#oneself

As a painter today you have to work without that essential platform. But if one does not deceive oneself and accepts this lack of certainty, other things may come into play. ↗

— Bridget Riley

#certainty #come #deceive #does #essential

Don't wish to be normal. Wish to be yourself. To the hilt. Find out what you're best at, and develop it, and hopscotch your weaknesses. Wish to be great at whatever you are. ↗

— Lois McMaster Bujold

#courage #courage-to-be-oneself #inspirational #inspirational-life #self-determination

Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. (p. 100) ↗

— Rollo May

#freedom #pause #responsibility #courage

I had a cup of tea, thought about my day and mostly about the horse whom, though I'd only known him a short time, I called my friend. I have few friends and am glad to have a horse for a friend. After the meal I smoked a cigarette and mused on the luxury it would be to go out, instead of talking to myself and boring myself to death with the same endless stories I'm forever telling myself. I am a very boring person, despite my enormous intelligence and distinguished appearance, and nobody knows this better than I. I've often told myself that if only I were given the opportunity, I'd perhaps become the centre of intellectual society. But by dint of talking to myself so much, I tend to repeat the same things all the time. But what can you expect? I'm a recluse. ↗

— Leonora Carrington

#recluses #solitude #talking-to-oneself #death

To hate the hate was just more hate; to reject the rejection was just more rejection; to judge the judging, just more judging. ↗

— T. Scott McLeod

#acceptance-of-oneself #enlightenment #love #overcoming-hatred #overcoming-negativity

And then I notice the music flooding out of every part of the apartment at once — the couch, the walls, even the floor — and I know Bennies alone in Lou’s studio, pouring music down around us. A minute ago it was “Don’t Let Me Down”. Then it was Blondie’s “Heart of Glass”. Now it’s Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger”. Listening, I think, You will never know how much I understand you. ↗

— Jennifer Egan

#understanding-oneself-and-others #music

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

It is, finally, a word is untimely in three different senses, and bearing it as one's treasure will not win one anyone's favours; one rather risks finding oneself outside everyone's camp... Beauty is the word that shall be our first. ↗

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

#bearing #beauty #camp #different #everyone

...there are a lot of things in this world you don't understand. Discovering those things is one of life's joys. ↗

— Mizuki Nomura

#life

As you have seen the treachery of love because of me, I have seen my cruelty because of you. But you learned mercy from me, and from you I learned resilience. As you came to understand me enough to know the value I placed on selfless love, I understand your nature better. ↗

— D. Morgenstern

#learning-from-mistakes #love #relationships #understanding-oneself-and-others #love