Vaknin

Love is intermittent reinforcement with spouses and children alike. The child is love-bombed when the narcissist feels the child reflects their false self. The moment the child fails to do so, the narcissistic parent blithely discards them. ~ M. Wakefield

I loved myself and since I loved me, I loved him because I realized he was good for me. A type of self worth, a type of narcissistic love. ~ Dominic Riccitello

I love Twitter! At first I made fun of it, because it is very narcissistic, and there's already so much narcissism flowing in this industry, I was like, 'Really, one more?' So I was against it at first. But I really love the idea of the direct connection - there's no middle man muddling it up. ~ Kelly Clarkson

The vicious demand for happiness, regardless of circumstance, is not what one expects from one's own. Life is hard enough. Requiring a loved one to always be happy-happy-joy in the face of that strain, that cruelty, is not love. It is unforgivable narcissism." She smiled sourly. "The greastest gift you could give someone is space to be sad. Or tired. The failure to understand that simple fact may be why your generation doesn't seem able to form lasting bonds. You all seem to be in it for what the other person can give you, here and now - resources, time, transient euphoria. Not for what you can be together. Over the decades."
–Christopher Zenos
Autumn in Carthage ~ Christopher Zenos

Individuality should not translate to narcissism. Realizing the strength of individuality is an accomplishment while being narcissistic is a failure. ~ Amitav Chowdhury

Arrogance is an illusion of superiority one perpetrates upon their self. Some may ultimately find their way through the illusion, but only after many losses. ~ Debra Crown

In this situation, what we call natural ethics has nothing to offer but the narcissistic satisfaction of being able to think one is better than others. This is where ethics based on religion enters the scene with its promises of a better life hereafter. I am inclined to think that, for as long as virtue goes unrewarded here below, ethics will preach in vain. ~ Sigmund Freud

Looking for someone to tell me how great I am, do everything for me and don't dare want anything from me. Skills... Fooled easily, kind, loving, smart with low self love. Willing to keep quiet while I abuse you. People with boundaries need not apply. Call Narcissist 555-123-4567. ~ Tracy Malone

Out of all the addictions in the world, Attention is slowly but surely becoming one of the most dangerous. ~ Saahil Prem

It is in an artist's real interest to congratulate herself more often: not out of narcissism, but in her role as her own dear friend and advocate. ~ Eric Maisel

Narrative horror, disgust. That's what drives him mad, I'm sure of it, what obsesses him. I've known other people with the same aversion, or awareness, and they weren't even famous, fame is not a deciding factor, there are many individuals who experience their life as if it were the material of some detailed report, and they inhabit that life pending its hypothetical or future plot. They don't give it much thought, it's just a way of experiencing things, companionable, in a way, as if there were always spectators or permanent witnesses, even of their most trivial goings-on and in the dullest of times. Perhaps it's a substitute for the old idea of the omnipresence of God, who saw every second of each of our lives, it was very flattering in a way, very comforting despite the implicit threat and punishment, and three or four generations aren't enough for Man to accept that his gruelling existence goes on without anyone ever observing or watching it, without anyone judging it or disapproving of it. And in truth there is always someone: a listener, a reader, a spectator, a witness, who can also double up as simultaneous narrator and actor: the individuals tell their stories to themselves, to each his own, they are the ones who peer in and look at and notice things on a daily basis, from the outside in a way; or, rather, from a false outside, from a generalised narcissism, sometimes known as "consciousness". That's why so few people can withstand mockery, humiliation, ridicule, the ~ Javier Marias