Sense Of Self Quotes

By the way, I haven't heard an 'I'm sorry' from you yet." My sense of grievance had overwhelmed my sense of self-preservation.
I am sorry that the maenad picked on you."
I glared at him. "Not enough," I said. I was trying hard to hang on to this conversation.
Angelic Sookie, vision of love and beauty, I am prostrate that the wicked evil maenad violated your smooth and voluptuous body, in an attempt to deliver a message to me."
That's more like it. ~ Charlaine Harris

Beli, who'd been waiting for something exactly like her body her whole life, was sent over the moon by what she now knew. By the undeniable concreteness of her desirability which was, in its own way, Power. Like the accidental discovery of the One Ring. Like stumbling into the wizard Shazam's cave or finding the crashed ship of the Green Lantern! Hypatia Belicia Cabral finally had power and a true sense of self. Started pinching her shoulders back, wearing the tightest clothes she had. Dios mío, La Inca said every time the girl headed out. Why would God give you that burden in this country of all places! ~ Junot Diaz

Problem" means that you are dwelling on a situation mentally without there being a true intention or possibility of taking action now and that you are unconsciously making it part of your sense of self. You become so overwhelmed by your life situation that you lose your sense of life, of Being. Or you are carrying in your mind the insane burden of a hundred things that you will or may have to do in the future instead of focusing your attention on the one thing you can do now. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Sometimes when we go through transitions, we aren't aware of the impact they have on us. Stress, doubt, and even depression commonly result from being moved or thrown out of your comfort zone, however easy the transition is. You may have a strong sense of purpose, high hopes, strong faith, a powerful sense of self-worth, a positive attitude, the courage to face your fears, and the ability to bounce back from failures. But if you fall apart when faced with the inevitable changes that life brings, you will never move forward. We ~ Nick Vujicic

We perceive the solidification as the world around us, which appears to be relatively solid. But that solidification is just really a reflection of the solidification of one's sense of self. ~ Frederick Lenz

Barometer of success in later life is not that they always win, but how they deal with failure. An ability to pick themselves up when they fall, retaining their optimism and sense of self, is a far greater predictor of future success than class position in Year 3. ~ Helen Fielding

The sense of one's past is so strong and forms our sense of self so strongly, it will always fascinate, elude and confuse me. ~ Samantha Harvey

Because often what keeps you from creative living is your self-absorption (your self-doubt, your self-disgust, your self-judgment, your crushing sense of self-protection). ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Just to set the record straight, a salary for a given on-screen performance does not include the right to invade anyone's privacy, to destroy someone's sense of self. ~ Jodie Foster

If you have the sense of participation in sports or athletics, of being a player, then you are not really into the Zen mind. In Zen mind there is no sense of self in the play. ~ Frederick Lenz

What we grieve for is not the loss of a grand vision, but rather the loss of common things, events and gestures ... ordinariness is the most precious thing we struggle for, what the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto fought for. Not noble causes or abstract theories. But the right to go on living with a sense of purpose and a sense of self-worth
an ordinary life. ~ Irena Klepfisz

It is very difficult to develop a proper sense of self-esteem in a dysfunctional family. Having very little self-worth, looking at one's own character defects becomes so overwhelming there is no room for inward focus. People so afflicted think: "I need to keep you from knowing me. I have already rejected me, but if you knew how flawed I am, you would also reject me…and since this is all I have, I could not stand any more rejection. I am not worthy of someone understanding me so you will not get the chance...so I must judge, reject, attack, and/or find fault with you. I don't accept me so how can I accept you? ~ David Walton Earle

If there's no sense of self, there's no sense of culture. If there's no sense of wisdom, there's no sense of progress. If there's no sense of love, there's no sense of peace. If there's no sense of peace, there's no sense of stability. If there's no room for freedom of expressions, there's no room for growth. ~ Henry Johnson Jr

Shedding an independent, individualistic sense of self, is an apt place to start when remaking oneself. The task of divesting my egoistic coat-of-arms requires that I first understand how I came into being, ascertain how a person forges a baseline personality, and discover how I can modify my template for self-construal. I need to surrender an arrogant sense of self-importance, acknowledge towering ignorance, and learn how to live humbly. I hope to parlay personal humiliation and self-hatred into a transformative act by invoking a spiritual death of my egotistical being that results in a resurrection of a more astute and kinder human being. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

