Not To Self Quotes

My urge to write is an urge not to self-expressionism but to self-transcendence. My work is both bigger and smaller than I am. ~ Susan Sontag

No knowledge about self is self-slavery! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

It's not about you. It's about your customer. It's about your client. Use your strengths, yes, but remember, you're here to serve- not to self-actualize.
Of course you matter. But the most important successful people improve their own lives by improving others' lives. They help their customer solve its problem, They give their client something it doesn't know it was missing. That's where they focus their energy, talent, and brainpower.
The most valuable people in any job bring out the best in others. They make their boss look good. They help their teammates succeed. ~ Daniel H. Pink

To attribute to God, and not to self, whatever good one sees in oneself; but to recognize always that the evil is one's own doing, and to impute it on one's self. ~ Benedict Of Nursia

Don't confuse simple, reasonable honesty with radical silliness. There is no reason to try to articulate blurry feelings or over-explain every detail. The point is to be honest instead of internalizing, not to try to extract juicy confessionals out of everyday life. ~ Ann Burton

Britannia's big enough to count, but remote enough not to matter. ~ Ruth Downie

We ought not to criticize, explain, or judge the Scriptures by our mere reason, but diligently, with prayer, meditate thereon, and seek their meaning. ~ Martin Luther

Michael had to pound me a couple of times to convince me not to go stage a rescue." Shane shrugged. "He hits like a girl, for a vampire. ~ Rachel Caine

Faces change during sex, the features change and it would be a pity not to understand that, because with a man inside, moving on him, you can read his whole life in his face and it's a book that at that moment he can't close.

One needn't be afraid to talk, making love, because the voice we have when we make love is what is most secret in us and the words we are capable of the only shocking, final, total nudity available to us.

Making love is an endless attempt to find a position in which to merge with the other, a position that doesn't exist, but looking for it exists and knowing how to look is an art. ~ Alessandro Baricco

We do not sufficiently distinguish between individualism and individuation. Individualism means deliberately stressing and giving prominence to some supposed peculiarity rather than to collective consideration and obligations. But individuation means precisely the better and more complete fulfillment of the collective qualities of the human being, since adequate consideration of the peculiarity of the individual is more conducive to a better social performance than when the peculiarity is neglected or suppressed. The idiosyncrasy of an individual is not to be understood as any strangeness in his substance or in his components, but rather as a unique combination, or gradual differentiation, of functions and faculties which in themselves are universal. Every human face has a nose, two eyes, etc., but these universal factors are variable, and it is this variability which makes individual peculiarities possible. Individuation, therefore, can only mean a process of psychological development that fulfils the individual qualities given; in other words, it is a process by which a man becomes the definite, unique being he in fact is. In so doing he does not become "selfish" in the ordinary sense of the word, but is merely fulfilling the peculiarity of his nature, and this, as we have said, is vastly different from egotism or individualism. ~ C.G. Jung

Your task is not to find the joy of life but be the joy of life. ~ Debasish Mridha

I'm trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across - not to just depict life - or criticize it - but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me you actually experience the thing. You can't do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful. Because if it is all beautiful you can't believe in it. Things aren't that way. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

We are left at the brink of our future each day and the only real choice we have is not to jump but instead make our path through the briar. ~ Thomm Quackenbush

Making my way out of the bedroom, I found the loft empty, a visceral reminder that it had always been my sister's choice not to know me. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

There is a great deal of emotional satisfaction in the elegant demonstration, in the elegant ordering of facts into theories, and in the still more satisfactory, still more emotionally exciting discovery that the theory is not quite right and has to be worked over again, very much as any other work of art-a painting, a sculpture has to be worked over in the interests of aesthetic perfection. So there is no scientist who is not to some extent worthy of being described as artist or poet. ~ Robert Watson-Watt

I get asked enough questions, I try not to ask too many questions. ~ Derek Jeter

I'm essentially a humorist and, I think, a pretty good one. I've known all along that 'My Friend Dahmer' is the one book I'll be most known for, and in a way, that's a drag, as it's nothing like the rest of the work I've done or will do moving forward. But the way I figure, it's better to have a best-known work than not to have one at all. ~ Derf

I have a dread of sounding pretentious and try not to talk too much about what I do. ~ James Herbert

When I'm writing a book, I prefer not to speak about it, because only when the book is finished can I try to understand what I've really done and to compare my intentions with the result. ~ Italo Calvino

He shook his head pityingly. "This, more than anything else, is what I have never understood about your people. You can roll dice, and understand that the whole game may hinge on one turn of a die. You deal out cards, and say that all a man's fortune for the night may turn upon one hand. But a man's whole life, you sniff at, and say, what, this naught of a human, this fisherman, this carpenter, this thief, this cook, why, what can they do in the great wide world? And so you putter and sputter your lives away, like candles burning in a draft."
"Not all men are destined for greatness," I reminded him.
"Are you sure, Fitz? Are you sure? What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbor, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I change the world today?"
"This is philosophy, Fool. I have never had time to study such things."
"No, Fitz, this is life. And no one has time not to think of such things. Each creature in the world should consider this thing, every moment of the heart's beating. Otherwise, what is the point of arising each day? ~ Robin Hobb

