Ego Quotes - Page 37

• The moralist is the person who tells people that they ought to be unselfish, when they still feel like egos, and his efforts are always and invariably futile.

  Alan Watts

  People, Effort, Unselfish

  21 Copy quote

• I get recognized just often enough to keep my ego bouncing along, but not so much that I can't go places.

  Joss Whedon

  Enough, I Can

  4 Copy quote

• I have a gigantic ego and need to be at the top of the pile and be doing amazingly well; also, at the same time, I'm just pleased to be anywhere.

  Robbie Williams

  Needs, Wells

  7 Copy quote

• If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.

  John Cage

  Music, Cutting, Listening

  29 Copy quote

• Doffing the ego's safe glory, he finds his naked reality.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  Reality, Naked, Safe

  4 Copy quote

• If a man thinks he is not conceited, he is very conceited indeed.

  C. S. Lewis

  Inspirational, Conceited, Men

  10 Copy quote

• When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego, and when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality and get into the forests again, we shall shiver with cold and fright but things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in, and passion will make our bodies taut with power, we shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down, we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Fall, Passion, Squirrels

  David Herbert Lawrence (1994). “The Works of D.H. Lawrence: With an Introduction and Bibliography”, p.397, Wordsworth Editions

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• I would prefer not to.

  Herman Melville

  "Bartleby the Scrivener" (1856)

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent. He's weak... he's unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race.

  Quentin Tarantino

  Baby, Morning, Clothes

  "Kill Bill: Vol. 2". www.imdb.com. 2004.

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Writer’s block is only a failure of the ego.

  Norman Mailer

  Block, Writer's Block

  11 Copy quote

• And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory. The sacred word: EGO

  Ayn Rand

  Heart, Cutting, Battle

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Anthem”, p.51, Xist Publishing

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I do not know if it has ever been noted before that one of the main characteristics of life is discreteness. Unless a film of flesh envelopes us, we die. Man exists only insofar as he is separated from his surroundings. The cranium is a space-traveler's helmet. Stay inside or you perish. Death is divestment, death is communion. It may be wonderful to mix with the landscape, but to do so is the end of the tender ego.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Men, Space, Landscape

  13 Copy quote

• There was another thing I heartily disbelieved in - work. Work, it seemed to me even at the threshold of life, is an activity reserved for the dullard. It is the very opposite of creation, which is play… The part of me which was given up to work, which enabled my wife and child to live in the manner which they unthinkingly demanded, this part of me which kept the wheel turning - a completely fatuous, ego-centric notion! - was the least part of me. I gave nothing to the world in fulfilling the function of breadwinner; the world exacted its tribute of me, that was all.

  Henry Miller

  Children, Opposites, Play

  10 Copy quote

• The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure.

  Sigmund Freud

  Reality, Suffering, World

  58 Copy quote

• (...) being right all the time acquires a huge importance in education, and there is this terror of being wrong. The ego is so tied to being right that later on in life you are reluctant to accept that you are ever wrong, because you are defending not the idea but your self-esteem. (...) this terror of being wrong means that people have enormous difficulties in changing ideas.

  Edward de Bono

  Real, Self Esteem, Mean

  Edward De Bono (1972). “PO: a device for successful thinking”

  37 Copy quote

  Show source

• Love starts when we push aside our ego and make room for someone else.

  Rudolf Steiner

  Rooms

  Rudolf Steiner (2016). “The Way of Initiation”, p.71, Lulu.com

  35 Copy quote

  Show source

• Always, always, always referring every goddam thing that happens right back to our lousy little egos.

  J. D. Salinger

  Littles, Referring, Happens

  j.d. salinger (1961). “franny and zooey”

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• We search for happiness everywhere, but we are like Tolstoy's fabled beggar who spent his life sitting on a pot of gold, under him the whole time. Your treasure--your perfection--is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the buy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Heart, Perfection, Silence

  10 Copy quote

• Love is the movement within life that carries us, that enables us, that causes us to break out of what Alan Watts calls the “skin-encapsulated ego.” Without love, we are self-centered, but love enables us to move the center of our lives outside our ego. Therefore it expands our lives and, needless to say, enriches it. Any human being would give anything to love or be loved. When it really happens, it is like heaven on earth.

  Huston Smith

  Moving, Love Is, Self

  24 Copy quote

• Show me someone without an ego, and I'll show you a loser.

  Donald Trump

  Loser, Show Me, Shows

  Twitter post from Jul 19, 2012

  57 Copy quote

  Show source

• Man is a machine, but a very peculiar machine. He is a machine which, in right circumstances, and with right treatment, can know that he is a machine, and having fully realized this, he may find the ways to cease to be a machine. First of all, what man must know is that he is not one; he is many. He has not one permanent and unchangeable “I” or Ego. He is always different. One moment he is one, another moment he is another, the third moment he is a third, and so on, almost without end.

  P.D. Ouspensky

  Men, May, Way

  71 Copy quote

• If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

  Douglas Adams

  Important, Want, Caught

  Douglas Adams (2009). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, p.66, Pan Macmillan

  86 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am sufficiently proud of my knowing something to be modest about my not knowing all.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Humble, Knowing, Proud

  Vladimir Nabokov (2016). “Lolita”, p.138, Hamilton Books

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• This is God's universe, buddy, not yours, and he has the final say about what's ego and what isn't.

  J. D. Salinger

  Finals, Buddy, Universe

  j.d. salinger (1961). “franny and zooey”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A fight is going on inside me," said an old man to his son. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you." The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf will win?" The old man replied simply, "The one you feed.

  Wendy Mass

  Kindness, Regret, Lying

  32 Copy quote