Quotes & Sayings About Being Self Centered

Jean had always found her sister hard work. Even before she was born-again. To be honest, it was slightly better after she was born-again. Because then there was a reason for Eileen being hard work. You knew you'd never get on because she was going to heaven and you weren't, so you could give up trying.
But, God, the woman could make you feel greedy and self-centered just by the way she wore a shapeless faun cardigan. — Mark Haddon

Self esteem is not the same as being self centered, self absorbed or selfish. Self esteem is also not complacency or overconfidence, both of which and set us up for failure. Self esteem is a strong motivator to work hard. Self esteem is related to mental health and happiness. — Glenn R. Schiraldi

Concentrate every minute like a Roman - like a man - on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can - if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered , irritable. You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that's all even the gods can ask of you. — Marcus Aurelius

She was gifted at charm. I never valued that in her before, but I felt like kissing her hand now. I should write to Eric and thank him for being a self-centered idiot. — Kristan Higgins

The selfish and self-centered have a hard time being kind, even though you and I know that kindness is a source of relief to the soul. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Let us face at the outset how many Christians are not victorious, but defeated. Defeated by circumstances, defeated by other peoples? natures and wrong-doings, defeated by the down-drag of the flesh, defeated by loss, by pain, by suffering, by worry. Instead of saying with confidence, ?This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith?, they have to say in honesty, ?This is the defeat that has been caused by the world, even our self-centeredness.? That is the opposite of faith. Unbelief is not the opposite of faith; self-centeredness is ? being centered in self rather than in God. — Sam Shoemaker

Her eyebrows lifted up. "You came here to seduce me armed with just one condom? What were you thinking?"
He breathed out hard. "Oh come on, Tate, don't be nasty. I wasn't sure whether you'd talk to me. I didn't want to jinx it by being cocky and coming here with a string of latex. You know you would have had mt arrogant, self-centered ass for it," he muttered. — Elle Aycart

If you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable. — Marcus Aurelius

Caught in the self-centered dream, only suffering;
holding to self-centered thoughts, exactly the dream;
each moment, life as it is, the only teacher;
being just this moment, compassion's way. — Joko Beck

Too much of a self-centered attitude creates mistrust and suspicion in others, which can in turn lead to fear. But if you have more of an open mind, and you cultivate a sense of concern for others' well-being, then, no matter what others' attitudes are, you can keep your inner peace. — Dalai Lama

Love is the movement within life that carries us, that enables us, that causes us to break out of what Alan Watts calls the "skin-encapsulated ego." Without love, we are self-centered, but love enables us to move the center of our lives outside our ego. Therefore it expands our lives and, needless to say, enriches it. Any human being would give anything to love or be loved. When it really happens, it is like heaven on earth. — Huston Smith

Realism is for lazy-minded, semi-educated people whose atrophied imagination allows them to appreciate only the most limited and convention subject matter. Re-Fi is a repetitive genre written by unimaginative hacks who rely on mere mimesis. If they had any self-respect they'd be writing memoir, but they're too lazy to fact-check. Of course I never read Re-Fi. But the kids keep bringing home these garish realistic novels and talking about them, so I know that it's an incredibly narrow genre, completely centered on one species, full of worn-out cliches and predictable situations--the quest for the father, mother-bashing, obsessive male lust, dysfunctional suburban families, etc., etc. All it's good for is being made into mass-market movies. Given its old-fashioned means and limited subject matter, realism is quite incapable of describing the complexity of contemporary experience. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Do you plan to do something with that?" she said, signaling to his cock. "Anytime soon, I mean."

"I'd love to, princess, but I don't have any more rubbers with me."

Her eyebrows lifted up. "You came here to seduce me armed with just one condom? What were you thinking?"

He breathed out hard. "Oh come on, Tate, don't be nasty. I wasn't sure whether you'd talk to me. I didn't want to jinx it by being cocky and coming here with a string of latex. You know you would have had my arrogant, self-centered ass for it," he muttered. Well, maybe he was right. "I gather you don't have condoms around, right? — Elle Aycart

Confidence is not about being self-centered. It's about being emotionally centered, so you can better see other people. — Karen C. Eddington

I cured myself of shyness when it finally occurred to me that people didn't think about me half as much as I gave them credit for. The truth was, nobody gave a damn. Like most teenagers, I was far too self-centered. When I stopped being prisoner to what I worried was others' opinions of me, I became more confident and free. — Lucille Ball

Part of not being a self-centered asshole, Colin reasoned, is doing things with your friends even when you don't want to. — John Green

Most of us think that being authentic is about being true to what we want and who we are, without regard for the impact it has on others. On the contrary, the authentic self is an intelligence at the core of who we are that is inspired, centered, and connected to those we lead. When we are in this centered place of being we are able to choose behavior that serves the greatest good. — Henna Inam