I feel that adolescence has served its purpose when a person arrives at adulthood with a strong sense of self-esteem, the ability to relate intimately, to communicate congruently, to take responsibility, and to take risks. The end of adolescence is the beginning of adulthood. What hasn't been finished then will have to be finished later. ~ Virginia Satir

The sense of self is one of the obscurations that prevents us from seeing clearly, the idea that there is a self or that we are anyone in particular. ~ Frederick Lenz

Underlying James's career crisis was a psychological crisis. He had to confront what was really true about himself. Faced with the competing job offer, James had been asking people, "What should I do?" instead of, "What do I really want? What gives me a sense of self-worth? ~ Barbara Moses

Overcoming limiting beliefs depends on a person's willingness to challenge and replace their beliefs with contrasting ones which feel uncomfortable, unfamiliar and, potentially, threatening to their sense of self. ~ Kain Ramsay

In supportive work, the therapist cedes great control to the patient. It may seem otherwise. The therapist is setting limits, perhaps implicitly commenting on the patient's behavior or sense of self, and so forth, and on the surface it seems that the therapist is taking responsibility for the patient's progress. but all this activity leads nowhere except, if we succeed, to stability. In supportive therapy, change arises in a more or less miraculous way , through the patient's suddenly feeling secure enough to move in a certain direction, perhaps one unanticipated by the therapist. It is this pathless quality of supportive work - the degree of blind faith it requires of the therapist - that makes it most uncomfortable. ~ Peter D. Kramer

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 evil components of our shadow are the part of us that we deplore, the part of us that we prefer not to admit. One must set themselves free from all inhibitions in order to initiate close encounters with their innermost monster. By standing toe-to-toe with the part of ourselves that we most detest, a person is in a position to slay their fiendish sense of self and, by doing so, undergo a soulful transformation. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

If we value play and imagination in the early years because they promote healthy minds and contribute to a strong sense of self, why are they not an essential part of adulthood? ~ Ben Michaelis

I'm not really sure which parts of myself are real and which parts are things I've gotten from books. ~ Beatrice Sparks

Hard-earned achievement brings a sense of self-worth. Work builds and refines character, creates beauty, and is the instrument of our service to one another and to God. A consecrated life is filled with work, sometimes repetitive, sometimes menial, sometimes unappreciated but always work that improves, orders, sustains, lifts, ministers, aspires. ~ D. Todd Christofferson

Traits that are common among psychopathic serial killers
a grandiose sense of self-worth, persuasiveness, superficial charm, ruthlessness, lack of remorse, and the manipulation of others
are also shared by politicians and world leaders. ~ Kevin Dutton

I've always known I was gay, but it wasn't confirmed until I was in kindergarten.
It was my teacher who said so. It was right there on my kindergarten report card: PAUL IS DEFINITELY GAY AND HAS VERY GOOD SENSE OF SELF. ~ David Levithan

When parents matter more than peers, they can teach right and wrong in a meaningful way. They can prioritize attachments within the family over attachments with same-age peers. They can foster better relationships between their child and other adults. They can help their child develop a more robust and more authentic sense of self, grounded not in how many "likes" a photo gets on Instagram or Facebook but in the child's truest nature. They can educate desire, instilling a longing for higher and better things, in music, in the arts, and in one's own character. ~ Leonard Sax

My favorite, and the author I wish I was reading right now and always is Nora Ephron. I love the humor, the awareness, the sense of self-deprecation. She is such a role model to me. ~ Garance Dore

Along with the loss of the sense of self has gone a loss of our language for communicating deeply personal meanings to each other. ~ Rollo May

Doubt was nothing more than an epistemological humility: a deep and practical awareness that outside our sphere of knowledge there existed information and experiences that might show our position to be in error. Doubt causes us to hold a strong position a bit more loosely, such that an acknowledgment of ignorance or error doesn't crush our sense of self or leave us totally unmoored if our position proves untenable. Certainty is the opposite: it hampers inquiry and hinders growth. It teaches us to ignore evidence that contradicts our ideas, and encourages us to defend our position at all costs, even as it reveals itself as indefensible. Certainty sees compromise as weak, hypocritical, evil, suppressing empathy and allowing us to justify inflicting horrible pain on others. ~ Megan Phelps-Roper

