Quotes & Sayings About Former Self

I compare myself with my former self, not with others. Not only that, I tend to compare my current self with the best I have been, which is when I have been midly manic. When I am my present "normal" self, I am far removed from when I have been my liveliest, most productive, most intense, most outgoing and effervescent. In sort, for myself, I am a hard act to follow. — Kay Redfield Jamison

One of the strongest motivations for rereading is purely selfish: it helps you remember what you used to be like. Open an old paperback, spangled with marginalia in a handwriting you outgrew long ago, and memories will jump out with as much vigor as if you'd opened your old diary. These book-memories, says Hazlitt, are "pegs and loops on which we can hang up, or from which we can take down, at pleasure, the wardrobe of a moral imagination, the relics of our best affections, the tokens and records of our happiest hours." Or our unhappiest. Rereading forces you to spend time, at claustrophobically close range, with your earnest, anxious, pretentious, embarrassing former self, a person you thought you had left behind but who turns out to have been living inside you all along. — Anne Fadiman

Heritage Action is a self-interested fundraising organization led by a former Giuliani staffer who is not taking counsel from real conservatives ... It is a worthless organization to the conservative movement. I'll be the first to say that. — Geoff Davis

I mean, if you were to find a shattered mirror, find all the pieces, all the shards and all the tiny chips, and have whatever skill and patience it took to put all that broken glass back together so that it was complete once again, the restored mirror would still be spiderwebbed with cracks, it would still be a useless glued version of its former self, which could show only fragmented reflections of anyone looking into it. Some things are beyond repair. And that was me. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

It depends on you, to keep pushing forward until you win or giving in. Always choice the former. — Lailah Gifty Akita

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

My former identity was lying around, somewhere, fragmented and buried, like shards from an earlier civilization. — Laurie Nadel

Jim Stavridis is the former NATO commander who is sometimes on people's lists, also very plausible, self-possessed, someone with sobriety. — David Brooks

Her two outstanding characteristics were self-confidence and candor. The latter sometimes got her into hot water Durrance later told Charlotte, but the former kept it from scalding her. — Olive Higgins Prouty

As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task. — Diogenes

We have our self-importance. We also have our inadequacy. The former is a desperate invention of the latter. — Don DeLillo

When I was young, my mother [folk singer Kate McGarrigle] brought home this recording of Verdi's Requiem and we listened to it from top to bottom. By the end of it, I was a completely different person. It was literally a requiem mass for my former self. I was about 12 or 13. The Requiem just totally hooked into what I was going through emotionally - discovering my sexuality right at the time when AIDS was devastating my community and dealing with intense parental situations. — Rufus Wainwright

After I graduated from high school, one of the former workers on our farm asked if I would be willing to join him in selling Fuller brushes through the summer. It seemed like a perfect way to make some money for college. And being away from my parents and learning to make my own way gave me self confidence. — Billy Graham

Since Copernicus, man seems to have got himself on an inclined plane-now he is slipping faster and faster away from the center into-what? into nothingness? into a 'penetrating sense of his nothingness?' ... all science, natural as well as unnatural-which is what I call the self-critique of knowledge-has at present the object of dissuading man from his former respect for himself, as if this had been but a piece of bizarre conceit. — Friedrich Nietzsche

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which Smith published in 1776, is the most important book ever written about capitalism and its moral ramifications. Though The Wealth of Nations is in good part about commerce, it was not written for businessmen or merchants. A book focused on the analysis of market processes motivated by self-interest, it was written by one of the most admired philosophers of the Enlightenment, a former professor of logic, rhetoric, jurisprudence, and moral philosophy, in order to influence politicians and rouse them to pursue the common good. — Jerry Z. Muller

When a job is undertaken from necessity, or from a grim sense of disagreeable duty, the worker is self-consciously aware of the toils and pains he undergoes ... But when the job is a labor of love, the sacrifices will present themselves to the worker
strange as it may seem
in the guise of enjoyment. Moralists, looking on at this, will always judge that the former kind of sacrifice is more admirable than the later, because the moralist, whatever he may pretend, has far more respect for pride than for love ... I do not mean that there is no nobility in doing unpleasant things from a sense of duty, but only that there is more nobility in doing them gladly out of sheer love of the job. — Dorothy L. Sayers

The circle of indifference has the self at its centre. The circle of compassion has others at the centre.
The former leads to apathy; the latter to empathy. — Shubha Vilas

