No Self Quotes

Frustration is actually a self-served phenomenon, which happens due to no self-control or confidence. ~ Mohith Agadi

By not doing what I needed to do over and over again for a long time, by playing small, giving in to momentary impulses, instant gratification, and procrastination and being overly comfortable, I was chipping away one tiny insignificant surrender at a time that eventually stacked up into a force that completely jeopardized my relationship with myself. I had no self-worth left ~ Monjyoti Bhattacharyya

There is no nature worth revering or rejoining; there is no self to be re-enthroned as captain of its own fate; there is no future worth working towards or hoping for. ~ Ray Brassier

There is no self-knowledge but an historical one. No one knows what he himself is who does not know his fellow men, especially the most prominent one of the community, the master's master, the genius of the age. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

You just, like, hate yourself? You hate being yourself?"
"There's no self to hate. It's like, when I look into myself, there's no actual me - just a bunch of thoughts and behaviors and circumstances. And a lot of them just don't feel like they're mine. They're not things I want to think or do or whatever. And when I do look for the, like, Real Me, I never find it. It's like those nesting dolls, you know? The ones that are hollow, and then when you open them up, there's a smaller doll inside, and you keep opening hollow dolls until eventually you get to the smallest one, and it's solid all the way through. But with me, I don't think there is one that is solid. They just keep getting smaller. ~ John Green

No self-respecting bird in good health would allow its feathers to look ruffled. No confident cougar would let its fur long remain matted and dirty. ~ Terry Goodkind

Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious. You get to choose how you use it. You teach people how to treat you by deciding what you will and won't accept. ~ Anna Taylor

As long as I can remember I have been carelessly casting myself uninvited into novels where no self-respecting novelist would have me. This literary gate-crashing of mine must be a sign of a wretched thirsting after immortality. ~ Guy Vanderhaeghe

We are made up of nothing. There is no self. We are whatever we decide we are. ~ Frederick Lenz

To be happy is easy enough if we give ourselves, forgive others, and live with thanksgiving, No self centered person, no ungrateful soul can ever be happy, much less make anyone else happy. Life is giving, not getting. ~ Joseph Fort Newton

Fathers and teachers, what is hell? I think it is the suffering of one who can no longer love. Once, in the infinity of existence unmeasurable by time or space, a spiritual creature, upon its appearance on earth, is given the power to say: "I am and I love." Once, and only for a moment, is that creature given the knowledge of active, living love, and this is why that creature was given life on earth, and with it, time and space. And what happens? The privileged creature rejects that priceless gift, fails to appreciate it, does not even like it, sneers at it, and remains unmoved. When such a creature leaves the earth, sees Abraham, and talks with him as in the parable about Lazarus and the rich man--when he is already in sight of heaven and is allowed into the presence of the Lord, he is filled with suffering at the thought that he will appear before the Lord never having loved and will be brought into the presence of those who have loved him but whose love he has scorned. For now he sees clearly and says to himself: "I now have the knowledge and I am yearning for love; but now that my earthly life is over, there can be no self-abnegation, no sacrifice in love, and Abraham will not come to me again and bring me even a tiny drop of living water (that is, the gift of life on earth, the active life which I possessed before); since I will never again be given life and time, I will never be able to quench the fiery thirst for love that burns within me, because I scorned love while ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It hath been said, that there is of nothing so much in hell as of self-will. The which is true, for there is nothing else there than self-will, and if there were no self-will, there would be no Devil and no hell. When it is said that Lucifer fell from Heaven, and turned away from God and the like, it meaneth nothing else than that he would have his own will, and would not be at one with the Eternal Will. So was it likewise with Adam in Paradise. And when we say Self-will, we mean, to will otherwise than as the One and Eternal Will of God willeth. ~ Martin Luther

REMOVE THE LOUDHAILER ! If the Democrats really want to beat Donald Trump, how about getting some of their wealthy backers to buy up or take down Twitter ? The Twit-in-Chief without Twitter is nothing - a songbird without a song. No self-respecting news organisation would stoop to plug the gap. All that would be left is a pretentious peacock eunuch strutting around aimlessly with no fawning admirers. Desperate times call for desperate measures. ~ Alex Morritt