Our sense of being a person can come from being drawn into a wide social unit; our sense of selfhood can arise through the little ways in which we resist the pull. Our status is backed by the solid buildings of the world, while our sense of personal identity often resides in the cracks ~ Erving Goffman

We go into a relationship looking for love, not realizing that we must bring love with us. We must bring a strong sense of self and purpose into a relationship. We must bring a sense of value, of who we are. We must bring an excitement about ourselves, our lives, and the vision we have for these two essential elements. We must bring a respect for wealth and abundance. Having achieved it to some satisfactory degree on our own, we must move into relationships willing to share what we have, rather than being afraid of someone taking it. ~ Iyanla Vanzant

As Kai Erikson has put it, traumatised people 'may be said to have experienced not only a) a changed sense of self and b) a changed way of relating to others but c) a changed world view altogether'. In that first ~ Robert Kenny

Historians constantly rewrite history, reinterpreting (reorganizing) the records of the past. So, too, when the brain's coherent responses become part of a memory, they are organized anew as part of the structure of consciousness. What makes them memories is that they become part of that structure and thus form part of the sense of self; my sense of self derives from a certainty that my experiences refer back to me, the individual who is having them. Hence the sense of the past, of history, of memory, is in part the creation of the self. ~ Israel Rosenfield

We certainly noted that when given the opportunity, women handle money more efficiently. They have long term vision, they manage money more carefully. Men are more callous with money. Their first reflex is to blow it by getting drunk in a pub, or on prostitutes or gambling. Women, on the other hand, are endowed with a tremendous sense of self-sacrifice and try to get the best out of the money, for their children, but also for their husbands. ~ Muhammad Yunus

Should I take anything?" I asked, as Shamus slammed the trunk shut.
"A healthy sense of self-preservation would be good," he said. ~ Devon Monk

Every act of self control leads to a sense of self-respect. ~ Abraham Low

Kids growing up in today's generation are constantly documenting their experience. It's different - how does that change their sense of self when everything becomes a story that you are telling? ~ Hal Niedzviecki

When we do not express ourselves, do not assert our being, do not stand up for our values in contexts where it is appropriate to do so, we inflict wounds on our sense of self. The world does not do it to us, we do it to ourselves. ~ Nathaniel Branden Ph.D.

Stop the pain." – Tory
"You know I can't." – Acheron
"Fine. But next time you're the one who's doing labor duty. I get to sit there and hold your hand." – Tory
(And again he laughed. She glared at him.) "You have no sense of self preservation, do you?" – Tory ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Learning to cultivate an awareness of the known and unknown within one's being often leads to a healthier and more realistic sense of self. ~ Aberjhani

With our sense of self out of the the way we are liberated from doubt and insecurity. ~ Steven Kotler

Complaining and reactivity are favorite mind patterns through which the ego strengthens itself. For many people, a large part of their mentalemotional activity consists of complaining and reacting against this or that. By doing this, you make others or a situation "wrong" and yourself "right." Through being "right," you feel superior, and through feeling superior, you strengthen your sense of self. In reality, of course, you are only strengthening the illusion of ego. Can you observe those patterns within yourself and recognize the complaining voice in your head for what it is? ~ Eckhart Tolle

A solid sense of self will help a person to lead a full and happy life. ~ Kimberly Elise

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

In film, you're so much in the hands and at the mercy of the editor, so sometimes it's good to watch it just to see how it turns out - it can be so different than how you imagined it. But sometimes it's better to just let it go for your own sense of self worth. ~ Finn Wittrock

As the language areas of the left hemisphere enter their sensitive period during the middle of the second year of life, grammatical language in the left integrates with the interpersonal and prosodic elements of communication already well developed in the right. As the cortical language centers mature, words are joined together to make sentences and can be used to express increasingly complex ideas flavored with emotion. As the frontal cortex continues to expand and connect with more neural networks, memory improves and a sense of time slowly emerges and autobiographical memory begins to connect the self with places and events, within and across time. The emerging narratives begin to organize the nascent sense of self and become the bedrock of our sense of self in interpersonal and physical space ~ Louis Cozolino

If you identify with a mental position, then if you are wrong, your mind-based sense of self is seriously threatened with annihilation. So you as the ego cannot afford to be wrong. To be wrong is to die. Wars have been fought over this, and countless relationships have broken down. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Men with style are great because they have a sense of self. ~ Lexa Doig