Have I ever really loved anyone at all,
or was it a lightning flash
which made me the shadow of my former self? — Vladimir Holan

Every man and woman in society has one big duty. That is, to take care of his or her own self. This is a social duty. For, fortunately, the matter stands so that the duty of making the best of one's self individually is not a separate thing from the duty of filling one's place in society, but the two are one, and the latter is accomplished when the former is done — William Graham Sumner

In his differentiation between asceticisms, Nietzsche posited a clear divide between the priestly varieties on the one side, illuminated by his vicious gaze, and the disciplinary rules of intellectual workers, philosophers and artists as well as the exercises of warriors and athletes on the other side. If the former are concerned with what one might call a pathogogical asceticism - an artful self-violation among an elite of sufferers that empowers them to lead other sufferers and induce the healthy to become co-sick - the latter only impose their regulations on themselves because they see them as a means of reaching their optimum as thinkers and creators of works. — Peter Sloterdijk

'The Red' is the first book in a trilogy that gained a big following as a self-published e-book, and is now out in paper from Saga. It introduces us to reluctant hero Shelley, a former anti-war activist who chooses to join the military rather than serve jail time after being arrested at a protest. — Annalee Newitz

The most difficult journey any of us ever take in our adulthood is the return to our parents' house. A home visit makes us recall all of the childhood events that formed us. Returning home reacquaints us with family members and our former self. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Mom is losing, no doubt, because our vegetables have come to lack two features of interest: nutrition and flavor. Storage and transport take predictable tolls on the volatile plant compounds that subtly add up to taste and food value. Breeding to increase shelf life also has tended to decrease palatability. Bizarre as it seems, we've accepted a tradeoff that amounts to: Give me every vegetable in every season, even if it tastes like a cardboard picture of its former self. — Barbara Kingsolver

Self-reflection, or - what comes to the same thing - the urge to individuation, gathers together what is scattered and multifarious and exalts it to the original of the One, the Primordial Man. In this way our existence as separate beings, our former ego nature, is abolished, the circle of consciousness is widened, and because the paradoxes have been made conscious, the sources of conflict are dried up. — Carl Jung

Like a tornado swirling around you, you are the eye of the storm. A front row seat to the destruction of everything you worked so hard to build. But like all tornadoes, the rain will halt and the winds will calm. The pieces that remain from the cataclysmic destruction of your former self, will soon dissolve and you will find that the only thing that was destroyed was the illusion, the attachment. Allowing for you to rebuild a new, a stronger, a more mature, and spiritually evolved you, that you didn't even know existed. So have faith, this too shall pass. — L.J. Vanier

You have two voices: the one you speak with and the one you think with. While the former is the one others hear, of greater importance is the one you hear. — Stephen Richards

This may be impossible for you to believe," Colt said in a hushed voice, "but as recently as last year, I was a hyper, naive-albeit extremely good-looking-minor myself."
"And now you're a persistent, outdoorsy, unshaven man-boy who cavorts with clones of your former self?"
Colt plucked a round stone out of the water. "I prefer boy-man, but the rest of the sentence sounded fairly accurate. — Karsten Knight

(I)f France's righteous bloviating against war makes them your Dashboard Saint of International Integrity, it's either because you are sand-poundingly ignorant of how the world works or it's because you think France's self-interest is more important than America's. If the former applies to you, read a book. If it's the latter, maybe you should move there along with Alec Baldwin, Robert Altman, and the rest of the crowd who promised to leave a long time ago. But whatever you do, don't call France's position principled, because that just insults us both. — Jonah Goldberg

Presume not that I am the thing I was;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company. — William Shakespeare

I'd say to any woman, get out of that bad relationship that's turning you into a shell of your former self. Learn from it and get out. Then wait; enjoy yourself and your friends because, when what you want comes along, you'll spot it. — Cat Deeley

I have never admitted the right of an elderly author to alter the work of a young author, even when the young author happens to be his former self. — George Bernard Shaw

As years passed away I have formed the habit of looking back upon that former self as upon another person, the remembrance of whose emotions has been a solace in adversity and added zest to the enjoyment of prosperity. — Simon Newcomb

Great art is more than a transient refreshment. It is something which adds to the permanent richness of the soul's self-attainment. It justifies itself both by its immediate enjoyment, and also by its discipline of the inmost being. Its discipline is not distinct from enjoyment but by reason of it. It transforms the soul into the permanent realization of values extending beyond its former self. — Alfred North Whitehead

