Convince Yourself Quotes & Sayings

In reality, Lacy realized, this dividing line between her and Peter had been
there for years. If you kept your chin up, you might even be able to convince yourself there was
nothing separating you. It was only when you tried to cross it, like now, that you understood how
real a barrier it could be. — Jodi Picoult

Fear of criticism is a powerful deterrent because the criticism doesn't actually have to occur for the fear to set in. Watch a few people get criticized for being innovate, and it's pretty easy to convince yourself that the very same thing will happen to you if you're not careful. — Seth Godin

To convince people to back your idea, you've got to sell it to yourself and know when it's the moment. Sometimes that means waiting. It's like surfing. You don't create energy, you just harvest energy already out there. — James Cameron

Lack of confidence is what makes you want to change somebody else's mind. When you're OK, you don't need to convince anyone else in order to empower yourself. — Jada Pinkett Smith

In a world where the only evidence of your existence was a body subject to decay and the works you left behind when the body was gone, you tried all manner of things to convince yourself that your life had some meaning, some permanence. — Traci Chee

The thing about having something hidden in your past is that you spend every minute of the future building a wall that makes the monster harder to see. You convince yourself that the wall is sturdy and thick, and one day, when you wake up and the horrible thing does not immediately jump into your mind, you give yourself the freedom to pretend that it is well and truly gone. Which only makes it that much more painful when something like this happens, and you learn that the concrete wall is really as transparent as glass, and twice as fragile. — Jodi Picoult

The pressures on gay teens can be overwhelming
to keep secrets, tell lies, deny who you are, and try to be who you're not. Remember: you are special and worth being cared about, loved, and accepted just as you are. Never, ever let anyone convince you otherwise. — Alex Sanchez

Convince yourself that worrying about many situations will make them worse rather than improve them. — Albert Ellis

Ann Druyan suggests an experiment: Look back again at the pale blue dot of the preceding chapter. Take a good long look at it. Stare at the dot for any length of time and then try to convince yourself that God created the whole Universe for one of the 10 million or so species of life that inhabit that speck of dust. Now take it a step further: Imagine that everything was made just for a single shade of that species, or gender, or ethnic or religious subdivision. If this doesn't strike you as unlikely, pick another dot. Imagine it to be inhabited by a different form of intelligent life. They, too, cherish the notion of a God who has created everything for their benefit. How seriously do you take their claim? — Carl Sagan

Do not interrupt the flight of your soul; do not distress what is best in you; do not enfeeble your spirit with half wishes and half thoughts. Ask yourself and keep on asking until you find the answer, for one may have known something many times, acknowledged it; one may have willed something many times, attempted it - and yet, only the deep inner motion, only the heart's indescribable emotion, only that will convince you that what you have acknowledged belongs to you, that no power can take it from you - for only the truth that builds up is truth for you. — Soren Kierkegaard

Hey Boo, I'm in this now, too, & I got a lot of experience playing assholes like they're fucking harps. You need backup, I got you. Stop trying to convince yourself that you're in this alone. — Alexandra Bracken

It is easier to trick others into perceiving you as beautiful if you can convince yourself you are beautiful. — Marissa Meyer

Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself, believe. — Winston S. Churchill

So your theory would seem to be that lying to yourself is no lie at all because you haven't deceived any third party. And if you then convince yourself of those lies, you'll believe them enough to repeat them to other with the genuine conviction that they're true."
"Something like that," I conceded uneasily. — Zack Love

Sadness, it was such an arresting emotion. You could almost convince yourself of the rhyme and reason of heartbreak. — Anne Rice

Convince yourself that you can do it, and the rest of the world will automatically be convinced — Mayur Ramgir

I suspect scotch is something you have to convince yourself to enjoy, like sushi or the last few Radiohead albums, but I can't deny the result is nice. "You — Matthew Norman

If you're to succeed at any endeavor, the first and most important person you must convince is yourself. Success comes not from merely a belief that you can do it. Success comes when you absolutely know you can achieve it — Ralph Marston

