#ego

Self-inflicted pain has a calming effect; it clears the head, diminishes one's fascination with the ego, and most important, gives one the sense of having taken some real action against the everyday foolishness of the body and of the vagrant, willful, heedless imagination. ↗

— Valerie Martin

#pain #self-inflicted-pain #imagination

The interior life is often stupid. Its egoism blinds it and deafens it; its imagination spins out ignorant tales, fascinated. It fancies that the western wind blows on the Self, and leaves fall at the feet of the Self for a reason, and people are watching. A mind risks real ignorance for the sometimes paltry prize of an imagination enriched. The trick of reason is to get the imagination to seize the actual world—if only from time to time. ↗

— Annie Dillard

#imagination #interior-life #self #imagination

I told the President, I told Rahm Emanuel and others in the administration that I thought the policy they took to try to bring about negotiations is counter-productive, because when you give the Palestinians hope that the United States will do its negotiating for them, they are not going to sit down and talk. ↗

— Charles Schumer

#administration #because #bring #down #give

Yet none of these things gave him confidence. All they gave him was egotism, which is less the conviction of one's worth than the desire for that conviction. ↗

— Jetta Carleton

#conviction #egotism #inspirational #inspirational

Twelve dead?” I said. “Jesus. ↗

— Dennis Lehane

#biblical #brief #humour #i #inspirational

I don't want it to end, and so, as every therapist knows, the ego does not want an end to its “problems” because they are part of its identity. If no one will listen to my sad story, I can tell it to myself in my head, over and over, and feel sorry for myself, and so have an identity as someone who is being treated unfairly by life or other people, fate or God. It gives definition to my self-image, makes me into someone, and that is all that matters to the ego. ↗

— Eckhart Tolle

#identity #self-pity #life

An egoist is always intelligent, never wise. ↗

— Raheel Farooq

#egoism #intelligence #wisdom #intelligence

The Bear had once confided to me that Durrell's ego could fit snugly in the basilica of St. Peter's in Rome but in very few other public places. This runaway megalomania marked him as a blood member of the fraternity of generals. If looks alone could make generals, Durrell would have been a cinch. He was built lean and slim and dark, like a Doberman. A man of breeding and refrigerated intelligence, he ordered his life like a table of logarithms. ↗

— Pat Conroy

#generals #megalomania #intelligence

The weak are dominated by their ego, the wise dominate their ego, and the intelligent are in a constant struggle against their ego. ↗

— Hamza Yusuf

#egoism #intelligence #weak #wisdom #wise

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock The meat it feeds on. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#jealousy #mockery #monsters #vices #jealousy