Ego Is The Enemy Quotes & Sayings

Your worst enemy is hiding within yourself, and that enemy is your nafs or false ego. — Rumi

The enemy of the spirit is the selfish ego, which thinks that happiness can be gained through causing unhappiness and disharmony to others. In many ancient languages, the word for enemy means "one who falls out of rhythm; one who is not working in harmony with the larger group." — Sharon Gannon

One's ego is the enemy of objectivity. — Kevin Ansbro

There is no greater shackle than self-deception. A man who denies his heart, either through fear of personal consequence - whether regarding physical jeopardy, or self-doubt, or simply of being ostracized - is not free. To go against your values and tenets, against that which you know is right and true, creates a prison stronger than adamantine bars and thick stone walls. — R.A. Salvatore

Months after my first real breakup, I was experiencing the ego thrash that comes with watching an old boyfriend move on. I was lucky she wasn't a beauty queen. Dissecting her physical flaws was the aspirin that would not heal my wounds, but temporarily eased my pain. For the first time in my life, I managed to behave like a true southern belle. I lifted my lips into a bright smile and warmly greeted my enemy as if she were my new best friend.
With all the phony verbal sugar I could muster I said, "Hi! We haven't met before. My name's Maggie. — Maggie Young

Prejudices subsist in people's imagination long after they have been destroyed by their experience. — Ernest Dimnet

The physical ego serves as its own worst enemy when, by delusive material behavior, it eclipses its true nature as the ever blessed soul. — Paramahansa Yogananda

If anyone steps on your ego, instantly, he becomes your enemy. But a Guru is a friend who constantly tramples your ego. — Jaggi Vasudev

Ego is the great enemy. Ego will hold you back every single time. — Nikki Sixx

Focusing on the score attaches you to the result. Focusing on the process lets you access your greatest skill and increases your fun. — John Douillard

As long as we are content to live without revival, we will. — Leonard Ravenhill

The foundation of the Buddha's teachings lies in compassion, and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego, the number-one enemy of compassion. — Dalai Lama

As the thought comes to me to exorcise and transform this black with a white drawing, it has already become a surface..Now I have lost all fear, and begin to draw on the black surface. — Hans Arp

The heart that loves the wicked ego creates the hated enemy. — Masanobu Fukuoka

ego is the enemy of what you want and of what you have: Of mastering a craft. Of real creative insight. Of working well with others. Of building loyalty and support. Of longevity. Of repeating and retaining your success. It repulses advantages and opportunities. It's a magnet for enemies and errors. It is Scylla and Charybdis. — Ryan Holiday

I've been a Nick Cave fan since the early '80s when he was part of The Birthday Party thing singing Australian self-destructive rock band and I've always followed his work and loved it. — Aleksandar Hemon

Everything existing in the world "falls to the bottom." The "bottom" for any part of the Universe is its nearest "stability," and this stability is the point toward which all the lines of force from all directions converge. — G.I. Gurdjieff

Although I have to admit I have despised a couple of people simply because they have never had a job in their lives. — Jeffrey Bernard

The ego is your enemy, not your friend. It is the ego that gives you wounds and hurts you. It is the ego that makes you violent, angry, jealous, competitive. It is the ego that is continuously comparing and feeling miserable. — Rajneesh

I used to fight the pain, but recently this became clear to me: pain is not my enemy; it is my call to greatness. But when dealing with the Iron, one must be careful to interpret the pain correctly. Most injuries involving the Iron come from ego. I once spent a few weeks lifting weight that my body wasn't ready for and spent a few months not picking up anything heavier than a fork. Try to lift what you're not prepared to and the Iron will teach you a little lesson in restraint and self-control. — Henry Rollins

The greatest enemy of any person is his own ego. — Sunday Adelaja

I think sometimes your worst enemy is inside your head. All your insecurities, your ego, your fears, your expectations. — Luis Gerardo Mendez

And the ego's greatest enemy of all is, of course, the present moment, which is to say, life itself. — Eckhart Tolle

