Oneself Quotes

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

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.

The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat 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.

An infallible method of conciliating a tiger is to allow oneself to be devoured.

I say it is indispensable to look ahead of and behind oneself in the present. If there is such a thing as tradition, and I believe there is, it can only exist in the sense of the most profound movements of culture.

To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.

Money can add very much to one's ability to lead a constructive life, not only pleasant for oneself, but, hopefully, beneficial to others.

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

The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.

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.

In order to remain true to oneself one ought to renounce one's party three times a day.

To forget oneself is to be happy.

One does not kill oneself for love of a woman, but because love - any love - reveals us in our nakedness, our misery, our vulnerability, our nothingness.

Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.

It is impossible to talk or to write without apparently throwing oneself helplessly open.

To know oneself is to disbelieve utopia.

I think it's important for one to take a certain distance from oneself.

The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.

Most of one's life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking.