Dear Self Quotes & Sayings

Self love is like that instrument by which we propagate the species: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and it must be hidden. — Voltaire

The supposed "secular" values atheists hold dear are in fact borrowed Christian values. Our society is respectful of any creed, or lack thereof, not because it embraces an illusory, non-existent secular morality, but because it is rooted in Christian faith. Christopher Dawson noted that "we cannot understand the inner form of a society unless we understand its religion." Because moral values are always a religious product, and Western moral values are a product of Christianity. Our values, what we believe has a value beyond and above our self-interest, are grounded in religious faith or are not grounded at all. — Giorgio Roversi

When the world grinds you down, bent to tear you apart, cling to what you hold dear, and stay true to your heart. For the world has a way to dismantle your cause, to exploit what you lack and expose all your flaws. But when every layer of your being is gone, and it seems there's no point anymore to go on; just remember one thing, at the end of the day, when you have self-respect they can't take that away. — Wes Fesler

For to be afflicted with endless sorrow at the loss of someone very dear is foolish self-indulgence, and to feel none is inhuman callousness. — Seneca.

I developed in thousands of changes, and it always seemed to me that all of my former self disappeared with each new change, that it was lost in the mists of time that had passed and were now insignificant. But then, again and again, unexpectedly, I would find traces of everything that had been, like uncovered artifacts, like my own fossil strata; although they were old and unsightly, they became dear and beautiful. That rediscovered, recovered part of me, which was more than a memory, was beautified and returned from unreachable distances by time, which joined me with it. Thus, it had a twofold existence, as a part of my present personality, and as a memory. As the present, and as a beginning. — Mesa Selimovic

I felt loss at every hand. The
loss of self-esteem is a celebrated symptom, and my own sense of self
had all but disappeared, along with any self-reliance. This loss can
quickly degenerate into dependence, and from dependence into infantile
dread. One dreads the loss of all things, all people close and dear.
There is an acute fear of abandonment. — William Styron

We all of us need to be toppled off the throne of self, my dear," he said. "Perched up there the tears of others are never upon our own cheek. — Elizabeth Goudge

I say that a Christian congregation can survive and often appear to prosper in the community by the exercise of human talent and without any touch from the Holy Spirit! All that religious activity and the dear people will not know anything better until the great and terrible day when our self-employed talents are burned with fire and only that which was wrought by the Holy Ghost will stand forever! — Aiden Wilson Tozer

Dear God, please help me.You are so powerful and I can't do this without You.I need You.He needs You.I offer my self as a tool.Use me however You need to.Just please save him.Please, dear Lord, save Tristan. — Kristie Cook

Mademoiselle, I speak as a friend. Bury your dead! ... Give up the past! Turn to the future! What is done is done. Bitterness will not undo it.'

'I'm sure that would suit dear Linnet admirably.'

Poirot made a gesture. 'I am not thinking of her at this moment! I am thinking of you. You have suffered - yes - but what you are doing now will only prolong the suffering. — Agatha Christie

Nor do we merely feel these essences for one short hour no, even as these trees that whisper round a temple become soon dear as the temples self, so does the moon, the passion posey, glories infinite, Haunt us till they become a cheering light unto our souls and bound to us so fast, that wheather there be shine, or gloom o'er cast, They always must be with us, or we die. — John Keats

Dear Lord, help me to be courageous enough to speak honestly to You and to myself about areas where I'm giving in to compromise. Show me how to rely on Your strength for more self-discipline in my life - not for my glory, but for Yours. In Jesus' name. Amen. — Lysa TerKeurst

The purpose of this glorious life is not simply to endure it, but to soar, stumble, and flourish as you learn to fall in love with existence. We were born to live, my dear, not to merely exist. — Becca Lee

Dear friends,
You know that no matter what you are told in life you are always worth it, no matter how hard you fall or how softly you land. No person is really worth your tears if they never mattered in the first place, if they say things that make you cry then they were never really real. So why cry over what was never real? Love yourself in a healthy way and no one can ever ruin your day, just be yourself and never put what you love away on a self. Free yourself, be yourself, always be free. — Myself

I don't know." His deep sigh tugged on my heartstrings a little. "Maybe she's just not that into me,"
he said with a self-deprecating smile.
I didn't deny it. "Maybe she's just a ho."
"Aren't you supposed to be neutral?"
"That's Switzerland, dear. This is America, and we take sides. — S.E. Harmon

Every cell of my being is radiant with my love for You. May my earthly self align with this, May my human heart stop beating so wildly. May I remember, dear God, that I live in Your mind and I belong in Your arms. — Marianne Williamson

I come across too much material on "how to make a man want you", "how to make a man commit", "how to make a man finally pop the question", "how to make a man take you seriously", "how to get into a man's emotions." And I laugh. My dear fellow women, enough! Do not busy yourselves with such things! Instead, fall in love with yourself! — C. JoyBell C.