Non-surrender hardens your psychological form, the shell of the ego, and so creates a strong sense of separateness. The world around you and people in particular come to be perceived as threatening. The unconscious compulsion to destroy others through judgment arises, as does the need to compete and dominate. Even nature becomes your enemy and your perceptions and interpretations are governed by fear. The mental disease that we call paranoia is only a slightly more acute form of this normal but dysfunctional state of consciousness. Not only your psychological form but also your physical form - your body - becomes hard and rigid through resistance. Tension arises in different parts of the body, and the body as a whole contracts. — Eckhart Tolle

Most of us aren't "egomaniacs," but ego is there at the root of almost every conceivable problem and obstacle, from why we can't win to why we need to win all the time and at the expense of others. From why we don't have what we want to why having what we want doesn't seem to make us feel any better." Ryan Holliday, Ego is the Enemy, pg 2-3 — Ryan Holladay

Lacey shrugged bashfully. "Do you think I'm superficial?"
"Well, yeah." I thought of myself standing outside Becca's bedroom, hoping she'd take her shirt off. "But so am I," I added. "So is everyone. — John Green

Left-wingers are incapable of conspiring because they are all egomaniacs. — Norman Mailer

The enemy hates the ego, which the seeker wants to kill; thus, like the anvil to the goldsmith, he is actually a friend. — Ramana Maharshi

My opponent is my teacher, my ego is my enemy. — Renzo Gracie

Park your ego and listen to your readers. They can be your best friend or your worst enemy. But chances are you'll learn something from them. — Eliza Green

The impatient man is his own enemy; he slams the door on his own progress. — Idries Shah

The best friends in the world may differ sometimes. — Laurence Sterne

When people of color are killed in the inner city, when homeless people are killed, when the "nobodies" are killed, district attorneys do not seek to avenge their deaths. Black, Hispanic, or poor families who have a loved one murdered not only don't expect the district attorney's office to pursue the death penalty -which, of course, is both costly and time consuming- but are surprised when the case is prosecuted at all. — Helen Prejean

I knew that some victims of powerful self-loathing turn out to be dangerous, violent, reproducing the enemy who has humiliated them over and over. Others surrender their identity; melt into a structure that delivers the strong persona they lack. Most others, however, grow beyond it. But there are some who collapse, silently, anonymously, with no voice to express or acknowledge it. They are invisible. The death of self-esteem can occur quickly, easily in children, before their ego has "legs," so to speak. Couple the vulnerability of youth with indifferent parents, dismissive adults, and a world, which, in its language, laws, and images, re-enforces despair, and the journey to destruction is sealed. — Toni Morrison

The pleasure of satisfying a savage instinct, undomesticated by the ego, is uncomparably much more intense than the one of satisfying a tamed instinct. The reason is becoming the enemy that prevents us from a lot of possibilities of pleasure. — Sigmund Freud

The FA have given me a pat on the back. I've taken violence off the terracing and onto the pitch. — Vinnie Jones

Our thought is our big enemy, guided by ego that walks on evil path — Aftab Alam

All men and women on earth were created with two eyes. The left eye represents the moon (mind/ego) and the right eye represents the sun (heart/conscience). Both eyes represent the duality of human nature. The sun represents the light in the heart of man, and the moon represents the darkness in the mind of man. When you read in ancient and religious scriptures that the enemy of humanity will surface with only one eye, this simply means that this being will only see through his left eye and neglect the right. And without the light of the right eye, this being will be very dark and evil. — Suzy Kassem

I, who fall short in managing my own affairs, can see just how it would profit my neighbor if I managed his. — Anne Ellis

Ego is neither positive nor negative. Those are simply concepts that create more boundaries. Ego is just ego, and the disaster of it all is that you, as a spiritual seeker, have been conditioned to think of the ego as bad, as an enemy, as something to be destroyed. This simply strengthens the ego. In fact, such conclusions arise from the ego itself. Pay no attention to them. Don't go to war with yourself; simply inquire into who you are. — Adyashanti

And once everyone agrees something is one way, all the other ways it could have been disappear. — Heidi Heilig

The problem in our society is the ego psychology and conventional wisdom about "look out for #1." That conventional wisdom thinks that "love your enemy" is to some a principle no one can ever live by. — Robert Thurman

If the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results, then passion is a form of mental retardation- deliberately blunting our most critical cognitive functions.
- Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy — Ryan Holiday