You are emerging from the cocoon of your former self. There are no limits to the extent of the transformation that's possible for you. — Marianne Williamson

In these journals I would frequently write messages to myself, a person whom I addressed as Big Me, or The Future Me. Rereading these entries as the addressee, I try not to be insulted, since my former self admonishes me frequently. "I hope you are not a failure," he says. "I hope you are happy," he says. — Dan Chaon

She was just a shell of her former self, functioning and talking but hardly alive. — Sarah Dessen

She wished Bennie were here; only Bennie could appreciate the depth of self-delusion she was witnessing. "Let me get this straight," she said. "You want to do a lot of interviews and press around the fact that you're an ailing and decrepit shadow of your former self. And then you want to do a tour - — Jennifer Egan

Nothing from the past can still exist unless we drag it into the present moment through our minds. Holding onto past pain creates present pain. Holding onto old fears creates new fears. Holding onto former injuries caused by others is an act of current self-injury. What's done is gone. The only way it can live within us again is through our willingness to revive it in this moment. — Emily Maroutian

Truly enlightened people never seek to be like others. Rather, they seek to be superior to their former selves. — Robin Sharma

Do not feed your ego and your problems, with your attention ... Slowly, surely, the ego will lose weight, until one fine day it will be nothing but a thin ghost of its former self. You will be able to see right through it, to the divine presence that shines in each of us. — Eknath Easwaran

But an escape less self-depreciating was taken by Lord Westbury, who, it is said, rebuffed a barrister's reliance upon an earlier opinion of his Lordship: "I can only say that I am amazed that a man of my intelligence should have been guilty of giving such an opinion". If there are other ways of gracefully and good-naturedly surrendering former views to a better considered position, I invoke them all. — Robert H. Jackson

I'm a shadow of my former self, she announces. Vinny was a shadow to begin with, now she's a shadow of a shadow. — Kate Atkinson

The once-great country into which I'd been born now resembled its former self in name only. It didn't matter who was in charge. Those people were rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and everyone knew it. — Ernest Cline

Harsh discipline doesn't benefit a student, but social problem solving does. Are strict rules and harsh discipline the keys to successful education? No, they aren't. In fact, harsh discipline is counterproductive to learning. Discipline can make a student focus, but it also gives him anxiety and low self-esteem. Rousseah Mieze, a APR graduate who later became a teacher, said the strict environment of APR shaped his negative self-image. When he was in college, he'd still imagine his former teachers saying things like, You don't work hard enough. You don't belong here. — Anonymous

Paul believed that self-control was so important that when he had opportunity to witness to a very important ruler, it was one of the three main topics he spoke about.3 But Paul wasn't the only one who talked about it. Peter also
wrote about self-control and said that it helps us to avoid becoming useless and unfruitful. He wrote that Christians are to strive diligently to grow in moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love (2 Peter 1:5-7). All of these virtues are intertwined and are necessary for your usefulness and fruitfulness to Christ. Growing in these qualities is so important that "he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins" (2 Peter 1:9). — Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

... he stood behind her, tall and pale, like the ghost of his former self ... — Louisa May Alcott

Let your former selves teach you, but never limit or define you — Yasmin Mogahed

Like any other momentous shift in emotion, depression is not an occupation by a foreign army; it is civil insurrection, the subversion of identity's republic from within. A depressed person loses more than energy and appetite
he loses himself and the capacity to make the decisions his former, pre-coup self would have made. — Thomas Lewis

But when I look at myself squarely, it's not just that I have a few difficulties or unresolved issues. Unlike those lucky people for whom therapy or medication delivers them back to themselves, I've been suffering from something that was unnamable for most of my life. Yes, I've had periods of relative stability, but the whole concept of "recovery" brings up some painful questions. What do I recover? With drug addiction, you hear that you can recover and reclaim your former self, the person you were before you started using. With other psychiatric illnesses, getting rid of symptoms means you're more or less back to "yourself." But what if you simply don't have a solid self to return to - if the way you are is seen as basically broken? And what if you can't conceive of "normal" or "healthy" because pain and loneliness are all you remember? "You were such a happy child," my mother says. But I don't remember that. So what do I recover? — Kiera Van Gelder