Dear Influencers: Trolls will lurk under the bridges you build to gobble you up. They are hangry for attention. Build bridges anyways. — Richie Norton

Dear other iterations of my past self, Thank you for not being so goddamn weird that I felt I had to address you personally in a letter from the future. I commend you. — Allie Brosh

If solid happiness we prize, Within our breast this jewel lies, And they are fools who roam. The world has nothing to bestow From our own selves our joys must flow, And that dear hut, our home. — Nathaniel Cotton

Come away, my dear brethren, fly, fly, fly for your lives to Jesus Christ; fly to a bleeding God, fly to a throne of grace; and beg of God to break your heart; beg of God to convince you of your actual sins; beg of God to convince you of your original sin; beg of God to convince you of your self-righteousness; beg of God to give you faith, and to enable you to close with Jesus Christ. — George Whitefield

It is thyself, mine own self's better part; Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart; My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim, My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim. — William Shakespeare

Socrates: Yes mercy and grace are all linked with Love. Let your tears of gratitude wash away the dark dirt of ignorance obscuring your own dear Self which is Love.
Charmides: So Love has nothing to do with lust then?
Socrates: No! Lust is from the selfish false sense of a 'me' desperate for some pleasurable, momentary relief from its anguish and boredom. Love is refined, and her amorous advances are from the spirit, not the body. — Alan Jacobs

He's rich, handsome and dangerous. You like that."
She smiled at the uncharacteristic lack of self-confidence in his tone. "My dear duke. You are rich, handsome and dangerous."
His lips lifted on one side. "I would never describe myself as dangerous."
"Could you maybe stop talking? I'd like to kiss you but your lips won't stay still."
Eyes twinkling, he pressed his lips shut. Finley smiled and guided his head down to hers. — Kady Cross

To follow Jesus is to pay the cost of discipleship, and then to die to ourselves, to our own interests, our own agendas and reputations. It is to pick up our crosses and count the cost of losing all that contradicts his will and his way - including our reputations before the world, and our standing with the people and in the communities that we once held dear. It is to live before one audience, the audience of One, and therefore to die to all other conflicting opinions and assessments. There is no room here for such contemporary ideas as the looking-glass self, and no consideration here for trivial contemporary obsessions such as one's legacy. — Os Guinness

My dear, have you ever known me to make an inflammatorily ridiculous statement without providing an equally ridiculous explanation to substantiate it?"
"Of course not," she agreed. "You are nothing if not exhaustive in your self-congratulatory made-up logic. — Brandon Sanderson

Various kinds of self-forgetting, usually accompanied by illusions and myths, make it possible to live without the intransigent facing of death-in the sense of always thinking about it and what it means for life and the things dear in life-which is characteristic of a serious life. — Allan Bloom

When the railroad trains moaned, and river-winds blew, bringing echoes through the vale, it was as if a wild hum of voices, the dear voices of everybody he had known, were crying: "Peter, Peter! Where are you going, Peter?" And a big soft gust of rain came down.
He put up the collar of his jacket, and bowed his head, and hurried along. — Jack Kerouac

One has to see oneself through one's actions, works, and mind. Knowing the Self by the self is not as easy as writing that line. A # yogi sees things in every movement he makes, maybe when practicing, maybe when teaching, or maybe when talking to people. You should have courage in your convictions and pursue what is dear to you all these years. — B.K.S. Iyengar

One bad thing can often be rectified or overlooked, but several of them can sometimes coalesce into a compound disaster that sprouts tentacles and develops a self-directed will of its own, the kind of thing my dear old dad used to call a cluster fudge bar. — Eleanor Druse

My Dear Friend,
Don't ever allow yourself to forget how incredibly special you are, even for a single second. Without you, the world would not be as magnificent. Let yourself remember to love again, starting with you loving you. — Miya Yamanouchi