Real freedom is saying 'no' without giving a reason. ~ Amit Kalantri

This journey then, is nothing more, yet nothing less than a period of acclimating to a new way of seeing, a time of transition and revelation as it gradually comes upon "that" which remains when there is no self. this is not a journey for those who expect love and bliss, rather, it is for the hardy who have been tried by fire and have come to rest in a tough, immovable trust in "that" which lies beyond the known, beyond the self, beyond union and even beyond love and trust itself ~ Bernadette Roberts

No self-respecting zombie would be caught dead smoking. ~ Diana Rowland

It amused him sometimes to consider that his friends, because he had a face which did not express his feelings very vividly and a rather slow way of moving, looked upon him as strong-minded, deliberate and cool. They thought him reasonable and praised his common sense; but he knew that his placid expression was no more than a mask, assumed unconsciously, which acted like the protective colouring of butterflies; and himself was astonished at the weakness of his will. It seemed to him that he was swayed by every light emotion, as though he were a leaf in the wind, and when passion seized him he was powerless. He had no self-control. He merely seemed to possess it because he was indifferent to many of the things which moved other people.

He considered with some irony the philosophy which he had developed for himself, for it had not been of much use to him in the conjuncture he had passed through; and he wondered whether thought really helped a man in any of the critical affairs of life: it seemed to him rather that he was swayed by some power alien to and yet within himself, which urged him like that great wind of Hell which drove Paolo and Francesca ceaselessly on. He thought of what he was going to do and, when the time came to act, he was powerless in the grasp of instincts, emotions, he knew not what. He acted as though he were a machine driven by the two forces of his environment and personality; his reason was someone looking on, observing the facts but powerles ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Attraction and aversion create a sense of self. There is no self. They are just thoughts. They are insubstantial. When you die, all the ideas of self will go away. ~ Frederick Lenz

Everyone makes a difference. Someone who does something for others makes a big difference. A person who has no self-interest to do things for others makes a bigger difference. But, one who does everything for everyone for the sake of humanity without vested interest makes a real big difference for sustainability. ~ Anuj

The other contested term is recovered memory therapy. As far as I can tell, no one practicsing psychotherapy today endorses this term as a descriptive of what they do... there are no self-described recovered memory therapists... ~ Richard J. McNally

Law firms can create environments for abusive relationships. This is especially true if an attorney has no self-direction, has no independent means of financial support, and has massive student loan indebtedness. You've basically made yourself an indentured servant. ~ Robin D. Hart

People who know no self-restraint lead stormy and disordered lives, passing their time in a state of fear commensurate with the injuries they do to others, never able to relax. ~ Seneca.

If there are no self-evident first principles, as a foundation for reasoning to conclusions that are not immediately apparent, how can you construct any kind of a philosophy? If you have to prove even the basic axioms of your metaphysics, you will never have a metaphysics, because you will never have any strict proof of anything, for your first proof will involve you in an infinite regress, proving that you are proving what you are proving and so on, into the exterior darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. If Descartes thought it was necessary to prove his own existence by the fact that he was thinking, and that his though therefore existed in some subject, how did he prove that he was thinking in the first place? But as to the second step, that God must exist because Descartes had a clear idea of him – that never convinced me, then or at any other time, or now either. There are much better proofs for the existence of God than that one. ~ Thomas Merton

No celebrity bullshit,no self promotion,an amazingly gifted player who remained an unaffected human being ~ Roy Keane

... but I don't think I'm the only person who is tired of books and movies full of paper-doll characters you don't care about, who have no self-respect and no respect for anybody or any institution ... ..And I don't want to sound preachy or Victorian, but I'm tired of amorality in fiction and in real life. Immorality is a fascinating human dilemma that creates suspense for the readers and tension for the characters, but where is the tension in an amoral situation? When people have no personal code, nothing is threatening and nothing is meaningful. ~ Olive Ann Burns

