#elf

You don't make me feel like you used to. That's why I'm leaving That's why people leave each other They come to their senses and get selfish again. ↗

— Henry Rollins

#selfishness

Your self-esteem is a notch below Kafka. ↗

— Woody Allen

#cockroaches #self-esteem #absurd

In the process of burning out these confusions, we discover enlightenment. If the process were otherwise, the awakened state of mind would be a product dependent upon cause and effect and therefore liable to dissolution. Anything which is created must, sooner or later, die. If enlightenment were created in such a way, there would always be a possibility of ego reasserting itself, causing a return to the confused state. Enlightenment is permanent because we have not produced it; we have merely discovered it. ↗

— Chögyam Trungpa

#confusion #discovery #enlightenment #philosophy #self-discovery

The vast distances that separate the stars are providential. Beings and worlds are quarantined from one another. The quarantine is lifted only for those with sufficient self-knowledge and judgment to have safely traveled from star to star. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#space #star #survive #travel #self-knowledge

Ask not of things to shed their veils. Unveil yourselves, and things will be unveiled. ↗

— Mikhail Naimy

#wisdom #self-knowledge

More about Howl? Sophie thought desperately. I have to blacken his name! Her mind was such a blank that for a second it actually seemed to her that Howl had no faults at all. How stupid! 'Well, he's fickle, careless, selfish, and hysterical,' she said. 'Half the time I think he doesn't care what happens to anyone as long as he's alright--but then I find out how awfully kind he's been to someone. Then I think he's kind just when it suits him--only then I find out he undercharges poor people. I don't know, Your Majesty. He's a mess. ↗

— Diana Wynne Jones

#howl #howl-s-moving-castle #sophie #selfishness

Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either extreme egotism, selfishness, evil -- or else an absolute ignorance. ↗

— Graham Greene

#evil #happiness #ignorance #selfishness

Whatever joy there is in the world Arises from wishing for others' happiness. Whatever suffering there is in the world Arises from wishing for your own happiness. ↗

— -Shantideva

#selfishness #selfishness

If you do not know where you come from, then you don't know where you are, and if you don't know where you are, then you don't know where you're going. And if you don't know where you're going, you're probably going wrong. ↗

— Terry Pratchett

#direction #knowledge #self-assurance #self-knowledge

Sadly, the signals that allow men and women to find the partners who most please them are scrambled by the sexual insecurity initiated by beauty thinking. A woman who is self-conscious can't relax to let her sensuality come into play. If she is hungry she will be tense. If she is "done up" she will be on the alert for her reflection in his eyes. If she is ashamed of her body, its movement will be stilled. If she does not feel entitled to claim attention, she will not demand that airspace to shine in. If his field of vision has been boxed in by "beauty"--a box continually shrinking--he simply will not see her, his real love, standing right before him. ↗

— Naomi Wolf

#beauty #body-image #cosmetic-surgery #cosmetics #culture