Our own sense of self-worth refuses to accept that our existence is a wonderful accident, and that there is no true purpose in it, except for the purposes we make for ourselves. ~ Albert Williams

I feel there is love and confidence in me somewhere and I want to find it. So far, music is the only medium that's allowed me to flirt with a sense of self-worth, with joy and comfort. ~ Wesley Eisold

Young girls today are very mistaken to be thinking that their sense of self-worth and their acknowledgment of their beauty depends on whether a man will give that to them or not. Such naïveté! And so what will happen when the man changes his mind about her? Tells her she's not beautiful enough? That she's not good enough? Cheats on her? Leaves her? Then what happens? She will lose all her self-worth, she will think she is not good enough, she is not beautiful enough, because all of those feelings depended on the man in the first place! And along with the loss of the man, it will all be lost as well! Mothers, teach your daughters better. It pains me to see such naive innocence right under my nose! Such naïveté does no good for any girl. It is better for a girl to be worldly-wise and have street-smarts! That's what a girl needs to have in life! Not wide-eyed delusional innocence! The sense of self-worth and acknowledgment of being beautiful must not come from a man, it must come from inside the woman herself, men will come and men will go and their coming and going must not take an effect on the woman's sense of worth and beauty. ~ C. JoyBell C.

More than his exterior hit me. I felt warm and safe just being with him. He brought comfort after my terrible day. So often with other people I felt a need to be center of attention, to be funny and always have something clever to say. It was a habit I needed to shake. But with him I never felt like I had to be anything more than what I already was. I didn't have to entertain him or think up jokes or even flirt. It was enough to just be together, to be so completely comfortable in each other's presence - we lost all sense of self-consciousness. ~ Richelle Mead

If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go. ~ James Baldwin

It is not possible to spend any prolonged period visiting public school classrooms without being appalled by the mutilation visible everywhere - mutilation of spontaneity, of joy in learning, or pleasure in creating, or sense of self ... Because adults take the schools so much for granted, they fail to appreciate what grim, joyless places most American schools are [they are much the same in most countries], how oppressive and petty are the rules by which they are governed, how intellectually sterile and esthetically barren the atmosphere, what an appalling lack of civility obtains on the part of teachers and principals, what contempt they unconsciously display for students as students. ~ John Holt

Steris," he whispered, "I've been considering how to proceed once we decide how to infiltrate. I've thought about bringing you in with us, and I just don't see that it's feasible. I think it would be best if you stayed and watched the horses."
"Very well."
"No, really. Those are armed soldiers. I can't even fathom how I'd feel if I brought you in there and something happened. You need to stay out here."
"Very well."
"It isn't subject to - " Wax hesitated. "Wait. You're all right with this?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" she asked. "I barely have any sense of where to point a gun, and have hardly any capacity for sneaking - that's really quite a scandalous talent if you think about it, Lord Waxillium. While I do believe that people tend to be safest when near you, riding into an enemy compound is stretching the issue. I'll stay here."
Wax grinned in the darkness. "Steris, you're a gem."
"What? Because I have a moderately healthy sense of self-preservation?"
"Let's just say that out in the Roughs, I was accustomed to people always wanting to try things beyond their capacity. And they always seemed determined to do it right when it was the most dangerous."
"Well, I shall endeavor to stay out of sight," Steris said, "and not get captured."
"I doubt you need to worry about that all the way out here."
"Oh, I agree," she said. "But that is the sort of statistical anomaly that plagues my life, so I'll plan for it nonetheless. ~ Brandon Sanderson

The corruption of freedom is in proportion to the moral deterioration of the people. For a people who have lost their sense of self-respect have no need for freedom. And the income tax, by transferring the property of earners to the State, has disintegrated the moral fiber of Americans to such a degree that they do not even recognize the fact. ~ Frank Chodorov

People are ruined by challenged economic lives. But they are ruined by wealth as well because they lose their ambition and they lose their pride and they lose their sense of self-worth ~ Malcolm Gladwell

We tell ourselves our own stories, selectively, in order to keep our sense of self intact. ~ Robert Stone

A common excuse for self-preservation through disobedience is offense. There is a false sense of self-protection in harboring an offense. It keeps you from seeing your own character flaws because the blame is deferred to another. You never have to face your role, your immaturity, or your sin because you see only the faults of the offender. Therefore, God's attempt to develop character in you by this opposition is now abandoned. The offended person will avoid the source of the offense and eventually flee, becoming a spiritual vagabond. ~ John Bevere