No sentimentality, no romance, no false hope, no self-petting lies, merely that which is! ~ Sheri S. Tepper

What sex gives you momentarily is the total abandonment of yourself, then you are back again with your turmoil, so you want a repetition over and over again of that state in which there is no worry, no problem, no self. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Introspection is self-improvement and therefore introspection is self-centeredness. Awareness is not self-improvement. On the contrary, it is the ending of the self, of the "I," with all its peculiar idiosyncrasies, memories, demands, and pursuits. In introspection there is identification and condemnation. In awareness there is no condemnation or identification; therefore, there is no self-improvement. There is a vast difference between the two. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Sharon looked at Aaron and smiled. She'd made the right decision, hadn't she? Would she come to regret this decision too? She'd made so many mistakes in the past. Was this another one? No, self-doubt isn't an option. Everything is going to work out here. It has to. ~ Tamara Hoffa

Don't try to be unafraid. That is impossible. Rather, go ahead while being afraid. That is the entire secret for abolishing fear. The Supermind teaches us to have no self-concern at all. Whatever happens to you, act as though it happened to someone else. ~ Vernon Howard

Life is complex.
Each one of us must make his own path through life. There are no self-help manuals, no formulas, no easy answers. The right road for one is the wrong road for another ... The journey of life is not paved in blacktop; it is not brightly lit, and it has no road signs. It is a rocky path through the wilderness. ~ M. Scott Peck

It's dark because you're trying too hard," said Susila. "Dark because you want it to be light. Remember what you used to tell me when I was a little girl. 'Lightly, child, lightly. You've got to learn to do everything lightly. Think lightly, act lightly, feel lightly. Yes, feel lightly, even though you're feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.' I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. Lightly, lightly - it was the best advice ever given me. Well, now I'm going to say the same thing to you, Lakshmi . . . Lightly, my darling, lightly. Even when it comes to dying. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self-conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Goethe or Little Nell. And, of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Just the fact of dying and the fact of the Clear Light. So throw away all your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That's why you must walk so lightly. Lightly, my darling. On tiptoes; and no luggage, not even a sponge bag. Completely unencumbered. ~ Aldous Huxley

Well, it's like this. Deep in your consciousness there's this core that is imperceptible to yourself. In my case, the core is a town. A town with a river flowing through it and a high brick wall surrounding it. None of the people in the town can leave. Only unicorns can go in and out. The unicorns absorb the egos of the town people like blotter paper and carry them outside the wall. So the people in the town have no ego, no self. I live in the town-or so the story goes. I don't know any more than that, since I haven't actually seen any of this with my own eyes. ~ Haruki Murakami

What is morality? It is not the following of enjoined rules of conduct. It is not a question of standing above temptations, or of conquering hate, anger, greed, lust and violence.
Questioning your actions before and after creates the moral problem. What is responsible for this situation is the faculty of distinguishing between right and wrong and influencing your actions accordingly.Life is action. Unquestioned action is morality. Questioning your actions is destroying the expression of life. A person who lets life act in its own way without the protective movement of thought has no self to defend. What need will he have to lie or cheat or pretend or to commit any other act which his society considers immoral? ~ U.G. Krishnamurti

True respect looks beneath the surface or the appearance to the inner reality, which is the opposite of the narcissistic attitude. By the same token, self-respect is based on an appreciation of one's true or inner self, not on one's appearance or position. We have self-respect when our actions stem from principles or deep convictions rather than motives of expediency or gain. Impressing or manipulating others brings a loss of self-respect, and without self-respect, one doesn't respect others. The narcissistic person has no self-respect. ~ Alexander Lowen

I have no self-respect. But can a man of acute sensibility respect himself at all? ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There are no self made heroes or leaders. No matter how rugged or self assured, everyone requires a cast of players - friends, mentors, lovers, critics, villains and supporters - who call, invite, seduce, goad and encourage them to finally step into their true power.
We are all heroes and leaders in some way, and we all need each other. ~ Jacob Nordby

