Oneself Quotes

If you're a short-seller, that's a cacophony of negative reinforcement. You're basically told that you're wrong in every way imaginable every day. It takes a certain type of individual to drown that noise and negative reinforcement out and to remind oneself that their work is accurate and what they're hearing is not.

The attempt to devote oneself to literature alone is a most deceptive thing, and often, paradoxically, it is literature that suffers for it.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.

Everyone writes in Tolstoy's shadow, whether one feels oneself to be Tolstoyan or not.

Life at any time can become difficult: life at any time can become easy. It all depends upon how one adjusts oneself to life.

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.

I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone.

One has to devote oneself to a particular pursuit. To be successful at anything, you have to make a total commitment to it.

But what is the greatest evil? If you are going to epitomize evil, what is it? Is it the bomb? The greatest evil that one has to fight constantly, every minute of the day until one dies, is the worse part of oneself.

One may speak about anything on earth with fire, with enthusiasm, with ecstasy, but one only speaks about oneself with avidity.

Florida isn't so much a place where one goes to reinvent oneself, as it is a place where one goes if one no longer wished to be found.

I think poetry is best read to oneself.

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.

When one takes action for others, one's own suffering is transformed into the energy that can keep one moving forward; a light of hope illuminating a new tomorrow for oneself and others is kindled.

Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.

To understand is to forgive, even oneself.

The contemplative life is often miserable. One must act more, think less, and not watch oneself live.

It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

Employ oneself upon trifling professional matters which others could do.

Things are not as we would like them to be. There is only one way to deal with it, namely to try and be all right oneself.

What one does in the studio is to pose a series of problems to oneself. I've got to look for some deeper meaning, for some reason for this thing to be in the world. There's enough stuff in the world.

To keep oneself safe does not mean to bury oneself.

There is no excellence without labor. One cannot dream oneself into either usefulness or happiness.

I may attempt a novel. I think that no matter what you write, it requires being honest with oneself, and you have to pull yourself out of the whirlwind of daily life.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.

Everyone is a bore to someone. That is unimportant. The thing to avoid is being a bore to oneself.

Testing oneself is best when done alone.

Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle.

One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time and in others' minds.