Also, accomplishing small tasks boosts our sense of "self-efficacy." The more we trust ourselves to follow through on our own commitments, the more likely we are to believe that we can keep an important habit. ~ Gretchen Rubin

Six senses keeping
Five around a sense of self ~ Dave Matthews

A woman's sense of self is defined through her feelings and the quality of her relationships. ~ John Gray

Insecurity refers to a profoud sense of self-doubt-a deep feeling of uncertainty about our basic worth and our place in the world. Insecurity is associated with chronic self-consciousness, along with a chronic lack of confidence in ourselves and anxiety about our relationships. The insecure man or woman lives in constant fear of rejection and a deep uncertainty about whether his or her own feelings and desires are legitimate. ~ Beth Moore

Othalas: Words. What are they but shadows on a page or howling on the wind? They are as ever-changing as the mists below us and it is just as easy to lose sense of yourself among them. I am older than most sorcerers so what I know may, indeed, be close to the truth. Magic, wyrd, words, dreams, they all come from the spirit. Within them lie both power and peril. For to misuse any is to warp your sense of self. To lie in words, or in magic, or in dreams
that is how you become lost. The lights you see, they were lost long before they came to the Vale. ~ Robert Fanney

She suggests, too, that our capacity for intimate relationships can depend on having this deep core of private awareness; and that acknowledging our unknown and unseen selves, and offering these up only when and if we choose, is essential to our ability to engage in close relationships. Valuing interior experience is vital to developing a sense of self, and how we reveal ourselves to the outside world has everything to do with how we stay out of view when we need to. ~ Akiko Busch

In order to feel more, and to feel more like ourselves, we connect. But in our rush to connect, we flee solitude. In time, our ability to be separate and gather ourselves is diminished. If we don't know who we are when we are alone, we turn to other people to support our sense of self. This makes it impossible to fully experience others as who they are. We take what we need from them in bits and pieces; it is as though we use them as spare parts to support our fragile selves. ~ Sherry Turkle

Many Canadian nationalists harbour the bizarre fear that should we ever reject royalty, we would instantly mutate into Americans, as though the Canadian sense of self is so frail and delicate a bud, that the only thing stopping it from being swallowed whole by the US is an English lady in a funny hat. ~ Will Ferguson

We are small, inconsequential beings. It is only our place in the hearts of others that fills us up, that gives us our purpose, our pride, and our sense of self. We need our parents to love us without condition, without logic, and beyond reason. We need them to see us through lenses warped by this love and to tell us in every way that just having us walk this earth fills them with joy. ~ Wendy Walker

As long as a sense of self-importance rules your being, you will never know lasting peace. ~ Matthieu Ricard

If you believe that you can use sex to shore up your fragile self-esteem by stealing someone else's, we feel sorry for you, because this will never work to build a solid sense of self worth, and you will have to go on stealing more and more and never getting fulfilled. ~ Dossie Easton

I must not be selfless: develop a sense of self. A solidness that can't be attacked. ~ Sylvia Plath

This one question
"What do I know for certain?"
is tremendously powerful. When you look deeply into this question, it actually destroys your world. It destroys your whole sense of self, and it's meant to. You come to see that everything you think you know about yourself, everything you think you know about the world, is based on assumptions, beliefs, and opinions
things you believe because you were taught or told that they were true. Until we start to see these false perceptions for what they really are, consciousness will be imprisoned within the dream state. ~ Adyashanti

Nobody's story is real unless we share it with someone who matters. ~ Jeffrey Deitz

I'd say, [writing memoir] not so much a model, but maybe to provide an insight, here or there, to help somebody come to terms with the dark corners of their own soul, to come to terms with the undecided, their own sense of self, and maybe help develop a capacity to love - to love wisdom, love justice. ~ Cornel West

For ages you have come and gone
courting this delusion.
For ages you have run from the pain
and forfeited the ecstasy.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

Although you appear in earthly form
Your essence is pure Consciousness.
You are the fearless guardian
of Divine Light.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

When you lose all sense of self
the bonds of a thousand chains will vanish.
Lose yourself completely,
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

You descended from Adam, by the pure Word of God,
but you turned your sight
to the empty show of this world.
Alas, how can you be satisfied with so little?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

Why are you so enchanted by this world
when a mine of gold lies within you?
Open your eyes and come ---
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

You were born from the rays of God's Majesty
when the stars were in their perfect place.
How long will you suffer from the blows
of a nonexistent hand?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

You are a ruby encased in granite.
How long will you decieve Us with this outer show?
O friend, We can see the truth in your eyes!
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
Rumi

When a stranger on the street makes a sexual comment, he is making a private assessment of me public. And though I've never been seriously worried that I would be attacked, it does make me feel unguarded, unprotected.