I believe the way to write a good play is to convince yourself it is easy to do
then go ahead and do it with ease. Don't maul, don't suffer, don't groan till the first draft is finished. A play is a pheonix and it dies a thousand deaths. Usually at night. In the morning it springs up again from its ashes and crows like a happy rooster. It is never as bad as you think, it is never as good. It is somewhere in between, and success or failure depends on which end of your emotional gamut concerning its value it approaches more closely. But it is much more likely to be good if you think it is wonderful while you are writing the first draft. An artist must believe in himself. Your belief is contagious. Others may say he is vain, but they are affected. — Tennessee Williams

It's funny that when the one person you live for is ripped out of your life you can still find a way to convince yourself it's for the best and that you will eventually get over it.
What a joke. — Cassia Leo

- But you have to reason it out then and convince yourself.
- Yes, but there are reasons of the heart that reason doesn't encompass. — Manuel Puig

If you can't be yours while being mine, maybe you aren't as yours as you'd like to convince yourself that you are. — Aleksandra Ninkovic

When you want something so desperately, you shake with the need for it. you tell yourself that you don't need more than one sip, because it's just the taste you crave, and once it's on your tongue you will be able to make it last alifetime. you dream of it at night. you see a thousand mile-high obstacles between where you stand and what you want, and you convince yourself you have the power to hurdle them. you tell yourself this even when, leaping the first block, you wind up bruised and bloodied and flattened. — Jodi Picoult

As long as you as an individual ... can convince yourself that in order to move forward as best you can you have to be optimistic, you can be described as 'one of the faithful,' one of those people who can say, 'Well, look, something's going to happen! Let's just keep trying. Let's not give up. — Tom Hanks

You can hardly convince a man of error in a life-time, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grand-children may be. The geologists tell us that it took one hundred years to prove that fossils are organic, and one hundred and fifty more, to prove that they are not to be referred to the Noachian deluge. — Henry David Thoreau

Confessions are like tattoos in that 1) You convince yourself that the immediate pain of going through the process means it won't bother you later on; 2) They are permanent. — Gina Barreca

If you have more than one reason to do something (choose a doctor or veterinarian, hire a gardener or an employee, marry a person, go on a trip), just don't do it. It does not mean that one reason is better than two, just that by invoking more than one reason you are trying to convince yourself to do something. Obvious decisions (robust to error) require no more than a single reason. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

If there's one thing I sincerely hope this book might get you to reconsider," Rudder writes in the introduction, "it's what you think about yourself. Because that's what this book is really about. OKCupid is just how I arrived at the story." Rudder wants to convince us that data is how we can arrive at our own stories. "As the Internet has democratized journalism, photography, pornography, charity, comedy, and so many other courses of personal endeavor, it will, I hope, eventually democratize our fundamental narrative." Gone are the days when our moment is defined only by researchers, effete columnists or whoever else gets to say what a millennial is. Now, Rudder argues, the story is ours to tell. — Christian Rudder

Love is joy. Don't convince yourself that suffering is a part of it. — Paulo Coelho

... it never comes down to a single thing you did or didn't do or say. You might convince yourself it did, but it didn't. — Curtis Sittenfeld

Sometimes the way comes later, when I'm not working or thinking about it at all. When stories don't work, you try to convince yourself that all of that time and energy wasn't wasted, that it will make you a better writer, if nothing else. — Mary J. Miller

Smiling, Celia leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed him. She pulled back, pressing her hand flat against his chest. His heart thumped erratically against her palm.
"You're wrong about yourself," she said seriously. "You said you were heartless, but that's not true. I can feel it, Corrado. It's in there. And as long as it's beating, I know it's there, working overtime, and you'll never convince me otherwise. — J.M. Darhower

Lipstick was an easy answer to boredom. It was the most exciting thing you could do in the shortest amount of time because for a second, you got to convince yourself that you were the kind of gal who wears lipstick every day. You got to pout to yourself, and trick yourself that you were glamorous. Then in a second it was over, time to wipe it off and start again. — Ainslie Hogarth

I despise this false lucidity that comes with age. The truth is that they are just like everyone else: nothing more than kids without a clue about what has happened to them, acting big and tough when in fact all they want is to burst into tears.
And yet there's nothing to understand. The problem is that children believe what adults say and, once they're adults themselves, they exact their revenge by deceiving their own children. 'Life has meaning and we grown-ups know what it is' is the universal lie that everyone is supposed to believe. Once you become an adult and you realize that's not true, it's too late. The mystery remains intact, but all your available energy has long been wasted on stupid things. All that's left is to anesthetize yourself by trying to hide the fact that you can't find any meaning in your life, and then, the better to convince yourself, you deceive your own children. — Muriel Barbery