Dear Teenage Self,

That guy you're crazy about,
Will ask you out
On a date
In about ten years, so don't fret
You'll get there yet.
But fate is cruel
On that day,
That feeling will have gone away. — Joyce Rachelle

For her own self-satisfaction was it that she wished so instinctively to help, to give, that people might say of her, "O Mrs. Ramsay! dear Mrs. Ramsay . . . Mrs. Ramsay, of course!" and need her and send for her and admire her? Was it not secretly this that she wanted, — Virginia Woolf

Dear, harmless age! the short, swift span Where weeping Virtue parts with man; Where love without lust dwells, and bends What way we please without self-ends. An age of mysteries! which he Must live that would God's face see Which angels guard, and with it play, Angels! which foul men drive away. — Henry Vaughan

if she would not like to see Master Frederick and his new wife very much indeed? 'She's a Papist, Miss, isn't she?' 'I believe - oh yes, certainly!' said Margaret, a little damped for an instant at this recollection. 'And they live in a Popish country?' 'Yes.' 'Then I'm afraid I must say, that my soul is dearer to me than even Master Frederick, his own dear self. I should be in a perpetual terror, Miss, lest I should be converted. — Elizabeth Gaskell

Whether you are Calvinists, or Arminians, or anything else, dear friends, be first and chiefly Christians - Christians - following Christ, receiving him as the great Expositor to you of God, and of the great truths of revelation. You will tell me you have your "bodies of divinity;" there never was but one "body of divinity," and that was the "body" of the man, Christ
Jesus; do you, abating all prejudices and self-formed opinions, receive our Lord as the great embodiment of truth. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

People are always changing themselves and their world, dear. Very few of the changes are new. We rather confuse change and newness, I think. What is truly new never changes."

"You speak in riddles, aged progenitor."

"The world worships a certain kind of newness. People are always talking about a new car, or a new drink or p-p-play or house, but these things are not truly new, are they? They begin to get old the minute you acquire them. New is not in things. New is within us. The truly new is something that is new forever: you. Every morning of your life and every evening, every moment is new. You have never lived this moment before and you never will again. In this sense the new is also the eternal. — Tony Hendra

Anyway, there are two tentative solutions for getting rid of selfishness - both involving a stoic casting - off of the thin tenuous little identity which I love and cherish so dearly - and being confident that, once on the other side, I shall never miss my own little ambitions for my conceited self, but shall be content in serving the ambitions of my mate, or of a society, or cause. (Yet I will not, I cannot accept any of those solutions. Why? Stubborn selfish pride. I will not make what is inevitable easier for my-self by the blinding ignorance-is-bliss "losing-and-finding" theory. Oh, no! I will go, eyes open, into my torture, and remain fully cognizant, unwinking, while they cut and stitch and lop off my cherished malignant organs.) So much for selflove: I carry it with me like a dear cancerous relative - to be disposed of only when desperation sets in. — Sylvia Plath

Don't build yourself an ivory tower" the moralists say. But I am an ivory tower by the mere fact that I am. On the crude physical level the body is a frame of (ivory) bones on which the muscles are stretched, crowned by an (ivory) bone pill-box turret housing the brain - shielding it from the blows of 'reality' so that it can get on with its absurd work undisturbed. On the non-physical level my I-ness is an ivory tower of orderly individual views and vistas shielding 'me' from being swallowed up in chaos. Dear moralists: don't they see that life is a constant flight up and down the endless steps of the dark ivory tower seeking to escape from the horrid chaos of real freedom? — Nanamoli Thera

Mary adored Jesus as the Bridegroom of souls. Union is the final purpose of love. Jesus by the gift of His substance in the Eucharist unites Himself with our souls as with His dear spouses. As a Bridegroom, He gives them all His possessions, His name, His heart, His whole Self, but on the condition that the soul reciprocates. The soul, His spouse, shall live for Him only — Peter Julian Eymard

C.-C.: My dear Arnold, we all hope that you have before you a distinguished political career. You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
ARNOLD: But supposing it doesn't come off? Women are incalculable.
C.-C.: Nonsense! Men are romantic. A woman will always sacrifice herself if you give her the opportunity. It is her favourite form of self-indulgence.
ARNOLD: I never know whether you're a humorist or a cynic, father.
C.-C.: I'm neither, my dear boy; I'm merely a very truthful man. But people are so unused to the truth that they're apt to mistake it for a joke or a sneer. — W. Somerset Maugham