To have taken Maggie by the hand and said, "I will not believe unproved evil of you: my lips should not utter it; my ears shall be closed against it. I, too, am an erring mortal, liable to stumble, apt to come short of my most earnest efforts. Your lot has been harder than mine, your temptation greater. Let us help each other to stand and walk without more falling –" to have done this would have demanded courage, deep pity, self-knowledge, generous trust – would have demanded a mind that tasted no piquancy in evil-speaking, that felt no self-exaltation in condemning, that cheated itself with no large words into the belief that life can have any moral end, any high religion, which excludes the striving after perfect truth, justice, and love towards the individual men and women who come across our own path. ~ George Eliot

I discovered for myself and by myself that there is no self to realize
that's the realization I am talking about. It comes as a shattering blow. It hits you like a thunderbolt. You have invested everything in one basket, self-realization, and, in
the end, suddenly you discover that there is no self to discover, no self to realize
and you say to yourself "What the hell have I been doing all my life?!" That blasts you. ~ U.G. Krishnamurti

Rincewind sighed. "Look," he said. "No self-respecting High Priest is going to go through all the business with the trumpets and the processions and the banners and everything, and then shove his knife into a daffodil and a couple of plums. You've got to face it, all this stuff about golden boughs and the cycles of nature and stuff just boils down to sex and violence, usually at the same time. ~ Terry Pratchett

There is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love. It cannot be copied. You cannot talk yourself into it or rouse it by straining at the emotions or by dedicating yourself solemnly to the service ofmankind. Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself. This conviction will not come through condemnations, through hatingoneself, through calling self love bad names in the universe. It comes only in the awareness that one has no self to love. ~ Alan Watts

When I was younger, I studied the men I was involved with so carefully that I saw or thought I saw what pain or limitation lay behind their sometimes crummy behavior. I found it too easy to forgive them, or rather to regard them with sympathy at my own expense. It was as though I saw the depths but not the surface, the causes but not the effect. Or them and not myself. I think we call that overidentification, and it's common among women. But gods and saints and boddhisattvas must see the sources of all beings' actions and see their consequences, so that there is no self, no separation, just a grand circulatory system of being and becoming and extinguishing. To understand deeply enough is a kind of forgiveness or love that is not the same as whitewashing, if you apply it to everyone, and not just the parade through your bed. ~ Rebecca Solnit

Perhaps there is no other knowing than the mere competence of the act. If at the heart of one's being, there is no self to which one ought to be true, then sincerity is simply nerve; it lies in the unabashed vigor of the pretense. But pretense is only pretense when it is assumed that the act is not true to the agent. Find the agent. ~ Alan Watts

A shy man no doubt dreads the notice of strangers, but can hardly be said to be afraid of them. He may be as bold as a hero in battle, and yet have no self-confidence about trifles in the presence of strangers.
Charles Darwin ~ Susan Cain

We aren't anything in particular. There is no self. There are only ideas and states of mind. ~ Frederick Lenz

Paganism has no fixed creeds or dogmas, no self-proclaimed gurus or prophets, no holy books or saviours. Earth Herself is our teacher. Pagans, like all, natural peoples, desire to live in harmony with
Earth and see all Her manifestations, whether animal, plant, insect, rock or mountain, or, as Native Americans say, four-legged, two-legged, crawling and flying, as our relations and as ensouled. ~ Monica Sjöö

I have noticed that sometimes, our success, promotion and accomplishments become real when we say "no" to some things and act the right way. The potential that drives you to do that is called "self-discipline". ~ Israelmore Ayivor

There is no self, yet we all exist. All phenomena are "empty," yet they have Buddha nature. ~ Frederick Lenz

In a laissez-faire society, there could exist no public institution with the power to forcefully protect people from themselves. From other people (criminals), yes. From one's own self, no. ~ Karl Hess