Yeah, well there's your first problem. You don't get it. You can't even see what you did. You're going to sit here today and you're going to convince yourself that you were right and I was unreasonable and you won't even think about what you just tried to make me into. But hey ... It's not my problem, now. You think what you want. I'm gone."
He sighed and reached for my suitcase. "Will you at least let me help you down the stairs?"
"Fuck off." I'd rather break my neck than let him give me a second of assistance.
"Topher, come on!" Now he sounded annoyed and seriously, fuck him, he didn't get to be pissy over this. I turned around and gave him a withering look.
"Be sure you clear the lube out of the bedside table before you bang your wife in that room. It's a dead giveaway. — Amelia C. Gormley

Believing something is just a way of trying to convince yourself that something you so desperately want is real. — Bella Jewel

Everybody saying you can't do this, you can't do that. I don't know why. Guess if you listen to it, you can convince yourself of it. — Fuzzy Zoeller

I would have done the same thing I did. I would have put all my energy into loving someone that wasn't you. I would have tried in vain, every day, to not think about you, and what could have been. What should have been. I would have tried to convince myself that there's no such thing as true love, except for the love you yourself make work, even though I know better ... The bottom line is I never had any business marrying anyone who wasn't you. — Jonathan Tropper

To sink a six-foot putt with thirty million people looking over your shoulder, convince yourself that, if you miss it, you will be embarrassed and poor. — Jack Nicklaus

It's mostly just you have to convince yourself that there's nothing else in the room but John Lennon and suddenly things start John Lennon-ing! — Grant Morrison

It's tempting to preface everything with "In my life I've found" so that people can't yell at me for being wrong (I often am) or misinformed (sure) or overly emotional (HOW DARE YOU). But this is a book about my life so I have to simply hope that unsaid disclaimer is just implied. This is my life, and my observations of it, and they change as I change. That's one of the frightening things about writing a book that no one ever tells you. You have to pin down your thoughts and opinions and then they exist on a page, ungrowing, forever. You may convince yourself that you were never stupid or coarse or ignorant but one day you reread your seventh-grade diary and rediscover the person who one day becomes you, and you vacillate between wanting to hug this unfinished, confused stranger and wanting to shake some damn sense into her. — Jenny Lawson

If you will have a person enslaved, the first thing you must do is convince yourself that the person is subhuman. The second thing you have to do is convince your allies so you'll have some help, and the third and probably unkindest cut of all is to convince that person that he or she is subhuman and deserves it. — Maya Angelou

You're worried about getting things successfully done in order to attain some degree of self-worth. Your soul is for sale; You most likely deceive yourself in order to convince yourself. Letting go equals failing, isn't that right? And you forget outstandingly well, don't you? You forget that It takes admirable courage not only to try but also to gracefully give up. — Albert Camus

The fall of Trantor," said Seldon, "cannot be stopped by any conceivable effort. It can be hastened easily, however. The tale of my interrupted trial will spread through the Galaxy. Frustration of my plans to lighten the disaster will convince people that the future holds no promise to them. Already they recall the lives of their grandfathers with envy. They will see that political revolutions and trade stagnations will increase. The feeling will pervade the Galaxy that only what a man can grasp for himself at that moment will be of any account. Ambitious men will not wait and unscrupulous men will not hang back. By their every action they will hasten the decay of the worlds. Have me killed and Trantor will fall not within three centuries but within fifty years and you, yourself, within a single year. — Isaac Asimov

So, Blake said, 'Eternity is in love with the productions of Time.' I tell you, do not let anyone ever convince you that because of your past accomplishments or your present state in the world that you cannot change your position by rising within yourself, and then see the whole world respond. And I mean NOW! — Neville Goddard

Don't waste your energy trying to convince people to understand you. Your time is too valuable to try to prove yourself to people. — Joel Osteen

It is always necessary to jump up and down on the scaffold of knowledge to make sure it is solid. If you are skeptical about a scientific claim, then jump up and down on it as hard as you can until you expose a weakness or convince yourself that it is solid. — David Sloan Wilson

