Oneself Quotes

It may be that the most interesting American struggle is the struggle to set oneself free from the limits one is born to, and then to learn something of the value of those limits

As a painter today you have to work without that essential platform. But if one does not deceive oneself and accepts this lack of certainty, other things may come into play.

It is one thing to read about the world, but quite another to see and hear for oneself.

To think at its best is to find oneself carried down the current of necessity.

The creation of freedom for oneself and a sacred "No" even to duty -- for that, my brothers, the lion is needed.

Cohabitation seems a greater leap in cities because it's all the harder to extract oneself if things turn sour. It's what keeps otherwise functional adults living with their mothers.

The surrender of oneself to a stronger power, the unification of one's own movements with the movements of the whole is what makes dance religious and lets it become a service of God.

Happiness does not lie in amusement; it would be strange if one were to take trouble and suffer hardship all one's life in order to amuse oneself.

Carrying out the thing, getting it to the point when one might say: There, now it is good - that point is hard to reach. Often, one sets very high goals for oneself. Perhaps too high.

the female view that one strengthens oneself by strengthening others is finding greater acceptance, and female values of inclusion and connection are emerging as valuable leadership qualities.

It is selfish to concern oneself with tragedies.

First one must understand conditioning - only then can we speak of choice

One saves oneself much pain, by taking pains; much trouble, by taking trouble.

I've become convinced that every person should treat himself strictly and even rudely and distrustfully; it's difficult to tame the beast in oneself.

There must be something in oneself which is essential. Therefore I refrain from referring to a landscape or certain objects when speaking of a picture. The hand is cleverer than the mind.

One defeats a fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one's intelligence.

Much benevolence of the passive order may be traced to a disinclination to inflict pain upon oneself.

The business of life is to enjoy oneself; everything else is a mockery.

One never comes into embarrassment, if one is ready to balance. To ask oneself never in embarrassment, what have you in these decades made.

while one can lose oneself in a book one can never be thoroughly unhappy.

In any close society it is more urgent to restrain others than to be free oneself. Hence the tendency for the central authority to absorb and supersede such as are local or delegated.

To joke in the face of danger is the supreme politeness, a delicate refusal to cast oneself as a tragic hero.

What comes from oneself is nearly from no one. There is only me as a link.

...in some situations winning consist[s] of disentangling oneself.

Coming out is a means of redefining oneself, of claiming membership in a lifestyle and a social order with distinct values. Chief among these values is honesty.

There is no greater sin than desire, No greater curse than discontent, No greater misfortune than wanting something for oneself. Therefore he who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

I have always thought of poems as stepping stones in one's own sense of oneself.

I paint with a language I can call my own... it takes a ruthless honesty with oneself. If one admires or is influenced by anyone else, one is not being true to oneself.

it is true that nothing is gained without something being lost: everyone knows that in fulfilling oneself one necessarily sacrifices some possibilities.

Questions are a burden to others; answers are a prison for oneself.

perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque.

Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively.

One does not substitute oneself for the past, one merely adds to it a new link.

In Zen Buddhism an action is considered good when it brings happiness and well-being to oneself and others, evil when it brings suffering and harm to oneself and others.

Ultimately you are doing what you do for one of two reasons: to serve oneself or to serve God. There is enough time in every day to do God's work...in God's way.

One had to immerse oneself in one's surroundings and intensely study nature or one's subject to understand how to recreate it.

Much of the possibility of being cheerful comes from the faculty of throwing oneself beyond oneself.

In art one is concerned with the condition of the spirit for three quarters of the time; one must therefore care for oneself if he wishes to make something great and lasting.

It is wisdom to know others. It is enlightenment to know oneself.

Meeting people unlike oneself does not enlarge one's outlook; it only confirms one's idea that one is unique.

Human rights means protecting another's freedom, seeing that the other person is also like oneself. Human rights is giving others security, letting them live.

Perhaps Kafka laughed when he told stories [. . . ] because one isn't always equal to oneself.

There is nothing more difficult to find than oneself.

One has to do sadhana for the total manifestation of the Divine in oneself.

the main necessity on both sides of a revolution is kindness, which makes possible the most surprising things. To treat one's neighbor as oneself is the fundamental maxim for revolution.

... in marriage the great thing was love, and that with love one would always be happy, for happiness rests only on oneself.

One must never forbid oneself anything. One must also be able to go back, one must always be able to change.

Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself.

The relationship to one's fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one's striving.

I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really - one has to ask oneself - what dignity is there in that?