My dear Watson," said [Sherlock Holmes], "I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers. — Arthur Conan Doyle

What are the tales?" Adrienne asked wryly.
"His exploits are legendary!"
"His conquests are legion. 'Tis rumored he's traveled the world accompanied by only the most beautiful lasses."
"'Tis said there isna a comely lass in all of Scotia he hasna tumbled"
"in England, too!"
"and he canna recall any of their names."
"He is said to have godlike beauty, and a practiced hand in the fine art of seduction."
"He is fabulously wealthy and rumors say his castle is luxurious beyond compare."
Adrienne blinked. "Wonderful. A materialistic, unfaithfill, beautiful playboy of a self-indulged, inconsiderate man with a bad memory. And he's all mine. Dear sweet God, what have I done to deserve this?" she wondered aloud. Twice, she brooded privately. — Karen Marie Moning

I will not subscribe to the argument that ornament increases the pleasure of the life of a cultivated person, or the argument which covers itself with the words: "But if the ornament is beautiful! ... " To me, and to all the cultivated people, ornament does not increase the pleasures of life. If I want to eat a piece of gingerbread I will choose one that is completely plain and not a piece which represents a baby in arms of a horserider, a piece which is covered over and over with decoration. The man of the fifteenth century would not understand me. But modern people will. The supporter of ornament believes that the urge for simplicity is equivalent to self-denial. No, dear professor from the College of Applied Arts, I am not denying myself! To me, it tastes better this way. — Adolf Loos

Self-respect is often mistaken for arrogance when in reality it is the opposite. When we can recognize all our good qualities as well as our faults with neutrality, we can start to appreciate ourselves as we would a dear friend and experience the comfortable inner glow of respect. To embrace the journey towards our full potential we need to become our own loving teacher and coach. Spurring ourselves on to become better human beings we develop true regard for ourselves and our life will become sacred. — Rajneesh

Pay close attention. Listen carefully. Let's look at what happens when fear is in charge.

With fear in charge, you can never fully relax, let your guard down, be your true self. You can't open up because you are afraid of how people will respond if they were to meet the real you. When fear is in charge, you simply cannot take that chance. Fear will not allow honesty, fear despises spontaneity, and fear refuses to believe in you. Fear may mean well, but it ruins everything by overprotecting you, insisting that you stay hidden and keep a low profile, that your time is coming....sometime later.

Fear is bold, but insists that you be timid. Take a chance and there will be hell to pay: fear will call on its dear friend, shame, to meet you on the other side of your risk taking, to tell you what you should not have done. Fear will trip you, tackle you, smother you, do whatever it takes to cause you to hesitate, to stop you. In this way fear is fearless. — Thom Rutledge

Self love is an ocean
and your heart is a vessel. Make it full,
and any excess will spill over
into the lives of the people
you hold dear. But you must come first. — Beau Taplin

Sentient beings, self and others, enemies and dear ones-all are made by thoughts. It is like seeing a rope and mistaking it for a snake. When we think that the rope is a snake, we are scared, but once we see that we are looking at a rope, our fear dissipates. We have been deluded by our thoughts. Likewise, mentally fabricating self and others, we generate attachment and aversion. — Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Mom put a note in my lunch again, I see ... Dear son, I hope you will study hard in summer school ... Do not look upon it as a punishment, but rather as a privilege ... We are very proud of you, and want you to have a good education. This note will self-destruct in five seconds. — Charles M. Schulz

With the need for the self in the time of another / I left my seaport grim and dear / knowing good work could be made / in the state governed by both Hope and Despair. — Roman Payne

In Buddhism, the word "emptiness" is a translation of the Sanskrit sunyata. It means "empty of a separate self." It is not a negative or despairing term. It is a celebration of interconnectedness, of interbeing. It means nothing can exist by itself alone, that everything is inextricably interconnected with everything else. I know that I must always work to remember that I am empty of a separate self and full of the many wonders of this universe, including the generosity of my grandparents and parents, the many friends and teachers who have helped and supported me along the path, and you dear readers, without whom this book could not exist. We inter-are, and therefore we are empty of an identity that is separate from our interconnectedness. — Chan Khong

