Self Recognition Quotes

“I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being--forgive me--rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

“Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.”
― Marcel Proust, Time Regained

“I've seen that mixture of resignation and hopelessness before; its usually in my mirror.”
― Seanan McGuire, A Local Habitation

“Because When you write about people, you inevitably offend--but if you write about animals, the evil do not recognize themselves but the good understand immediately.”
― Erica Jong, Sappho's Leap

“A monster does not recognize himself in a mirror”
― Mike Klepper

“There are books that speak to us of our own lives with a clarity we cannot match. They prevent the morose suspicion that we do not fully belong to the species, that we lie beyond comprehension. Our embarrassments, our sulks, our envy, our feelings of guilt, these phenomena are conveyed in Austen in a way that affords us bursts of almost magical self-recognition. The author has located words to depict a situation we thought ourselves alone in feeling, and for a few moments, we see ourselves more clearly and wish to become whom the author would have wanted us to be.”
― Alain de Botton

“It is a worthy quest to not simply develop a sense of identity, but become the magnanimous version of the self.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“A person who has the slightest fear of insult cannot be called a “Gnani” [the enlightened one] and a person who desires self-recognition [maan] is not a Gnani [the enlightened one].”
― Dada Bhagwan

“Some prejudices and fallacies of the human mind are understandable on a theoretical basis, but practically impossible to implement. As matters now stand, I have little choice but to recognize myself as possessing a personal state of conscious awareness and presupposing that my active state of mental awareness constitutes a personal identity. Acknowledgement of my ignorance begins with the opening admission that the concept of a self delineates the most that I will ever understand in life. Although it might be a spectacular illusion to perceive the self as the unchanging nucleus at the center of my being, from a human evolutionary standpoint and to develop and carryout strategies necessary for personal survival it is a useful illusion. Belief in a self allows a person to integrate streams of information and resolve conflicts between competing values and goals. Absence of a self-identity and devoid of the specific goal of seeking personal self-realization, would not only jeopardize human survival on a daily bases, but it would render life utterly meaningless, making a person’s ontological existence a triviality. Lacking a philosophical status of fundamental ontological event, human life would be a windowless absurdity. A person must perceive oneself as an actual entity in physical Minkowski space, not merely as a philosophical concept in order to engage in the necessary activities to perpetuate personal existence and import meaning to personal efforts. Accordingly, I elect to perceive the self as an actual entity, not as a mere abstraction, composed of a single, definite set of well-defined ontological criteria. Self-perception guides future behavioral choices, frame intellectual inquires, and the evolution of the self represents the ultimate level of personal achievement in pursuit of my goal of attaining self-realization.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“We must engage our sense of self to sensibly deal with environmental stresses in the ever-changing world. Without a strong sense of self and an equally robust ego, I might have expired long ago. Because I possess a brain that is capable of self-recognition and self-regulation, I reserve the opportunity to edit personal behavior. If I can exercise the necessary self-discipline, I can reposition an individualistic and egotistical sense of self-identity. A sense of self can lock us into self-destructive behavioral patterns. If we exhibit an inflexible sense of self, we are predisposed to act in a rigidly prescribed manner. Some of our personal decisions might not support our long-term best interest. The Neanderthals failed to adapt to environmental changes and paid the ultimate price with extermination of their species. I too face the challenge of either adapting to environmental stresses or expiring. My prior characterization of self-identity did not serve me well since it brought me to the brink of self-immolation. Accordingly, I must revise whom I think I am in order to adapt to the challenges of a rapidly changing environment by assessing who I was, determining who I want to become, and developing a disciplined approach to make the transition from what I was to who I seek to become.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“We determine who we are during all acts of survival. Self-identity is an ongoing process of self-exploration and development of strength of character. Human pain is unavoidable. A person finds their immaculate core floating amongst the rubble of ruined dreams and imploded fantasies. With strength of mind and time tested character, a prudent person begins recasting a person’s quixotic outlook upon life into mature philosophy that will gird them against all the heartaches and tragedies of an earthly life.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“When I say, 'I want to find myself', it means I have to find it out when it is lost.”
― Talha Naeem

“You are God‘s work of art, one of a kind and exceptional. You need to know and remember that at all times.”
― Gift Gugu Mona, Dear Daughter: Short and Sweet Messages for a Queen

“You are enough—more than enough. You just have to love and appreciate yourself enough.”
― Gift Gugu Mona, Dear Daughter: Short and Sweet Messages for a Queen

“I read many books for many days. Then I called the Golden One, and I told her what I had read and what I had learned. She looked at me and the first words she spoke were:
—I love you.”
― Ayn Rand, Anthem