#elf

Legendary innovators like Franklin, Snow, and Darwin all possess some common intellectual qualities—a certain quickness of mind, unbounded curiosity—but they also share one other defining attribute. They have a lot of hobbies. ↗

— Steven Johnson

#hobbies #innovation #self-improvement #nature

Pride,’ observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her reflections, ‘is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary. ↗

— Jane Austen

#pride #reflections #self-complacency #truth #nature

I was more addicted to self destruction then to the drugs themselves ... something very romantic about it ↗

— Gerard Way

#self-destructive-behavior #romantic

We can say that Maud'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. ↗

— Frank Herbert

#self-confidence #confidence

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look. ↗

— Marcus Aurelius

#self-confidence #self-contentment #spring

I never used to realize it, I guess. I try and play it along and just not make trouble for people. Probably I never would have had any trouble at all if I hadn't run into Brett when they shipped me to England. I suppose she only wanted what she couldn't have. Well, people were that way. To hell with people. The Catholic Church had an awfully good way of handling all that. Good advice, anyway. Not to think about it. Oh, it was swell advice. Try and take it sometime. Try and take it. ↗

— Ernest Hemingway

#religion #self-image #sexuality #religion

It seems to me there is less meanness in atheism, by a good measure. It seems that the spirit of religious self-righteousness this article deplores is precisely the spirit in which it is written. Of course he's right about many things, one of them being the destructive potency of religious self-righteousness. (p. 146) ↗

— Marilynne Robinson

#religion #self-righteousness #religion

I really tried, or so I thought, to avoid lying, but it seemed to me that they forced it on me by the difference in their vision of things, so that I was always transposing reality for them into something they could understand. ↗

— Mary McCarthy

#religion #understanding-oneself-and-others #religion

Immorality is the word we use to describe people that are not sinning the same way we are. ↗

— Shannon L. Alder

#church #hypocrisy #hypocrites #immorality #judgement

You got nothin' to lose but your self-respect. ↗

— Wendelin Van Draanen

#self-respect #respect