You may think or tell others that you are a realized person,
You may even convince others or deceive yourself;
But unless you have love for humanity and peace within,
Self-realization will never knock at your door. — Gian Kumar

If you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself. — Lord Chesterfield

When I want comfort food, I buy Maltesers. I like all chocolates, but especially those. You can eat them, and because they're so light, you can convince yourself that they are not actually that fattening. — David Walliams

I once read a quote that I think was Michelle Pfeiffer in an article, who said that she thought people went into acting because maybe if you could convince millions of people to like you, you will finally like yourself, approve of yourself. I don't know if that may have been a part of it. — Geena Davis

We all saw it, and he did the same thing we all did - we pretended it was none of our business and that it would go away on its own. We told ourselves we were just seeing a tiny piece of Agnes's life. And if you only get a small piece of something, it's much easier to convince yourself it's better when you're not around, and then choose to ignore it. — Roseanne Cheng

You," he continued, grabbing my wrist. "All of you, from the safe world, with your air bags and your tamper-proof packaging and your fat-free diets. You are the superstitious ones. You convince yourself you can cheat death, and you are absolutely offended when you learn that you can't. You sat in your nice little flat all through our war and watched us, bleeding all over the TV news. And you thought, 'How awful!' and then you got up and made yourself another cup of gourmet coffee. — Geraldine Brooks

Prove to yourself that your business, in micro-scale at least, creates value. If you believe it, you'll find it that much easier to convince potential investors, partners and employees, too. — Eric Ries

I understand the need to convince others you're okay before you can
believe
it yourself. I understand you can never really believe it
yourself,
but everything in your body relies on you trying anyway. — Darshana Suresh

Every day, you have to prove yourself and convince - move forward and challenge yourself. And doubt all the time. — Christine Lagarde

And one more thing: you still believe that man can be good. If that weren't the case, you wouldn't have invented all this nonsense to convince yourself otherwise. — Paulo Coelho

The secret to recruiting is not in convincing people, but in sorting people. You can wear yourself out and become discouraged, working with the same "empty oysters." Your job as a professional recruiter is only to sort through the prospects until you find one who wants to be a distributor. It is ten times easier to locate a prospect who wants to work, than to convince an unwilling disinterested prospect to work. — Tom "Big Al" Schreiter

"There is an easy standoff between the two kinds of mother which sometimes makes it hard for us to talk to each other. I suspect that the non-working mother looks at the working mother with envy and fear because she thinks that the working mum has got away with it. And the working mum looks back with fear and envy because she knows that she has not. In order to keep going in either role, you have to convince yourself that the alternative is bad. The working mother says, because I am more fulfilled as a person I can be a better mother to my children. And sometimes, she may even believe it. The mother who stays home knows that she is giving her kids an advantage, which is something to cling to when your toddler has emptied his beaker of juice over you last clean t-shirt. — Allison Pearson

A lot of healing is in the mind. I'm not talking about serious illnesses like cancer. I'm talking about ordinary broken bones. Healing begins in the head. You have to convince yourself you can do it. — Tony McCoy

Lying is an art, if you can convince yourself with lie, then you are a master. — Nikhil Yadav

That drew a laugh from Jessamy, but he said, after a moment: "You had better flay me. It was my fault - all my fault!"

"I was wondering how long it would be before you contrived to convince yourself that you were to blame," said Alverstoke caustically. "I haven't the slightest wish to know how you arrived at such an addlebrained conclusion, so don't put yourself to the trouble of telling me! — Georgette Heyer

You know something, it's not easy to break out of your comfort zone. People will tear you down, tell you you shouldn't have bothered in the first place. But let me tell you something, there's not much of a difference between a stadium full with cheering fans and an angry crowd screaming abuse at you. They're both just making a lot of noise. How you take it is up to you. Convince yourself they're cheering for you. You do that, and someday, they will. — Glee

The trick to not killing yourself was to convince yourself, every single day, that your departure from the world would have a devastating effect on absolutely everyone around you, despite consistent evidence to the contrary. — Jennifer DuBois

Convince yourself that you are working in clay, not marble, on paper not eternal bronze: Let that first sentence be as stupid as it wishes. — Jacques Barzun