Poverty is not a vice, that's a true saying. Yet I know that drunkenness too is not a virtue and that's even truer. But destitution, dear sir, destitution is a vice. In poverty you may still retain your innate nobility of soul , but in destitution-never-no-one. For destitution a man is not chased out of society with a stick, he is swept out with a broom to make it as humiliating as possible; and quite right, too, for in destitution I am the first to humiliate my self. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Dear God, Please free me from false appetites and take away my pain. Take from me my addicted self, and show me who I am. Unchain my heart so I might live a freer life at last. Amen — Marianne Williamson

Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: 'After the revolution even we will have more, won't we, dear?' Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picknickers on her property.
I guess the trouble was that we didn't have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist. Maybe the Communists so closely questioned by the investigation committees were a danger to America, but the ones I knew - at least they claimed to be Communists - couldn't have disrupted a Sunday-school picnic. Besides they were too busy fighting among themselves. — John Steinbeck

Pardon me, dear human self, capable of the most heinous degradation, capable of soaring. — Sena Jeter Naslund

The diamond does not need to prove its worth. It is in fact the person who must teach him/herself to recognise the worth of real diamonds. A person must study this in school. A diamond does not go to school to learn how to prove its worth. It is the person who must go to school in order to recognise the worth of a diamond. Dear diamonds everywhere, stop trying to go to school. The worthy will recognise your worth. — C. JoyBell C.

Where there is love, there is no question. Where there is a question, there is no love. Then it becomes a business. So love is the totality of the self. My dear folks, if you cannot find yourself, you can never find anybody you want to find. — Harbhajan Singh Yogi

Dear God, Please lift me above the shadows Of my negative self-perception. Please deliver me of the chains That keep me bound to a smaller life. Please show me the beauty You have placed in me, And give me faith that it is there. Amen. — Marianne Williamson

What wild imaginations one forms where dear self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken! — Jane Austen

A thousand wheels of labor are turned by dear affections, and kept in motion by self-sacrificing endurance; and the crowds that pour forth in the morning and return at night are daily procession of love and duty. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

And are you going to explain why you consider competing with me to be the most sincere form of compliment?"
"Of course I am," Lightsong said. "My dear, have you ever known me to make an inflammatorily ridiculous statement without providing an equally ridiculous explanation to substantiate it?"
"Of course not," she agreed. "You are nothing if not exhaustive in your self-congratulatory made-up logic."
"I am rather exceptional in that regard. — Brandon Sanderson

To forget the past so easily seems scarcely loyal to oneself. I am so selfishly absorbed in my present self that I have grown not to care a damn about that ever increasing collection of past selves- those dear, dead gentlemen who one after the other have tenanted the temple of this flesh and handed on the torch of my life and personal identity before creeping away silently and modestly to rest. — W.N.P. Barbellion

Perhaps you were right after all, my dear Nicolaus; perhaps there is but one god. But if that is true, you have misnamed him. He is Accident, and his priest is man, and that priest's only victim must be at last himself, his poor divided self. — John Edward Williams

To be true to one's self is the ultimate test in life. To have courage and the sensitivity to follow your hidden dreams and stand tall against the odds that are bound to fall in your path. Life is too short and precious to be dealt with in any other fashion. This thought I hold dear to my heart and I always try to be true to myself and others that I encounter along the way. — Flo Hyman

The compulsion to preach is so rooted in us that it emerges from depths unknown to the instinct for self-preservation. Each of us awaits his moment in order to propose something - anything. He has a voice: that is enough. It costs us dear to be neither deaf nor dumb. . .

From snobs to scavengers, all expend their criminal generosity, all hand out formulas for happiness, all try to give directions: life in common thereby becomes intolerable, and life with oneself still more so; if you fail to meddle in other people's business you are so uneasy about your, own that you convert your "self" into a religion, or, apostle in reverse, you deny it altogether; we are victims of the universal game. . . — Emil M. Cioran

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves. — William Shakespeare

But what do I love when I love you? Not the beauty of any body or the rhythm of time in its movement; not the radiance of light, so dear to our eyes; not the sweet melodies in the world of manifold sounds; not the perfume of flowers, ointments and spices; not manna and not honey; not the limbs so delightful to the body's embrace: it is none of these things that I love when I love my God. And yet when I love my God I do indeed love a light and a sound and a perfume and a food and an embrace - a light and sound and perfume and food and embrace in my inward self. There my soul is flooded with a radiance which no space can contain; there a music sounds which time never bears away; there I smell a perfume which no wind disperses; there I taste a food that no surfeit embitters; there is an embrace which no satiety severs. It is this that I love when I love my God. (Confessions 10.6.8) — Timothy J. Keller