What I feel for you is contempt. But it's nothing, compared to the contempt I feel for myself. I don't love you. I've never loved anyone. I wanted you from the first moment I saw you. I wanted you as one wants a whore - for the same reason and purpose. I spent two years damning myself, because I thought you were above a desire of this kind. You're not. You're as vile an animal as I am. I should loathe my discovering it. I don't. Yesterday, I would have killed anyone who'd tell me that you were capable of doing what I've had you do. Today, I would give my life not to let it be otherwise. Not to have you be anything but the bitch you are. All the greatness that I saw in you - I would not take it in exchange for the obscenity of your talent at an animal's sensation of pleasure. We were two great beings, you and I, proud of our strength, weren't we? Well this is all that's left of us - and I want no self-deception about it. ~ Ayn Rand

A self does not amount to much, but no self is an island; each exists in a fabric of relations that is now more complex and mobile than ever before. ~ Jean Francois Lyotard

Once, no self-respecting puncher considered himself dressed for work until he had his feet inside of a pair of $15 boots made by one of the favorite boot-makers, whose merits they discussed about the camp fires night after night. ~ Will C. Barnes

For the Christian, humility is absolutely indispensable. Without it there can be no self-knowledge, no repentance, no faith and no salvation. ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

No self-effort in the direction of enlightenment is ever wasted. Even if you don't become fully enlightened in a given lifetime, you will be much happier and more aware. ~ Frederick Lenz

I had a terrible marriage the first time around because I had no self-confidence, even though I had tremendous self-confidence. ~ Lynn Johnston

The saying "no self, no problem" probably comes from Zen. In their cultures, where Buddhism is kind of taken for granted, as well as karma, causality, former and future life, and the possibility for becoming enlightened, then it's safe to skirt the danger of nihilism, which would be, I don't exist because Buddha said I have no self, and therefore I have no problem because I don't exist. That would be a bad misunderstanding. But in those cultures, it would not be as easy to have that understanding as it would be here in the west, where we really are nihilistic. ~ Robert Thurman

In the World of Reality there is no self, There is no other-than-self. ~ Sengcan

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.
[The New Statesman, February 25, 1933] ~ Cyril Connolly

Do not imagine that an integral being has the ambition of enlightening the unaware or raising worldly people to the divine realm. To her, there is no self and other, and hence no one to be raised; no heaven and hell, and hence no destination. ~ Laozi

We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self control. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

They thought him reasonable and praised his common sense; but he knew that his placid expression was no more than a mask, assumed unconsciously, which acted like the protective colouring of butterflies; and himself was astonished at the weakness of his will. It seemed to him that he was swayed by every light emotion, as though he were a leaf in the wind, and when passion seized him he was powerless. He had no self-control. He merely seemed to possess it because he was indifferent to many of the things which moved other people. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I have no self-centeredness or ego about being a movie star. ~ Shah Rukh Khan

There are no self-proclaimed villains, only regiments of self-proclaimed saints. Victorious historians rule where good or evil lies. ~ Glen Cook

Then my life crashed and burned down: trials, men, drama, no self-love, no identity. A little identity, but not a lot of love for myself, my life. ~ Mary J. Blige

Sometimes you look at me and it's like all the bullshit gets stripped off and I'm left with what's underneath and I kind of like what I see. Someone who actually fails. Someone who has absolutely no self-control. Someone who says real dickhead things like 'this is complicated.' I like that part of me, you know. I like the fact that I know I can't control you or how I feel about you and that doesn't freak me out. ~ Melina Marchetta

There is giving, and there is knowingness. Some have generosity and compassion but no true knowledge. Some have knowledge but no self-sacrifice. When both are present, that person is blessed and prosperous. Such a being is truly incomparable. ~ Rumi

Artemis said, "I don't like lollipops." It was a woefully inadequate response, and Artemis was instantly appalled with himself. Pathetic really. I don't like lollipops. No self respecting criminal mastermind would be caught dead using the word lollipops. He really would have to put together a database of witty responses for occasions such a this. ~ Eoin Colfer

A Concordance of Leaves is an epic poem of the indomitable yet fragile human spirit. Philip Metres brings Palestine and Palestinians into English with rare luminosity. One feels echoes of Oppen's succinct tenderness in the depiction of the numerous characters of this work. Without other, there is no self. And that other is the stranger who must be loved. Concordance is, after all, a wedding poem-leaves and pages in search of a certain passage toward harmony. ~ Fady Joudah