Regardless of his motive, the stranger on the street makes an assumption based on my physique: He presumes I might be receptive to his unpoetic, unsolicited comments. (Would he allow a friend to say "Nice tits" to his mother? His sister? His daughter?) And although I should know better, I, too, equate my body with my soul and the result, at least sometimes, is a deep shame of both.

Rape is a thousand times worse: The ultimate theft of self-control, it often leads to a breakdown in the victim's sense of self-worth. Girls who are molested, for instance, often go on to engage in risky behavior - having intercourse at an early age, not using contraception, smoking, drinking, and doing drugs. This behavior, it seems to me, is at least in part because their self-perception as autonomous, worthy human beings in control of their environment has been taken from them. ~ Leora Tanenbaum

Reading Mrs Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë after Jane Eyre is a curious experience. The subject of the biography is recognisably the same person who wrote the novel, but the effect of the two books is utterly different. The biography is indeed depressing and painful reading. It captures better, I believe, than any any
subsequent biography the introverted and puritan pessimist side of Charlotte Brontë, and conveys the real dreariness of the world of privation, critical discouragement and limited opportunity that
so often made her complain in her letters that she felt marked out for suffering.
Jane Eyre, on the other hand, is exhilarating reading, partly because the reader, far from simply pitying the heroine, is struck by her resilience, and partly because the novel achieves such an imaginative transmutation of the drab. Unlike that of Jane Austen's Fanny Price or Dickens's Arthur Clennam or John Harmon, Jane
Eyre's response to suffering is never less than energetic. The reader is torn between exasperation at the way she mistakes her resentments and prejudices for fair moral judgements, and admiration at the way she fights back. Matthew Arnold, seeking 'sweetness and light' was repelled by the 'hunger, rebellion and rage' that he
identified as the keynotes of the novel. One can see why, and yet feel that these have a more positive effect than his phrase allows. The heroine is trying to hold on to her sense of self in a world that gives it little en ~ Ian Gregor

My dad abandoned me when I was about two years old. So, he wasn't around to protect me the way I needed to be protected. I started getting sexually abused from the time I was about five years old to the time I was ten. It really messed with my sense of self worth and my sense of all that was good with the world, almost. ~ Pattie Mallette

I had lost confidence and a sense of self. Who am I? Am I a person who cowers in fear at the back of a spin class, avoiding everyone's gaze? This uncertainty about who I am, this confusion over where I truly was in the time line of my illness and recovery, was ultimately the deeper source of the shame. A part of my soul believed that I would never be myself, the carefree, confident Susannah, again. ~ Susannah Cahalan

We all put obstacles in our own path toward personal style, myself included. If we understood why we constructed these practical and emotional obstacles, we might move beyond it to healthier, happier perceptions of ourselves and, ideally, a better sense of self-esteem. ~ Stacy London

I'm taking a shower."
Oh, God. She was killing him. Making him want to laugh out loud. Where had his sense of self-preservation gone? He didn't feel emotion - that was far too dangerous. He shivered beneath the blankets, suddenly afraid for her. For himself.
"You're still cold. I should have thought to rub you down with some warm oil. Lexi makes it and I use it sometimes when I come in from a dive. It warms you up fast. Can you roll over, because I'm not rubbing your front."
"Why not?"
"If you want a massage, turn over. ~ Christine Feehan

When the world turns and and we operate at our own personal vibration, it is in our power to withhold our dignity and integrity at the highest possible frequency, with this as an active force, we can command our reality in the physical realm. Justly, we shall take all the opportunity that manifests itself in arms reach. To be one, and to have and do what we dream is concurrent only on a high wavelength, and operative to those who seek a higher sense of self. Are you ready to expand to these levels of operation? Have you taken the steps? Step forward and release all your fears. ~ Will Barnes