Do not chase another human being. Instead, chase your curiosity. Chase your development and your goals. Chase your passion. Strive to work for something bigger than yourself, and instead of trying to convince someone that you fit within their world, strive to build your own. — Bianca Sparacino

Once you start splitting hairs, trying to convince yourself some things are more acceptable to destroy, you've already lost the most important war. — Karen Marie Moning

When my phone chimes with a text message on Monday morning, I'm still in that dreamy state between sleep and awake where you can pretty much convince yourself of anything. Like that a teen Mick Jagger is waiting in your driveway to take you to school. Or that your favorite book series ended with an actual satisfying conclusion, instead of what the author tried to pass off as a satisfying conclusion. — Jessica Brody

The key is to just focus on the spots where the love is real, because you can just drive yourself crazy focusing on the negativity, focusing on the relationships that are irreparable and just aren't going to work, trying to convince the haters that you are indeed lovable. So much of that is wasted energy. — Amanda Palmer

First of all, convince yourself that you are the best because the rest of your life is going to go proving this to others. — Wasim Akram

Sorrow or worries only happening in your life because of you. If you are alone, don't think to share your feelings with others. Try to convince yourself after that put new ideas to solve your problem in your own way. — Auliq Ice

Given enough time, you could convince yourself that loneliness was something better, that it was solitude, the ideal condition for reflection, even a kind of freedom.
Once you were thus convinced, you were foolish to open the door and let anyone in, not all the way in. You risked the hard-won equilibrium, that tranquility that you called peace — Dean Koontz

The hero was the sort of character you could feel yourself falling in love with, no matter how much you tried to convince yourself that he wasn't real — Heather James

Don't limit yourself and don't let others convince you that you are limited in what you can do. Believe in yourself and then live so as to reach your possibilities. You can achieve what you believe you can. Trust and believe and have faith. — Thomas S. Monson

Take bold decisions. Don't let doubts fumble decisions in your mind and make you confused over them. Pursue what you are convinced to do; else you set yourself up where you do not belong. — Israelmore Ayivor

There's always moments where you creep yourself out, and you think you heard something and you convince yourself that some spirit is in the room with you, but truly, I don't believe in any of that kind of thing. A lot of my friends really do. — Anna Kendrick

Suspect scotch is something you have to convince yourself to enjoy, like sushi or the last few Radiohead albums, but I can't deny the result is nice. — Matthew Norman

If you Need to convince others that you're happy, then you have Not found real Joy.
If you Need to impress others with material objects, then you do Not understand true Wealth.
If you Need to correct others, then you have Not looked in the mirror.
If you Need to put others down, you have Not connected to your Higher Self.
Know Yourself. Be Honest with Yourself. Don't be a teacher or judge, be an ... Example. — Eric Allen

You can't convince yourself! You either believe or you don't believe." (28)

"She say you ask weird questions, but I say you're student, you supposed to ask! Her job to answer! I say you're lazy, if student ask, you answer!"
"Yeah! She told me my real great-grandparents are these white people named Adan and Eve!"
"Bullshit! But hey, Ciao Wen, be smart. Why you argue with her about that? You know they believe this stuff, just let them believe."
"But she told me I was going to Hell if I didn't believe and told me to ask God into my heart!"
""Ha, ha, yeah, she told me, too, think she do something soo good to help you. Whatever. You know it's lies, let those idiots believe. Just focus on real school. Don't be stupid and fight them, you'll lose." (30) — Eddie Huang

The key to staying unintimidated is to convince yourself that the person you're facing is a mere mortal, no different from you-- which is in fact the truth. See the person, not the myth. Imagine him or her as a child, as someone riddled with insecurities. Cutting the other person down to size will help your keep your mental balance. — Robert Greene

Search your heart. He's there, Kate. You can ignore Him, try to run and hide from Him, even convince yourself that He's not there, but He promised us that he would never leave or forsake us." He tipped his head to the side. "Kind of like how you promised not to leave Maggie when she was going through labor. Maggie still had to go through it. You couldn't take her pain away, but you were there to hold her hand, to encourage her, to make sure she knew she wasn't alone, and when it was all said and done, something beautiful came out of what she endured. — Jen Stephens