Dear God, I know how far short I fall of focusing on what is truly important. Help me always to remember what is important to You - what's inside rather than outside - and then give me the power through Your Spirit to develop those inward characteristics that please You. In Your name today, Lord, I put on gentleness and kindness and patience and self-control and all the rest. Thank You for what You're accomplishing in my life already. Amen. — Jean E. Syswerda

My dear Arjuna, only by undivided devotional service can I be understood as I am, standing before you, and can thus be seen directly. Only in this way can you enter into the mysteries of My understanding. — A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

A Gift for You
I send you ...
The gift of a letter from your wise self. This is the part of you that sees you with benevolent, loving eyes. You find this letter in a thick envelope with your name on it, and the word YES written boldly above your name.
My Dear,
I am writing this to remind you of your 'essence beauty.' This is the part of you that has nothing to do with age, occupation, weight, history, or pain. This is the soft, untouched, indelible you. You can love yourself in this moment, no matter what you have, or haven't done or been.
See past any masks, devices, or inventions that obscure your essence.
Remember your true purpose, WHICH is only Love.
If you cannot see or feel love, lie down now and cry; it will cleanse your vision and free your heart.
I love you; I am you. — SARK

May the hope and the light glow today,
May the glory of God, come all along
May the wishes and desires be fulfilled
Let me assume, the Power of God given to me
Not for my own self, but for all those are hungry
For all those who need help, and are in pain
Today, I give you my utmost love and respect
With total care, I will always be with you
Oh my dear child ... ! God blessess you ! ...
God bless you all ... ! — Santosh Kalwar

embodied in the remark that dear far-away Ruth's intentions were doubtless good. She and Kent are even yet looking for another prop, but no one presents a true sphere of usefulness. They complain that people are self-sufficing. With Saltram the fine type of the child of adoption was scattered, the grander, the elder style. They've got their carriage back, but what's an empty carriage? In short I think we were all happier as well as poorer before; even including George Gravener, who by the deaths of his brother and his nephew has lately become Lord Maddock. His wife, whose fortune clears the property, is criminally dull; he hates being in the Upper — Henry James

Why am I so alone, so hard, so cold? I am so weary of myself! It is eating my soul to its core,
self, self, self! I cannot bear this life! I cannot breathe, I cannot live! Will nothing free me from myself?' She pressed her cheek agains the wooden post. 'I want to love! I want something great and pure to lift me to itself! Dear old man, I cannot bear it any more! I am so cold, so hard, so hard; will no one help me! — Olive Schreiner

For some of us, the soul is resident in the sole, and yearns ceaselessly for light and air and self-expression. Our feet are our very selves. The touch of floor or carpet, grass or mud or asphalt, speaks to us loud and clear from the foot, that scorned and lowly organ as dear to us as our eyes and ears. — Barbara Holland

Dear Girls Across the Globe,
Let's stop body-shaming each other with hurtful comments about how another girl looks or doesn't look. We are all beautiful in our own unique way; so let's speak about each other with the dignity that we would want others to have when they speak about us. — Miya Yamanouchi

Dear Supreme Altruist-

I hope you are in a receptive mood.

Thanks very much for placing wihin me the bomb that never stops exploding. Though the benefits have been intangible and in fact I feel that this terrifying mechanism has generally made my life intolerable, I shall never ask you to reverse the situation. I feel I have done everything that may be reasonably expected of me in the way of self-abnegation. However, I now find to my dismay that my lifelong fear of death is beginning to desert me. I believe that this may mean that the bomb's continual explosions may be causing the growth of new slabs of man-bark instead of blasting the loathesome stuff away as it has been doing.

I therefore humbly request that the explosive power of the bomb be increased. Please do not make me weaker; make the bomb stronger.