It is in a way a mystery that, instead of demanding that their governments give primary attention to their own needs and aspirations, most of the citizens of big counties-those, that is, that have the status of being "powers" in the world-far from being self-centered or materialistic as they are commonly credited with being, the ordinary citizen and his elected representative all too often turn out to be romantics, ready and eager to sacrifice programs of health, education and welfare for the power and pride of the nation ... — J. William Fulbright

Jesus came to show us that the gospel explains success in terms of giving, not taking; self-sacrifice, not self-protection; going to the back, not getting to the front. The gospel shows that we win by losing, we triumph through defeat, we achieve power through service, and we become rich by giving ourselves away.
In fact, in gospel-centered living we follow Jesus in laying down our lives for those who hate us and hurt us. We spend our lives serving instead of being served, and seeking last place, not first. Gospel-centered people are those who love giving up their place for others, not guarding their place from others
because their value and worth is found in Christ, not their position. — Tullian Tchividjian

Being a dick is when you're so self-centered, you think your ideas are pretty much the only worthy ones, and you secretly believe other people are inferior to you. [ ... ] You'd rather believe other people just can't handle how awesome you are. And you're right. All that awesomeness sucks, actually. — Tracy McMillan

Relationships are treated like Dixie cups. They are the same. They are disposable. If it does not work, drop it, throw it away, get another.
Committed bonds (including marriage) cannot last when this is the prevailing logic. Most of us are unclear about what to do to protect and strengthen caring bonds when our self-centered needs are not being met. — Bell Hooks

In all the people I meet - though some may be governed by the self-centered nature and may not know their potential at all - I see that divine spark. And that's what I concentrate on. All people look beautiful to me; they look like shining lights to me. I always have the feeling of being thankful for these beautiful people who walk the earth with me. — Peace Pilgrim

If you run for mayor, people say you're being egotistical. If you decide you won't run for mayor, people say you're being self-centered and egotistical. — Matt Gonzalez

I never want to end up being a self-centered, vain human being. — Taylor Swift

There are some things about myself I can't explain to anyone. There are some things I don't understand at all. I can't tell what I think about things or what I'm after. I don't know what my strengths are or what I'm supposed to do about them. But if I start thinking about these things in too much detail the whole thing gets scary. And if I get scared I can only think about myself. I become really self-centered, and without meaning to, I hurt people. So I'm not such a wonderful human being. — Haruki Murakami

A self that is only differentiated - not integrated - may attain great individual accomplishments, but risks being mired in self-centered egotism. By the same token, a person who self is based exclusively on integration will be well connected and secure, but lack autonomous individuality. Only when a person invests equal amounts of psychic energy in these two processes and avoids both selfishness and conformity is the self likely to reflect complexity. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Because we have this whole other human being we have to think about other than ourselves. We had the luxury before of being totally self-centered. — Will Arnett

Every type of evil we've got in us is the result of that one true illness of the human mind - that is, of being self-centered. — Wojciech Kurtyka

Human nature means battling constantly between being completely self-absorbed and trying to be a communal creature. Nature makes you a communal creature. The ultimate single-minded, self-centered creature is a cancer cell. And mostly, we're not made up of cancer cells. — George Lucas

Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon earth, - a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self. If anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the thought of such a father-in-law. I am convinced that he really believed in his heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days a week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his views upon bimetallism, a subject upon which he was by way of being an authority. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Hell needed horribly bright, self-centered people like Eric. They were much better at being nasty than demons could ever manage — Terry Pratchett

And so I tell you this: be now and forever centered upon your Self. Look to see what you are being, doing, and having in any given moment, not what's going on with another. — Neale Donald Walsch

We've had a major shift in what truth is and where it comes from. We've gone from being God-centered to self-centered, from being objective to being subjective, and from being internal to external. — Josh McDowell

I think I'm a better collaborator, in seeing the bigger picture and trying to just help that, and not be so self-centered in whatever my task is, which is being an actor. — Ray McKinnon

We've created a theology in the West of a God who is fundamentally self-centered. The imagery of God as distant, unapproachable, unreachable
that's not a God who is relational. It is a God that gets to declare or judge when he gets pissed off. But there is no basis for love and relationships if God is a fundamentally self-centered being. — William P. Young

He didn't know if her desperate efforts to be understanding and considerate were a good or bad thing. Perhaps it was all down to him being self-centered and irresponsible. But right now he found his wife's patience and desire to do the right thing stifling, which made him still more inclined to see it as a flaw in her character. — Han Kang

Your love reaches every living being, including animals, because they deserve love. Your love spreads to plants, mountain ranges, galaxies, as all part of one ever-changing, fluid energy.