Key West has become an imitation of its former self, its eccentricities commoditized for sale to tourists. That "character" you see with a parrot on his shoulder is about as authentic as vinyl siding, employed to provide local color. Gargantuan cruise ships dock two or three times a week, disgorging passengers by the thousands to troll the cheesy T-shirt shops on the main drag, Duval Street. And with all sorts of diversions to keep visitors occupied, like parasailing and jet skiing, tourist season is year-round, clogging the streets with autos, bikes, motor scooters, and pedestrians. I — Philip Caputo

She tried to imagine her former self. Enemy. Prisoner. Friend? Daughter. Spy. Prisoner again. "What am I now?"
Sarsine held both of Kestrel's hands. "What ever you want to be. — Marie Rutkoski

For within your flesh, deep within the center of your being, is the undaunted, waiting, longing, all-knowing. Is the ready, able, perfect. Within you, waiting its turn to emerge, piece by piece, with the dawn of every former test of trial and blackness, is the next unfolding, the great unfurling of wings, the re-forged backbone of a true Child of Light. — Jennifer DeLucy

Time is a vindictive bandit to steal the beauty of our former selves. We are left with sagging, rippled flesh and burning gums with empty sockets. — Raphael

I'm able to laugh now, because I've gone through a lot of mental and physical therapy to heal over the years, my music's been wonderful for me. But I was a shell of my former self at one point. I was not myself. To be fair, I was about 19, so ... I went to Catholic school and all this crazy stuff happened, and I was going, 'Oh, is this just the way adults are?' I was very naive. — Lady Gaga

I entertain the idea that if my present life is the punishment for a former life, then I would never want to meet myself as the self of this former life. — Sam Pink

I can't think of anything I hate more than a former punk - they are the most self-righteous people in the world. — Caitlin Moran

Two loves have made two different cities: self-love hath made a terrestrial city, which rises in contempt of God; and Divine Love hath made a celestial one, which rises in contempt of self. The former glories in itself - the latter in God. — Saint Augustine

When the silence comes and the echoes of former life fades, what will have mattered will be, one made the world a bit better 'fore their de-berthing. Writing, needs none, but the initial push of heart and passion, enabling the story to take flight, doves to clouds, clouds to doves, then to faithfully follow its unfolding through the quill transcribed, this self-perpetuating engine once born, with no further fuel required, to lift others in the journey, through time, for all time. — Tom Althouse

You are the sum total of all that we have been," said the youngster who looked like my former self. "In a way we are the ones to execute John Dawson. Because you can't do it without us. Now, do you see?" I was beginning to understand. An act so absolute as that of killing involves not only the killer but, as well, those who have formed him. In murdering a man I was making them murderers. — Elie Wiesel

In liminal space, one meets the unknown, the marginalized, the synchronistic, the other, the unconscious edge of one's former narratives. At this point, the possibility to try out new narratives, to reframe one's story, becomes critical. Through narratives of participation the center of gravity shifts from fear and defensiveness to curiosity, creativity, and celebration. One begins to take a stand to validate one own's affects and doubts while at the same time interrogating them. The effect of such a shift is that the area of questioning about the self, the world, and the use of narrative language begins to widen noticeably. We can no longer assume there will be an outcome of homogeneous accounts through dialogue. The frames of narratives of participation anticipate heterogeneity rather than accord. — Helene Shulman

A good sense of humour is the sign of a healthy perspective, which is why people who are uncomfortable around humour are either pompous (inflated) or neurotic (oversensitive). Pompous people mistrust humour because at some level they know their self-importance cannot survive very long in such an atmosphere, so they criticise it as "negative" or "subversive." Neurotics, sensing that humour is always ultimately critical, view it as therefore unkind and destructive, a reductio ad absurdum which leads to political correctness. Not that laughter can't be unkind and destructive. Like most manifestations of human behaviour it ranges from the loving to the hateful. The latter produces nasty racial jokes and savage teasing; the former, warm and affectionate banter, and the kind of inclusive humour that says, "Isn't the human condition absurd, but we're all in the same boat. — John Cleese

What I dislike least in my former self are the moments of prayer. — Andre Gide

In an age of computer manipulation, surrealism has become banal, a shadow of its former self. — Milton Glaser

Say I feel all sad and self-indulgent, then get stung by a wasp, my misery feels quite abstract and I long just to be in spiritual pain once more - 'damn you tiny assassin, clad in yellow and black, how I crave my former innocence where melancholy was my only trial'. — Russell Brand

