Oneself Quotes - Page 7

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

  Gertrude Stein

  France, Literature, Fragrance

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• To forget oneself is to be happy.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Forget, Forgetfulness

  Robert Louis Stevenson (2016). “Memories and Portraits: Stevenson's Vol. 21”, p.17, VM eBooks

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• Where misunderstanding serves others as an advantage, one is helpless to make oneself understood.

  Lionel Trilling

  Understanding, Obscurity, Advantage

  Lionel Trilling (2012). “The Liberal Imagination”, p.259, New York Review of Books

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• 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.

  Paul Valery

  Truth, Honesty, Spring

  "Introduction to the Method of Leonardo da Vinci". Book by Paul Valery, 1895.

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• To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself.

  Simone Weil

  Women, Hero, Order

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• Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.

  Simone Weil

  Crush, Sides, Oppression

  Simone Weil (1978). “Lectures on Philosophy”, p.139, Cambridge University Press

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• I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Funny, Witty

  Oscar Wilde (2014). “The Wit and Wisdom of Oscar Wilde”, p.3, Courier Corporation

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

  A. N. Wilson

  Writing, Shadow, Feels

  "AN Wilson: 'Everyone writes in Tolstoy's shadow'". Interview with William Skidelsky, www.theguardian.com. April 21, 2012.

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• Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Deception, Investing, Deceiving

  "Culture and Value" by Ludwig Wittgenstein, translated by Peter Winch, (p. 34e), 1980.

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• It is curious how instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original to be believed any longer.

  Virginia Woolf

  Ridiculous, Curious, Protect

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.2002, Delphi Classics

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• Envy is an insult to oneself.

  Yevgeny Yevtushenko

  Envy, Insult

  Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko (1989). “Early Poems”, Marion Boyars Publishers

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• I realise there's an innate paradox in promoting oneself on the one hand and saying, 'Oh, I don't want to be famous,' on the other.

  Romola Garai

  Hands, Want, Paradox

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• She thought how strange it would be if she ever said 'Hello' to him. One did not greet oneself each morning.

  Ayn Rand

  Morning, Would Be, Strange

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.594, Penguin

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• It is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical will live the relation to another as something alive.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Thinking, Doe, Alive

  Rainer Maria Rilke, “Fear Of The Inexplicable”

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• Even if one is neither vain nor self-obsessed, it is so extraordinary to be oneself - exactly oneself and no one else - and so unique, that it seems natural that one should also be unique for someone else.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Unique, Self, Natural

  Simone de Beauvoir (1969). “The Woman Destroyed”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• People think that talking is a sign of thinking. It isn't, for the most part' on the contrary, it's a mechanical dodge of the body to relieve oneself of the strain of thinking, just as exercising the muscles helps the body to become temporarily unconscious of its weight, its pain, its weariness, and the foreknowledge of its doom.

  Aleister Crowley

  Pain, Exercise, Thinking

  Aleister Crowley (2010). “The Diary of a Drug Fiend”, p.7, Weiser Books

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• By dint of railing at idiots, one runs the risk of becoming an idiot oneself.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Running, Risk, Becoming

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• She did not shut it properly because she knew that it is very silly to shut oneself into a wardrobe, even if it is not a magic one.

  C. S. Lewis

  Silly, Magic, Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe

  C. S. LEWIS (1950). “THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE”

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• Maturity starts with the willingness to give oneself.

  Elisabeth Elliot

  Maturity, Giving, Passion And Purity

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• To shut one's eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice.

  Oscar Wilde

  Eye, Land, Safety

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.62, Wordsworth Editions

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• How can the mind be so imperfect?" she says with a smile. I look at my hands. Bathed in the moonlight, they seem like statues, proportioned to no purpose. "It may well be imperfect," I say, "but it leaves traces. And we can follow those traces, like footsteps in the snow." "Where do the lead?" "To oneself," I answer. "That's where the mind is. Without the mind, nothing leads anywhere." I look up. The winter moon is brilliant, over the Town, above the Wall. "Not one thing is your fault," I comfort her.

  Haruki Murakami

  Wall, Winter, Moon

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• Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.

  Carl Jung

  Inspirational, Loneliness, Being Alone

  Carl Gustav Jung (1973). “Memories, dreams, reflections”, Random House Inc

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• If one doesn't respect oneself one can have neither love nor respect for others.

  Ayn Rand

  Inspirational, Respect, Ethics

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.783, Penguin

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• So he was deserted. The whole world was clamouring: Kill yourself, kill yourself, for our sakes. But why should he kill himself for their sakes? Food was pleasant; the sun hot; and this killing oneself, how does one set about it, with a table knife, uglily, with floods of blood, - by sucking a gaspipe? He was too weak; he could scarcely raise his hand. Besides, now that he was quite alone, condemned, deserted, as those who are about to die are alone, there was a luxury in it, an isolation full of sublimity; a freedom which the attached can never know.

  Virginia Woolf

  Blood, Hands, Knives

  Virginia Woolf (2012). “Mrs. Dalloway - Broadview Edition”, p.92, Broadview Press

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• To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to the violence of our times.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Peace, Demand

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