This doesn't happen every second of every day. In fact, it happens in fleeting moments, and then you return to your self-centered concerns. But for that fleeting moment, you are the World's Greatest Lover.

So what? Who cares about a title like that? The title doesn't matter, but being able to love like that changes you. — Anonymous

Women are no longer required to be chaste or modest, to restrict their sphere of activity to the home, or even to realize their properly feminine destiny in maternity. Normative femininity [that is, the rules for being a good woman] is coming more and more to be centered on women's body - not its duties and obligations or even its capacity to bear children, but its sexuality, more precisely, its presumed heterosexuality and its appearance. . . . The woman who checks her makeup half a dozen times a day to see if her foundation has caked or her mascara has run, who worries that the wind or the rain may spoil her hairdo, who looks frequently to see if her stockings have bagged at the ankle, or who, feeling
fat, monitors everything she eats, has become, just as surely as the inmate
of Panopticon, a self-policing subject, a self committed to a relentless self-surveillance. This self-surveillance is a form of obedience
to patriarchy. — Rosemarie Tong

It took cancer to realize that being self-centered is not the way to live. The answer is to try and help others. — Terry Fox

It is an incredibly difficult task to lead people from self-centered consumerism to being servant-hearted Christians. It is not a task for fainthearted ministers or those who don't like to get their religious robes wrinkled. But it is what the Great Commission is all about — Rick Warren

Logotherapy focuses rather on the future, that is to say, on the meanings to be fulfilled by the patient in his future. (Logotherapy, indeed, is a meaning-centered psychotherapy.) At the same time, logotherapy defocuses all the vicious-circle formations and feedback mechanisms which play such a great role in the development of neuroses. Thus, the typical self-centeredness of the neurotic is broken up instead of being continually fostered and reinforced. To be sure, this kind of statement is an oversimplification; yet in logotherapy the patient is actually confronted with and reoriented toward the meaning of his life. And to make him aware of this meaning can contribute much to his ability to overcome his neurosis. — Anonymous

It may be hard to hear, but victim thinking is actually self-centered. If you're stuck in a victim mindset, you feel one down, helpless, and at the mercy of others. From this place you perceive yourself as the target of unfortunate events and other people. You may interpret random events as being about your exceptionally bad luck or as a sign that other people are out to get you. You become "terminally unique" in your outlook and you may even become paranoid. When you take on the role of victim as an identity or a badge of honor, you are actively participating in your victimization and disowning your authentic personal power. "You are only a victim for a nanosecond." - Pia Mellody — Vicki Tidwell Palmer

Society nowadays tells people that their happiness is all that matters but happiness is never found if it costs someone else's theirs. That is not what happiness is, nor would such a person deserve it, because happiness is forged by the setting aside of self and in doing for others to make them happy first and foremost, so if you have to hurt another human being to "find your happiness," then you have no clue what the word actually means or what it's willing to do, and in being so self-centered and entitled, it's veritably tragic that the only care and concern you have is for yourself. — Donna Lynn Hope

Sex is my practice. It's where I always strive to be my best self. I try to be as honest as possible, as present as possible, as centered as possible, as kind as possible, as generous as possible without being a doormat. — Nina Hartley

And you and I know you're the best thing that ever happened to me, and, yes, that's an expression, something people say, that has no meaning, but what I mean is there isn't anybody in the whole world who has loved me the way you have, not my mother, not my old man, not my friends.
There's nothing preventing me and you from loving each other and being some kinda world-class shining beacon of love except how bad do we want it and what are we willing to do for it?
Now, I know I did you wrong, and I was freaking out and being stupid and I was mean to you. You know sometimes I get all fucking confused and I can't see outside of my own asshole. I'm unhappy. Why am I unhappy? It's gotta be somebody's fault, right? It couldn't just be that I'm a self-centered fuck spinning around inside my own dank cloud of concerns.
There isn't anything I can think of that I really want or that the best part of me wants, that loving you won't start doing. I love you. — Ethan Hawke

The truth is, I hate not being the first person narrator all the way through! To paraphrase David Copperfield, I don't know whether I'm the hero or the victim of this tale. But either way, shouldn't I dominate it? — Anne Rice

Love implies great freedom - not to do what you like. But love comes only when the mind is very quiet, disinterested, not self-centered. These are not ideals. If you have no love, do what you will - go after all the gods on earth, do all the social activities, try to reform the poor, the politics, write books, write poems - you are a dead human being. And without love your problems will increase, multiply endlessly. And with love, do what you will, there is no risk; there is no conflict. Then love is the essence of virtue. And a mind that is not in a state of love is not a religious mind at all. And it is only the religious mind that is freed from problems, and that knows the beauty of love and truth. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Authenticity is our natural state of being. The authentic self is a state of being where we are centered, creative, adaptive, and inspired. — Henna Inam