Just let everyone know not to give her a hard time."
"Fine, you miserable shit, but if she gives us a hard time there's nothing I can do."
As if anyone would dare go against my word.
They know the consequences of that.
I'm not a bully.
I never take my fists to anyone - never play mean pranks, that shit is for turds with no self-esteem, who need to feel like a man in any way they can. But if I issue a demand, then I expect it to be followed.
And Delaney Sloan is now hands off to everyone.
Excluding me.
I want my dirty hands all over her. ~ V. Theia

You are about to be reminded of the truth-of-all-truths. I use the word "reminded" because it is something you already know, but may have forgotten or ceased to believe. No self-help book, no guru, no sage of any faith can teach you anything more important or powerful. If you accept it and embrace it this truth will whip your life around and set you on a new, higher road. You will live larger, healthier, more happily. You'll have the ability to bounce back when you get knocked down. You'll have the faith you need to tunnel through dark times. You'll have the light you need to lead others to a better place.
You are a child of God.
That's it.
That's everything - everything you'll ever need to know to conquer doubt, fear and adversity, to transform your life from the mundane to the magnificent, to fortify your relationships and the foundations of all that is good and right and worthy of your attention. You are a literal spiritual child of a king all-powerful and all-loving. He knows you. He values you. He wants you to be happy and successful. You have the right to approach the throne of God and ask not only for what you need, but for what you want. ~ Toni Sorenson

I too took the plunge - the vow to observe brahmacharya for life. I must confess that I had not then fully realized the magnitude and immensity of the task I undertook. The difficulties are even today staring me in the face. The importance of the vow is being more and more borne in upon me. Life without brahmacharya appears to me to be insipid and animal-like. The brute by nature knows no self-restraint. Man is man because he is capable of, and only in so far as he exercises, self-restraint. What formerly appeared to me to be extravagant praise of brahmacharya in our religious books seems now, with increasing clearness every day, to be absolutely proper and founded on experience. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

They who care the self-respect, their love is real and true, and they don't break the trust and certainty of their beloved. Love cannot stay where is no self-respect. ~ Ehsan Sehgal

Here's why an allowance is good for kids: Having a little of their own money, and deciding how to save or spend it, offers a measure of autonomy and teaches them to be responsible with cash. Here's why household chores are good for kids: Chores show kids that families are built on mutual obligations and that family members need to help each other. Here's why combining allowances with chores is not good for kids. By linking money to the completion of chores, parents turn an allowance into an "if-then" reward. This sends kids a clear (and clearly wrongheaded) message: In the absence of a payment, no self-respecting child would willingly set the table, empty the garbage, or make her own bed. It converts a moral and familial obligation into just another commercial transaction - and teaches that the only reason to do a less-than-desirable task for your family is in exchange for payment. ~ Daniel H. Pink

Even if alien visitors did decide to drop by this utterly insignificant little blue-green planet, no self-respecting extraterrestrial would ever pick my hometown of Beaverton, Oregon - aka Yawnsville, USA - as their point of first contact. Not unless their plan was to destroy our civilization by wiping out our least interesting locales first. ~ Ernest Cline

First of all, "no self" doesn't mean there is no self, haha. So the "no problem" is jumped at a little too fast I'm afraid. Especially in American culture where people tend to be materialistic philosophically. I don't mean running to the mall, but philosophically, you see? ~ Robert Thurman

No self is of itself alone. It has a long chain of intellectual ancestors. The "I" is chained to ancestry by many factors ... This is not mere allegory, but an eternal memory. ~ Erwin Schrodinger

Over dinner, I had agreed to be her paladin, and no self-respecting paladin would decide on a course of action based on a majority vote of a committee of two. ~ Dean Koontz