Amen. — Jim Woodring

There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self, the very meaning of one's soul. — Edith Wharton

Think, dear Sir, of the world that you carry inside you, and call this thinking whatever you want to: a remembering of your own childhood or a yearning toward a future of your own - only be attentive to what is arising within you, and place that above everything you perceive around you. What is happening on your innermost self is worthy of your entire love; somehow you must find a way to work at it, and not lose too much time or too much courage in clarifying your attitude toward people. — Rainer Maria Rilke

the pity which the spectators then exhibit is in so far a consolation for the weak and suffering in that the latter recognize therein that they possess still one power , in spite of their weakness, the power of giving pain. The unfortunate derives a sort of pleasure from this feeling of superiority, of which the exhibition of pity makes him conscious; his imagination is exalted, he is still powerful enough to give the world pain. Thus the thirst for pity is the thirst for self-gratification, and that, moreover, at the expense of his fellow-men; it shows man in the whole inconsiderateness of his own dear self, but — Friedrich Nietzsche

Accept dear God the soul of Dixon Hartnell, who made his own amends and who travelled his own way. He failed as we all fail, and perhaps more often than some. Yet he recognized fundamental things. Not that we are evil; for we are not. But that, by whatever name
self interest, impulse, anger, lust, or greed
we are inclined that way; and that it is our tragedy to know this can never change, our duty to try at every moment to overcome it; and our glory occasionally to succeed. — Scott Turow

Could he be my Bertie, the cheeky butcher's boy? I had walked out with him when I was a reluctant servant in Mr Buchanan's household. Dear funny Bertie, who had been so self-conscious about reeking of meat. Bertie, the boy who had taken me to the fair and won me the little black-and-white china dog that was in my suitcase now, carefully wrapped in my nightgown to prevent any chips. — Jacqueline Wilson

My public Facebook page is what it is. My Twitter account is sort of what it is, but if I'm totally honest with you, that is not my personal, private self. I have another Facebook page that is devoted to my dear friends and family, and they can keep in touch with me that way. — Tim Daly

When my grandmother - may she attain the Kingdom of Heaven - was dying, my mother, as was then the custom, took me to her bedside and, as I kissed her right hand, my dear grandmother placed her dying left hand on my head and said in a whisper, yet very distinctly: "Eldest of my grandsons! Listen and always remember my strict injunction to you: In life never do as others do." Having said this, she gazed at the bridge of my nose and, evidently noticing my perplexity and my obscure understanding of what she had said, added somewhat angrily and imperiously: "Either do nothing - just go to school - or do something nobody else does Whereupon she immediately, without hesitation and with a perceptible impulse of disdain for all around her, and with commendable self-cognizance, gave up her soul directly into the hands of His Faithfulness, the Archangel Gabriel. — G.I. Gurdjieff

You can sit down with that fearful child inside and be gentle with him or her. You might say something like this: Dear little child, I am your adult self. I would like to tell you that we are no longer a baby, helpless and vulnerable. We have strong hands and strong feet; we can very well defend ourselves. So there is no reason why we have to continue to be fearful anymore. — Thich Nhat Hanh

This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it. — Voltaire

My God, I marvel that I am still so full of myself after having so often received Communion! O dear Jesus, be the child inside of us, so that we feel within and breathe forth nothing but you. Alas, you are so often within me; why am I so rarely in you? You enter into me; why am I so often outside of you? You are in my very self; why am I not in yours, to find there the great love of yours that transports our hearts? — Francis De Sales

That's the key, you know, confidence. I know for a fact that if you genuinely like your body, so can others. It doesn't really matter if it's short, tall, fat or thin, it just matters that you can find some things to like about it. Even if that means having a good laugh at the bits of it that wobble independently, occasionally, that's all right. It might take you a while to believe me on this one, lots of people don't because they seem to suffer from self-hatred that precludes them from imagining that a big woman could ever love herself because they don't. But I do. I know what I've got is a bit strange and difficult to love but those are the very aspects that I love the most! It's a bit like people. I've never been particularly attracted to the uniform of conventional beauty. I'm always a bit suspicious of people who feel compelled to conform. I personally like the adventure of difference. And what's beauty, anyway? — Dawn French

We part, then, for the nonce, do we?'
'I fear so, sir.'
'You take the high road, and self taking the low road, as it were?'
'Yes, sir.'
'I shall miss you, Jeeves.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'Who was that chap who was always beefing about gazelles?'
'The poet Moore, sir. He complained that he had never nursed a dear gazelle, to glad him with its soft black eye, but when it came to know him well, it was sure to die.'
'It's the same with me. I am a gazelle short. You don't mind me alluding to you as a gazelle, Jeeves?'
'Not at all, sir. — P.G. Wodehouse