In 1976, divorce could still raise eyebrows, as could a woman's decision not to have children. Dyslexia wasn't as commonly recognized then, and thus not treated as it is today. ~ Stacey D'Erasmo

When talking about unicorns, minotaurs, or compassionate conservatives, one does not normally have to prove their non-existence; the mere lack of any evidence is sufficient reason not to believe in any of them. ~ Peter Stone

I did it," she said.
"Yup."
"You made fun of me when i first got here," she said. "But I did it."
"I was being friendly."
"You were being a dick," she said.
"Why do you think we like each other?" Stevie asked.
"Does it matter?"
"I don't know," she said. "I don't know how these things work."
"Neither do I. Neither does anybody."
"Some people seem to. I thin Janelle does."
"Janelle," he said, "may know everything, but she doesn't know that. And I like you because . . ."
He rolled up to his side and onto one elbow, gazing down into her face. He traced her jawline with one finger, sending such shivers down her body that she struggled not to squirm.
". . because you came to do something impossible and you did it. And you're smart. And you're really, really attractive."
There, on the floor that had been scuffed by a thousand dance shoes, under the eyes of the masks on the wall that had seen decades go by, they kissed, over and over, each one renewing the last. ~ Maureen Johnson

I believe in discovering the love that exists and then trying to understand it. Not to invent a love and try to make it exist, but to find what does exist, and then to see what it is. ~ Jesse Ball

Everything they'd been brought up not to do, they could do at a rock-and-roll show. ~ Keith Richards

I mean, death is a serious thing, certainly not to be sneezed at. ~ Morrissey

We've had a major shift in what truth is and where it comes from. We've gone from being God-centered to self-centered, from being objective to being subjective, and from being internal to external. ~ Josh McDowell

Writers are asked, 'How could you know so much about [fill in the profession]?' The answer, if the writing satisfies, is that one makes it up. And the job, my job, as a dramatist, was not to write accurately, but to write persuasively. If and when I do my job well, subsequent cowboys, as it were, will talk like me. ~ David Mamet

For years we have been taught not to like things. Finally somebody said it was OK to like things. This was a great relief. It was getting hard to go around not liking everything. ~ David Byrne

The office of poetry is not to make us think accurately, but feel truly. ~ Frederick William Robertson

Who cares what the Bible means to me? We need to know what it means. That's where I have to allow God to redefine my thinking. He tells us in Romans 12:2 not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. What always gets me about this verse is he's telling believers we still need to be transformed. It means I have a saved spirit but I still think with a lost brain, and slowly but surely my mind has to be transformed. Such transformation comes but one way - by truth. By his Word. ~ Mark Hall

You could me practice. They wouldn't have to know." I don't even feel like practicing. I just seems I should get in the water on principal, since Galen told me not to. And especially since he left me with a babysitter.
She throws me a sideways glare. "Fat Lips would know. He can sense me from anywhere, remember? An he'd snitch to Galen. He would know something's wrong if you and me got in without my brother."
I shrug. "Since when do you care about getting in trouble?"
"Since never. But Galen said if I kept you out of the water, he'd teach me how to drive his car."
Jackpot. "I happen to know how to drive. I could teach you."
"Galen said I wasn't allowed to ask you, or the deal's off."
"You didn't ask me. I offered."
She nods, biting her lip. "That's true. You did."
I set the book on the ugly glass coffee table and squat next to her. "I'll teach you how to drive if you let me get in the water. You don't even have to get in."
The way she raises her brow reminds me of Galen. "You're wasting your time trying to change if you ask me. You're half human. You probably don't even have a fin in there."
"What do you know about the half-breeds?"
She shrugs. "Not much. Enough to know that if you're one of them, there's no point in trying to change. No one is going to accept you. At least, no Syrena will."
I decide not to take offense. I don't put much stock in her opinion anyway, and she won't care if she offended me or not. ~ Anna Banks

Youth is rather to be pitied than envied by people in years since it is doomed to toil through the rugged road of life which the others have passed through, in search of happiness that is not to be met with in it and that, at the highest, can be compounded for only by the blessing of a contented mind. ~ Samuel Richardson

Exactly the part he ought not to assert
himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt
the Divine Reason. ~ G.K. Chesterton

So if you're an introvert like me, especially a female introvert, or a person who is expected to give away your energy to everyone else on the reg, I want to encourage you to find time to be alone. Don't be afraid to excuse yourself. Recharge for as long as you need. Lean up against a tree and take a break from the other bears. I'll be there too, but I promise not to bother you. ~ Amy Schumer