We can struggle with what is. We can judge and blame others or ourselves. Or we can accept what cannot be changed. Peace comes from an honorable and open heart accepting what is true. Do we want to remain stuck? Or to release the fearful sense of self and rest kindly where we are? ~ Jack Kornfield

If one's sense of self is obtained through the eyes of another it is always subject to being lost. ~ Brenda Shoshanna

You can kill me, you mean. You can destroy my sense of self and replace it with one you approve of. ~ Ann Leckie

For the academic the rhetorical sense of superiority through the possession of knowledge is essential for facing the daily grind, turning again to the otherwise boring article, braving the students who, fresh as each class may be, will still ask the same questions year after year. Psychological survival is not achieved without effort, and the environment must be managed, knocked about with one's elbows until it takes a shape comfortable to one's sense of self. This is not selfishness, for in reshaping the environment the academic is also reinvigorating the educational process. ~ Robin Winks

People assumed Melissa was vegetarian out of cussedness, or maybe as an outlet for the empathy she didn't expend on human beings, but it was sloppy thinking she hated. She cared little for the suffering of cattle or sheep but why eat them and not dogs? It wasn't so much a belief as the obvious thing to do. She hated injustice without feeling much sympathy for those who had been treated unjustly. She thought that all drugs should be legal and that giving money to charity was pointless. And she liked the fact that these opinions made her distinctive and intelligent. In many respects she was like her father. Not the dirt under his nails, not the prickly pride in his under-education but the way his sense of self depended so much on other people being in the wrong. ~ Mark Haddon

Second, not only does the gospel prepare me to face my sin, it also frees me up to do so. Facing our sin causes us to feel guilty. Of course we feel guilty because we are guilty. And if I believe, consciously or unconsciously, that God still counts my guilt against me, my instinctive sense of self-protection forbids me to acknowledge my sin and guilt, or, at the least, I seek to minimize it. But we cannot begin to deal with a particular manifestation of sin, such as anger or self-pity, until we first openly acknowledge its presence and activity in our lives. So I need the assurance that my sin is forgiven before I can even acknowledge it, let alone begin to deal with it. By ~ Jerry Bridges

When you go to high school, and you're trying to figure yourself out, sometimes it takes doing things that you don't like in order to figure out what you don't like. But it's important to maintain your sense of self throughout the journey. ~ Sara Zarr

What does it mean when I say that 'I don't see race?' It means that because I learned to see no difference between 'white' and 'color,' I have white-washed my own sense of self. It means that I know more about what it is to be a white person than what it is to be Asian, and I am a stranger among both. ~ Michi Trota

The combination of physical synchrony with other humans and being part of something bigger than oneself (and thus losing momentarily a sense of self) leads to a greater sense of happiness. ~ Tony Hsieh

Even two of humanity's most intimate possessions - a sense of self and a body image - are fluid, highly modifiable creations of the brain's mischievous deployment of electricity and a handful of chemicals. They both can change or be changed on less than a second's notice. ~ Miguel Nicolelis

Sometimes the boxes we're put in fit. Other times, we find ourselves shoved into places too confining for our growing sense of self. ~ Sarah Hackley

People who learn primarily from reading and principally communicate through writing generally possess a highly developed internal world, a more refined sense of self-control, and a greater sensitivity to honoring social boundaries. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

I don't have a strong sense of self-worth unless I'm doing something. ~ Gwen Stefani

Human being's possess the cognitive ability to survey and study the biological and cultural constraints that influence us in order to gain an enhanced understanding of who each of us are. Comprehension of what comprises a self allows human beings to monitor and regulate their thoughts and actions and therefore revise and modify their sense of self. How much conscious control we assert over our minds as well as what decisions through default we leave essentially unregulated and in the sole providence of the unconscious mind determines our self-identity. Self-identity in turns affects personal decision-making, which alters our external world. The combined impact of millions of people making conscious choices exerts a profound impact upon reality, the physical world that is constantly in flux. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

It's not about what people think. It's about who you are. ~ Cinda Williams Chima

Don't forget that your happiness is the most important thing, and that you should never equate your GPA or school with your sense of self-worth ... If you're feeling overwhelmed, take a step back and remind yourself that you are not your grades. ~ Stefanie Weisman

So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger. One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head, as you would smile at the antics of a child. This means that you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self does not depend on it. ~ Eckhart Tolle