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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.

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

The Southern whites are in many respects a great people. Looked at from a certain point of view, they are picturesque. If one will put oneself in a romantic frame of mind, one can admire their notions of chivalry and bravery and justice.

In France one must adapt oneself to the fragrance of a urinal.

It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.

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.

Writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.