You have to learn to convince yourself that the possibility is greater than the inevitability of doing nothing. Listen, — Steve Harvey

Learn something new. Try something different. Convince yourself that you have no limits. — Brian Tracy

If you have to prove a theorem, do not rush. First of all, understand fully what the theorem says, try to see clearly what it means. Then check the theorem; it could be false. Examine the consequences, verify as many particular instances as are needed to convince yourself of the truth. When you have satisfied yourself that the theorem is true, you can start proving it. — George Polya

Believe in yourself and stop trying to convince others. — James De La Vega

In suffering, you've found a greater understanding and appreciation for all of life's wonders. You're still trying to believe it every day. One morning you convince yourself it will all be worth it, the next you're down and believe it all to be worthless. — Connor Franta

For me, a place unvisited is like an unrequited love. A dull ache that- try as you might to think it away, to convince yourself that she really wasn't the right country for you- just won't leave you in peace. — Eric Weiner

It's always in those moments when you've shunned God, or you've gone ahead as if you don't need Him, that you find yourself crawling back with pathetic little attempts to get His attention because suddenly you're weak and you need to convince yourself you're not alone on the bathroom floor. — Hannah Brencher

Don't be like those people who believe in "positive thinking" and tell themselves that they're loved and strong and capable. You don't need to do that because you know it already. And when you doubt it - which happens, I think, quite often at this stage of evolution - do as I suggested. Instead of trying to prove that you're better than you think, just laugh. Laugh at your worries and insecurities. View your anxieties with humor. It will be difficult at first, but you'll gradually get used to it. Now go back and meet all those people who think you know everything. Convince yourself that they're right, because we all know everything, it's merely a question of believing. — Paulo Coelho

Life is too short to spend your precious time trying to convince a person who wants to live in gloom and doom otherwise. Give lifting that person your best shot, but don't hang around long enough for his/her bad attitude to pull you down. Instead, surround yourself with optimistic people. — Zig Ziglar

It's about his family. It will always be about his family. And himself. Deep in your heart you know that and you're trying to convince yourself that you can save him. And you can't. There's no saving Dylan Daniels. — Molly O'Keefe

You seem to be under the misconception that if you perform one brave deed, that alone makes you a samurai. Well it doesn't! you let that one act of loyalty convince you of your righteousness. The more convinced you became, the more harm you caused yourself and everyone else. — Eiji Yoshikawa

Is it possible to become friends with a butterfly?"
"It is if you first become a part of nature. You suppress your presence as a human being, stay very still, and convince yourself that you are a tree or grass or a flower. It takes time, but once the butterfly lets its guard down, you can become friends quite naturally."
...
" ... I come here every day, say hello to the butterflies, and talk about things with them. When the time comes, though, they just quietly go off and disappear. I'm sure it means they've died, but I can never find their bodies. They don't leave any trace behind. It's like they've been absorbed by the air. They're dainty little creatures that hardly exist at all: they come out of nowhere, search quietly for a few, limited things, and disappear into nothingness again, perhaps to some other world. — Haruki Murakami

The easiest thing in the world is to convince yourself that you're right. As one grows old, it is easier still. — Robert Ludlum

Sell (service or product) as if you are buying it, convince yourself first that, it is worth buying..
It is very simple; u 'cannot' convince someone till the time you're not convinced — Honeya

You will fall in love with someone for one night and one night only. They'll come to you when you need them and be gone in the morning when you don't. At first, this will make you feel empty and you'll try to convince yourself that you could've loved this person for longer than a night, but you can't. Some people are just meant to make cameo appearances, some are destined to be a pithy footnote. That's okay though. Not every person we love has to stick around. Sometimes it's better to leave while you're still ahead. Sometimes it's better to leave before you get unloved. — Ryan O'Connell

That's another thing about lies: if you convince yourself they're true, they become true. A lie is a discrepancy of belief, not fact. — Leah Raeder

When you try to convince yourself that something doesn't bother you, it usually bothers you more. — Kid Cudi

The only way to keep your head above water is to convince yourself you are going to make it. — Dave Pelzer

A strong player requires only a few minutes of thought to get to the heart of the conflict. You see a solution immediately, and half an hour later merely convince yourself that your intuition has not deceived you. — David Bronstein