#entity

Naturally, for a person who finds his identity in something other than his full organism is less than half a man. He is cut off from complete participation in nature. Instead of being a body, he 'has' a body. Instead of living and loving he 'has' instincts for survival and copulation. ↗

— Alan Wilson Watts

#identity #nature #reality #love

Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you. ↗

— George R.R. Martin

#strength

I said uselessly, "Sam, don't go." Sam cupped my face in his hands and looked me in the eyes. His eyes were yellow, sad, wolf, mine. "These stay the same. Remember that when you look at me. Remember it's me. Please. ↗

— Maggie Stiefvater

#parting #sadness #separation #wolf #remember

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known. ↗

— Chuck Palahniuk

#originality #nothing

We know what we are, but not what we may be. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#identity #possibilities #being

All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to fingerprints. ↗

— David Sedaris

#individuality #fact

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, -- this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost... He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American... ↗

— W.E.B. Du Bois

#dubois #identity #pragmatism #progress #progress

I guess it all depends on whom you ask and when you ask. Race, I've learned, is in the eye of the beholder. ↗

— Raquel Cepeda

#hispanic-american #identity #latina #latina-american #latino-american

This is your heritage,' he said, as if from this dance we could know about his own childhood, about the flavor and grit of tenement buildings in Spanish Harlem, and projects in Red Hook, and dance halls, and city parks, and about how his own Paps, how he had beat him, how he taught him to dance, as if we could hear Spanish in his movements, as if Puerto Rico was a man in a bathrobe, grabbing another beer from the fridge and raising it to drink, his head back, still dancing, still steeping and snapping perfectly in time. ↗

— Justin Torres

#puerto-rico #spanish

I'm getting stale. I always do this time of year. I keep my nose to the grindestone and put in long hours and rustle up good meals and do all the chores and run errands and get along with people -- and have a fine time doing it and enjoy life. Then I realize, bang, that I'm tired and I don't want to wait on my family for a while and I wish I could go away somewhere and have people wait on me hand and foot, and dress up and go to restaurants and the theater and act like a woman of the world. I feel as if I'd been swallowed up whole by all these powerful DeVotos and I'd like to be me for a while with somebody who never heard the name. ↗

— Joan Reardon

#housewifery #identity #marriage #motherhood #family