Academic environments are generally characterised by the presence of peole who claim to understand more than in fact they do. Linguistic Philosophy has produced a great revolution, generating people who claim not to understand when in fact they do. Some achieve great virtuosity at it. Any beginner in philosophy can manage not to understand, say, Hegel, but I have heard people who were so advanced that they knew how not to understand writers of such limpid clarity as Bertrand Russell or A.J. Ayer. ~ Ernest Gellner

Whatever. I've never understood what the big deal is about reading." He shuts the door and locks it, turning for the stairs. "Going to another place. Getting lost in time. Pretending that you're living a different life." He heads down the stairs and I follow him. "What's not to love? ~ Jessica Sorensen

... your midthirties...is the age that women usually start to feel confident. Having finally left behind the...awfulness of your twenties...your thirties are the point where the good stuff kicks in...How odd, then, that as your face and body finally begin to display the signs (lines, softening, gray hairs) that you've entered the zone of kick-ass eminence and intolerance of dullards, there should be pressure for you to...totally remove them. Give the impression that, actually, you are still a bit gullible and incompetent, and totally open to being screwed over by someone a bit cleverer and older than you... Lines and grayness are nature's way of telling you not to fuck with someone--the equivalent of the yellow-and-black banding on a wasp...Lines are your weapons against the idiots. Lines are your 'KEEP AWAY FROM THE WISE INTOLERANT WOMAN' sign. ~ Caitlin Moran

Caspian felt sure that he would hate the new Tutor, but when the new Tutor arrived about a week later he turned out to be the sort of person it is almost impossible not to like. He was the smallest, and also the fattest, man Caspian had ever seen. He had a long, silvery, pointed beard which came down to his waist, and his face, which was brown and covered with wrinkles, looked very wise, very ugly, and very kind. His voice was grave and his eyes were merry so that, until you got to now him really well, it was hard to know when he was joking and when he was serious. His name was Doctor Cornelius. ~ C.S. Lewis

The best use of power is not to have to use it at all. ~ Kenneth H. Blanchard

Design came into being in 1919, when Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus at Weimar. Part of the prospectus of this school reads:
'The function of art has in the past been given a formal importance which has severed it from our daily life; but art is always present when a people lives sincerely and health.
'Thus our job is to invest a new system of education that may lead to a complete knowledge of human needs and a universal awareness of them.'
[...]
What Gropius wrote is still valid. Tis first school of design did tend to make a new kind of artist, an artist useful to society because he helps society to recover its balance, and not to lurch between a false world to live one's material life in and and ideal world to take moral revenge in. ~ Bruno Munari

There's one of the great lies of all times, that computers save time. They don't. They're time suckers. So, I'm trying not to get involved in the Photoshop. ~ Jay Maisel

We need to remind ourselves that our ultimate goal is not to reduce greenhouse gases or global warming per se but to improve the quality of life and the environment. We all want to leave the planet in decent shape for our kids. Radically reducing greenhouse gas emissions is not necessarily the best way to achieve that. ~ Thomas P.M. Barnett

Before I do a movie, I watch Meryl Streep movies over and over. It's not to mimic her. It's to remind myself to be more committed. ~ Daphne Zuniga

I challenge anyone to understand Islam, its spirit, and not to love it. It is a beautiful religion of brotherhood and devotion. ~ Yann Martel

Cultural criticism finds itself faced with the final stage of the dialectic of culture and barbarism. To write poetry after the holocaust is barbaric. And this corrodes even the knowledge of why it has become impossible to write poetry today. Absolute reification, which presupposed intellectual progress as one of its elements, is now preparing to absorb the mind entirely. Critical intelligence cannot be equal to this challenge as long as it confines itself to self-satisfied contemplation. ~ Theodor Adorno

It feels impossible how much space there can be in this intimacy, how much privacy. And I think that maybe that is what love is. Not the absence of space but the acknowledgement of it, the thing that lives between the parts, the things that makes it possible not to be one, but to be different, to be two. ~ Rebecca Serle

His resolve is not to seem, but to be, the best. ~ Aeschylus

About eight days ago I discovered that sulfur in burning, far from losing weight, on the contrary, gains it; it is the same with phosphorus; this increase of weight arises from a prodigious quantity of air that is fixed during combustion and combines with the vapors. This discovery, which I have established by experiments, that I regard as decisive, has led me to think that what is observed in the combustion of sulfur and phosphorus may well take place in the case of all substances that gain in weight by combustion and calcination; and I am persuaded that the increase in weight of metallic calyxes is due to the same cause ... This discovery seems to me one of the most interesting that has been made since Stahl and since it is difficult not to disclose something inadvertently in conversation with friends that could lead to the truth I have thought it necessary to make the present deposit to the Secretary of the Academy to await the time I make my experiments public. ~ Antoine Lavoisier

Christian mission is not to preach Christ, but to be Christians in life. There ~ Alexander Schmemann