There was no reason to think she would survive this. So she was surprised to notice that she was happy. Not the powerful, irrational, and dangerous joy of a euphoric attack, but a kind of pleasure and release all the same. At first, she thought it was because there wasn't anyone there with her, guarding her, judging her. And that, she decided, was part of it. But more than that, she was simply doing what needed to be done without having to concern herself about what anyone else thought. Even Jim. And wasn't that odd? She wanted nothing in the world more than for Jim to be there - followed by Amos and Alex and a good meal and a bed at a humane gravity - but there was a part of her that was also expanding into the silence of simply being herself and utterly alone. There were no dark thoughts, no guilt, no self-doubt tapping at the back of her mind. Either she was too tired for that, or something else had happened to her while she'd been paying attention to other things. ~ James S.A. Corey

There is a lot of work ahead of us, as we endeavor to rescue the planet from ourselves, and we are likely to be at this work for a very long time. Perhaps we could come at it from the wisdom of the non-self perspective, rather than the passions of the "world is mine" point of view. ~ Andrew Olendzki

David made no attempt to clothe his prayer (Psalm 51) with flowing rhetoric, for it is simply a series of brokenhearted sobs. He pleaded no extenuating circumstances and attempted no self-vindication. The magnitude of his sin is not toned down, but is freely acknowledged. Hear the broken sobs, expressed in vivid verbs: Have mercy! Cleanse! Blot out! Wash! Purge! Hide Your face from my sins! Create! Do not cast! Renew! Restore! Save! Open my lips!
Here is true confession, free from all sham and insincerity. Examine it in detail. ~ J. Oswald Sanders

There's no self-expression or joy in these joints
no springboard to self-discovery, or adventure, like any decent night out involving men, women, alcohol, and taking your clothes off. Why do many people have a gut reaction to strip clubs? Because inside them, no one is having fun. ~ Caitlin Moran

No self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party who ignores her sex. ~ Susan B. Anthony

There can be no self-government without self-discipline. There can be no self-government without self-control. There can be no liberty unless it is grounded in moral discipline and the ability to do what is right. ~ Alan Keyes

Authenticity is fundamental, more fundamental than spiritual enlightenment. Without authenticity, no genuine spiritual enlightenment is possible. Authenticity is the state of being committed to truth. Truth is simple. And no matter how simply a truth is stated, only those who have walked the path of understanding and evolution on their own can know and understand it authentically. The path of truth is the path least traveled. Authenticity is the clarity of being in which there is no self-deceit. ~ Yasuhiko Kimura

I had no self-control, but tomorrow I would relinquish control and everything would be right again. ~ Carmen Maria Machado

There is no self-portrait of me. ~ Gustav Klimt

All fear is ultimately fear of no-self. ~ Jed McKenna

True love goes ever straight forward, not in its own strength, but esteeming itself as nothing. Then indeed we are truly happy. The cross is no longer a cross when there is no self to suffer under it. ~ Francois Fenelon

We used to be Kings now we are beggars. We used to be leaders, now we are dogs We used to be fathers now we are sperm donors. Now we have nothing. No dignity, no honor and no self respect.. ~ Jill Thrussell

Where there is no style, there is in effect no point of view. There is, essentially, no anger, no conviction, no self. Style is opinion, hung washing, the caliber of a bullet, teething beads. ~ Alexander Theroux

The idea that somehow "no self, no problem"- I don't exist because I don't have a self- would be a mistaken understanding. However, the selflessness teaching is not that hard to understand. What it means is a type of self that people feel they have, like a fixed, unchanging identity. Either they know they have it, or for some, they feel they need to seek it, and possibly have an experience where they feel like they found something. That type of fixed, unchanging, essential self, or absolute self doesn't exist. That's what "no self" means. ~ Robert Thurman