Feelings trap us in the self, Tony dear. Doing a thing because you feel wonderful about it - even a work of charity - is in the end a selfish act. We perform the work not to feel wonderful but to know and love the other. It's the same with your romance. You may not feel your love, but God is still your loved one, your other. — Tony Hendra

Dear YOU, don't compare yourself to ANYONE. Your Unique Self is empowered, powerful, and unstoppable! Your uniqueness is what makes you incomparable! Don't underestimate the beauty of just being YOU. — Stephanie Lahart

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

The weakness of our age is in want of great men and women. It is hard to resist the current. Someone must completely detach himself from the ordinary run of politicians if he is to save politics; economists must break with the ordinary run of the mill of capital and labor commonplaces, if economics is to be saved. In other words, we need saints. These are not easy to make. First of all - because we do not always want the best; the best demands sacrifice of the ordinary and the discipline of the lower self. God, in His turn, finds it hard to give, because He gives only the best - moral perfection - and few there are who want it. As Augustine said at one point in his life, "I want to be good, dear Lord...but not now - a little later on. — Fulton Sheen

For the first time ever, I was alone in a different country. I was nervous about how I was going to cope in this big bustling city and so I employed a technique which still serves me well today. I imagined myself as someone who relished new exciting opportunities, who was utterly unafraid and perpetually optimistic. It was a kind of reinvention. Everyone I met was new. These people didn't know me, there was no shared history, so I could be anything or anyone I wanted to be. My theory was that if I behaved like a confident, cheerful person, eventually I would buy it myself, and become that. I always had traces of strength somewhere inside me, it wasn't fake. It was just a way of summoning my courage to the fore and not letting any creeping self-doubt hinder my adventures. This method worked then, and it works now. — Dawn French

The sexiest advice:
Dear humans, stop role-playing in your lives; these sort of things are meant to be explored only at times you won't mention in public. — Saurabh Sharma

Every man's his own friend, my dear," replied Fagin, with his most insinuating grin. "He hasn't as good a one as himself anywhere."
Except sometimes," replied Morris Bolter, assuming the air of a man of the world. "Some people are nobody's enemies but their own, yer know."
Don't believe that!" said the Jew. "When a man's his own enemy, it's only because he's too much his own friend; not because he's careful for everybody but himself. Pooh! Pooh! There ain't such a thing in nature. — Charles Dickens

And yet self-knowledge is thought by some not so easy. Who knows, my dear sir, but for a time you may have taken yourself for somebody else? Stranger things have happened. — Herman Melville

Keep steady in the view of the great principles for which you contend. The safety of your homes and the lives of all you hold dear depend upon your courage and exertions. Let each man resolve to be victorious, and that the right of self government, liberty and peace shall find him a defender. — Robert E.Lee

I call myself the last philosopher, because I am the last man. No one speaks with me but myself, and my voice comes to me like the voice of a dying man! Let me associate for but one hour more with you, dear voice, with you, the last trace of the memory of all human happiness. With you I escape loneliness through self-delusion and lie myself into multiplicity and love. For my heart resists the belief that love is dead. It cannot bear the shudder of the loneliest loneliness, and so it forces me to speak as if I were two. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Place this salt in water and bring it here tomorrow morning".
The boy did.
"Where is that salt?" his father asked?
"I do not see it."
"Sip here. How does it taste?"
"Salty, father."
"And here? And there?"
"I taste salt everywhere."
"It is everywhere, though we see it not. Just so, dear one, the Self is everywhere, within all things, although we see it not. There is nothing that does not come from it. It is the truth; it is the Self supreme. You are that, Shvetaketu.
You Are That. — Eknath Easwaran

When things fall apart and we can't get the pieces back together, when we lose something dear to us, when they whole thing is just not working and we don't know what to do, this is the time when the natural warmth of tenderness, the warmth of empathy and kindness, are just waiting to be uncovered, just waiting to be embraced. This is our chance to come out of our self-protecting bubble and to realize that we are never alone. This is our chance to finally understand that wherever we go, everyone we meet is essentially just like us. Our own suffering, if we turn toward it, can open us to a loving relationship with the world. — Pema Chodron