There is a big difference between being centered and being self-centered — Lolly Daskal

So, to meditate is to purge the mind of its self-centered activity. And if you have come this far in meditation, you will find there is silence, a total emptiness. The mind is uncontaminated by society; it is no longer subject to any influence, to the pressure of any desire. It is completely alone, and being alone, untouched it is innocent. Therefore there is a possibility for that which is timeless, eternal, to come into being. This whole process is meditation. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

I think young adults get a bad rap for being self-absorbed and self-centered. My experience going around the United States and speaking in schools is that teenagers here are very interested in the fate of their peers around the world. — Patricia McCormick

Apathy, the main symptom of the second phase, was a necessary mechanism of self-defense. Reality dimmed, and all efforts and all emotions were centered on one task: preserving one's own life and that of the other fellow. It was typical to hear the prisoners, while they were being herded back to camp from their work sites in the evening, sigh with relief and say, Well, another day is over. — Viktor E. Frankl

Isn't it wonderful when people do that, when you put all your faith in their being selfish and self -centered and not giving a damn and it turns out, all that time, you were wrong? — Joan Frances Turner

When we are impatient, we are neither reverential nor reflective because we are too self-centered. Whereas faith and patience are companions, so are selfishness and impatience. It is so easy to be confrontive without being informative; so easy to be indignant without being intelligent; so easy to be impulsive without being insightful. It is so easy to command others when we are not in control of ourselves. — Neil A. Maxwell

Neither parenting, Christian education, heritage, nor fine church involvement can alter anyone's essential sin nature. To lie, make self-centered choices, be destructive, or be deeply hurtful to oneself or others may be "out of character," but it is not outside of any human being's nature. — Rick Horne

Through recognizing and realizing the empty essence, instead of being selfish and self-centered, one feels very open and free — Tsoknyi Rinpoche

I don't need to write. Madness or suicide are other options, though not nearly as compelling. But I want to create; I hope to create worlds in my own image, admittedly a self-centered plan. I want others to understand me better, pay more attention to me, like or love me for who I am. Maybe that's it. Or maybe I should simply learn to say, Let's have lunch. — Chila Woychik

The moment men begin to care more for education than for religion they begin to care more for ambition than for education. It is no longer a world in which the souls of all are equal before heaven, but a world in which the mind of each is bent on achieving unequal advantage over the other. There begins to be a mere vanity in being educated whether it be self-educated or merely state-educated. Education ought to be a searchlight given to a man to explore everything, but very specially the things most distant from himself. Education tends to be a spotlight; which is centered entirely on himself. Some improvement may be made by turning equally vivid and perhaps vulgar spotlights upon a large number of other people as well. But the only final cure is to turn off the limelight and let him realize the stars. — G.K. Chesterton

Have you fallen into the world's trap, following its self-indulgent goals and driven by its self-centered motives? It can happen without you even being aware of it. Make sure Christ is first in your life, and make it your goal to live according to His Word. — Billy Graham

Gandhi is an example of a man who grew from being self-centered as he was learning to become a lawyer in England, to becoming more family- and social oriented in South-Africa, where he led a reformation of Indian rights, to becoming determined in helping his nation recover from British rule at which he succeeded in the end with the help of a great many people. At the end of his life Gandhi was increasingly focused on a larger picture, encasing the whole world in his vision of a peaceful future. — Gudjon Bergmann

Loving yourself has nothing to do with being selfish, self-centered or self-engrossed. It means that you accept yourself for what you are. Loving yourself means that you accept responsibility for your own development, growth and happiness. — Iyanla Vanzant

I do not belong to anyone! Certainly not to a self-centered, brute of man, err ... being or whatever it is you are, person! she fumbled. — Madison Thorne Grey

There are no happy endings, he knew, because nothing ends; and if there were any being dispensed, a great many worthier people would be in line for them long before Michael and Laura and himself. But the happiness of the unworthy and the happiness of the so-so is as fragile and self-centered and dear as the happiness of the righteous and the worthy; and the happiness of the living is no less short and desperate and forgotten than the joys of the dead. — Peter S. Beagle

My version of success is that my life is full, purposeful, beautiful and boundless. I attribute this success to my spirituality, my good health, and my community of positive relationships which have all come to me as a creation of choice. Success comes from finding your center and your self; being self-centered in a positive and peaceful way. — Bryant McGill

Overall, being spiritual and being religious are both part of being in relationship with God. Neither can be fully realized without the other. Religion without spirituality can become a dry list of dogmatic statements divorced from the life of the spirit. This is what Jesus warned against. Spirituality without religion can become a self-centered complacency divorced from the wisdom of a community. That's what I'm warning against. For St. Ignatius — James Martin