#identity

Jerry-5486: "The most apparent thing that I noticed was how most of the people in this study derive their sense of identity and well-being from their immediate surroundings rather than from within themselves, and that's why they broke down—just couldn't stand the pressure—they had nothing within them to hold up against all of this. ↗

— Philip G. Zimbardo

#prison #self-reliance #stanford-prison-experiment #experience

Silent solitude makes true speech possible and personal. If I am not in touch with my own belovedness, then I cannot touch the sacredness of others. If I am estranged from myself, I am likewise a stranger to others. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#faith #identity #self #silence #solitude

She fixed a smile that she hoped looked authentic. Pretending to be content continued to be hard work. ↗

— Stacy Hawkins Adams

#fiction #identity #personal-growth #women-s-fiction #faith

I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art. ↗

— Madonna

#creativity #identity #inspiration #life #self-esteem

I propose the following definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community-and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign. It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.... Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined.... Finally, [the nation] is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately, it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willing to die for such limited imaginings. ↗

— Benedict Anderson

#nationalism #imagination

Life, too, is senseless unless you know who you are, what you want, and which way the wind blows. ↗

— Ellen Raskin

#life

We define our identity always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us. Even after we outgrow some of these others—our parents, for instance—and they disappear from our lives, the conversation with them continues within us as long as we live. ↗

— Charles Taylor

#dialogue #life #parents #self #self-identity

I figure the more people think I'm just mildly weird, the less likely they are to know how weird I really am. ↗

— Melanie Hooyenga

#identity #life #self #life

The firmest friendship is based on an identity of likes and dislikes. ↗

— Sallust

#dislikes #firmest #friendship #identity #likes

You get caught in being something, being cool or special or whatever, to the point where you don’t even know why you need it; you just think you do ↗

— John Green

#identity #john-green #life #popularity #purpose