There's mainstream pornography--soft-core airbrushed fluff such as Penthouse and Playboy. The folks makin' this stuff do men and their range of desires a disservice; their implication is that anything outside the "big hair, fake tits, tiny waste, no pores, limited body hair" aesthetic is deviant, weird, not normal--and not something that a red-blooded American man would be interested in. The common boys-will-be-boys explanation for porn--that men get turned on visually (in contrast to "feminine" mode of arousal, which is mental and emotional)--is nothing more than an insult, making men out to be Pavlovian dogs who salivate uncontrollably and strain at their trousers upon contact with nudie pictures.
Antiporn arguments, however well-meaning, are no better. Folks like Catherine MacKinnon also believe that men are inherently drawn to porn. And to them, porn is by definition violent, suggesting that it's somehow in men's nature to be aroused by hurting others. Furthermore, antipornography activists think that porn leads men to commit violence--as if men have no self-control or capacity to separate fantasy from reality, as if an erection is a driving force that can't be stopped once it's started... The only difference is one of perspective: Antiporn folk believe that male sexuality is always threatening, while men's-magazine editors think it's always fabulous. ~ Lisa Jervis

The sheer vital energy of the Woolfs always astonishes me when I stop to consider what they accomplished on any given day. Fragile she may have been, living on the edge of psychic disturbance, but think what she managed to do nonetheless -- not only the novels (every one a breakthrough in form), but all those essays and reviews, all the work of the Hogarth Press, not only reading mss. and editing, but, at least at the start, packing the books to go out!

And besides all that, they lived such an intense social life. (When I went there for tea, they were always going out for dinner and often to a party later on.) The gaiety and the fun of it all, the huge sense of life! The long, long walks through London that Elizabeth Bowen told me about. And two houses to keep going! Who of us could accomplish what she did?

There may be a lot of self-involvement in A Writer's Diary, but there is no self-pity (and what has to be remembered is that what Leonard published at that time was only a small part of all the journals, the part that concerned her work, so it had to be self-involved). It is painful that such genius should evoke such mean-spirited response at present. Is genius so common that we can afford to brush it aside? What does it matter if she is major or minor, whether she imitated Joyce (I believe she did not), whether her genius was a limited one, limited by class? What remains true is that one cannot pick up a single one of her books and read a page withou ~ May Sarton

...All who ever died, live; they are reborn and have no end, nor will there ever be an end. All, save you. For you would not have death. You lost death, you lost life, in order to save yourself. Yourself! Your immortal self! What is it? Who are you?"
"I am myself. My body will not decay and die-"
"A living body suffers pain, Cob; a living body grows old; it dies. Death is the price we pay for our life and for all life."
"I do not pay it! I can die and in that moment live again! I cannot be killed; I am immortal. I alone am myself forever!"
"Who are you, then?"
"The Immortal One."
"Say your name."
"The King."
"Say my name. I told it to you but a minute since. Say my name!"
"You are not real. You have no name. Only I exist."
"You exist: without name, without form. You cannot see the light of day; you cannot see the dark. You sold the green earth and the sun and stars to save yourself. But you have no self. All that which you sold, that is yourself. You have given everything for nothing. And so now you seek to draw your world to you, all that light and life you lost, to fill up your nothingness. But it cannot be filled. Not all the songs of earth, not all the stars of heaven, could fill your emptiness. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

The man who has no self-respect, on the contrary, will imitate anybody and anything; sounds of nature and cries of animals alike; his whole performance will be imitation of gesture and voice. ~ Plato

The way you become happy is by realizing that there is no self. No self at all, not a silly millimeter of self. You don't exist. When you know this, you will be happy. ~ Frederick Lenz

The fundamental principal when traversing a spiritual path is that we do not have a mind. The mind has created the sense of you and me from the way it perceives reality. The truth is, the mind holds us within it. We are not the possessor of a mind and the mind is not something happening to us as if we were outside looking in. We are a part of the mental processing of the mind. The thoughts of the mind and the sense of 'I' are not two separate events. We exist only because the mind thinks us into creation. ~ Rodney Smith

I was the worst, most sickly kid of all
30 pounds underweight. The girls used to beat me up. Actually I was a mean kid, early on because I had no self-esteem. ~ Jack LaLanne

Your problem is that you should like yourself better." Of course, he was right - but how could she like herself when she felt she had no self ? ~ Gloria Steinem

Defender of the liberty that I idolize, myself more free than anyone, in coming as a friend to offer my services to this intriguing republic, I bring to it only my frankness and my good will; no ambition, no self-interest; in working for my glory, I work for their happiness. ~ Marquis De Lafayette