Giving up alcohol or cigarettes is a lead-pipe cinch compared to the renunciation of complacence by a former (self-appointed) elite. — Margaret Halsey

Not at all. It's why people come. They say it's about looking smart, or beautiful, or professional, but it's not. Gray-haired ladies try to recapture their former brunette. Brunettes want to go blond. Other women go for colors that don't arise in
nature. Each group thinks it's completely different than the others, but I don't see it that way. I've watched them looking at themselves in the mirror, and they're not interested in conforming or rebelling, they just want to walk out of here feeling like themselves again. — Antony John

Where's your dad now?" Thomas asked.
"He's gone."
The word gone echoed all over the reservation. The reservation was gone itself, just a shell of its former self, just a fragment of the whole. But the reservation still possessed the power and rage, magic and loss, joys and jealousy. The reservation tugged at the lives of its Indians, stole from them in the middle of the night, watched impassively as the horses and salmon disappeared. But the reservation forgave, too. Sam Bone vanished between foot falls on the way to the Trading Post one summer day and reappeared years later to finish his walk. Thomas, Chess, and Checkers heard the word gone shake the foundation of the house. — Sherman Alexie

The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self. — Whitney Young

They forgot that the strike was in this instance the consequence of want and need, suffered unjustly, as the endurers believed; for, however insane, and without ground of reason, such was their belief, and such was the cause of their violence. It is a great truth that you cannot extinguish violence by violence. You may put it down for a time; but while you are crowing over your imaginary success, see if it does not return with seven devils worse than its former self! No — Elizabeth Gaskell

In Globetrotter, David Albahari explores the consciousness of emigres from the former Yugoslavia, Croatia and Serbia, showing that while abroad, many of us are even more intensely preoccupied with our histories than we were while living in Yugoslavia. His narrative structured out of realistic details and perceptions with self-conscious meditation blending history, civilization and its discontents, and personal experience reaches a density and intensity akin to Krasznahorkai's and Thomas Bernhard's. An intensely idiosyncratic narrative, enjoyable and thoughtful. — Josip Novakovich

Motherhood is exactly the kind of "special circumstance" that lends itself to memoir. It is a time of transition and sometimes a period of intense identity struggle: Who am I if I spend all day shirtless, trying to nurse a colicky baby? What happened to my former life, my former self? How do I balance my own needs with those of my family? I am drawn to all kinds of motherhood memoirs because I am interested in the different ways that women process the challenges and joys of motherhood, and how they write about life in general through their mother eyes. — Kate Hopper

I have reared, or helped to rear, five children and the scariest bit, bar none, is the learning-to-drive part. It has filled me with anxiety not only about the children, but also about my former self and my friends. — Jane Smiley

I decided to deflect her attitude by giving a long, Southern answer. I come from people who know how to draw things out. Annoy a Southerner, and we will drain away the moments of your life with our slow, detailed replies until you are nothing but a husk of your former self and that much closer to death. — Maureen Johnson

If my former self and my current self met for coffee, they'd get along OK, but they'd both probably walk out of the Starbucks shaking their heads and saying to themselves, "That guy is kinda delusional." — A. J. Jacobs

But thinking back now makes me scared for my former self the way any mother would be scared for her teenage daughter doing what I did. — Sophia Amoruso

I am a champion standing over the shadow of my former self. — Adam Johnson

The key to teaching anything is to remember what it was like not to understand that thing. That's a very hard thing to do. Every time you come to understand something you didn't understand before, you are transformed. You become a different person from who you were before. The key to teaching someone else to understand that same thing is to remember your former, untransformed self. If you can do that, I think you can teach anything, even physics. — David Goodstein

In the budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace as recommended by the commission headed by former congresswoman Barbara Jordan. We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it. — William J. Clinton

A free society depends upon a high degree of mutual trust. The public will not give that trust to officials who are not seen to be impartially dedicated to the general public interest, nor will they give trust to those high in government who violate the rule of law they ask citizens to obey at the expense of self-interest, or to those who present government as the place where one feathers his own nest, [or] exchanges favors with friends and former associates. — Archibald Cox

Cast your former self aside; you have been redeemed. — Anonymous

presentation, she looked drawn, as old as the limestone hills behind her property. Her facial skin was marbled, hair greying at the roots. She had grown frail, as though she might disintegrate at the first touch; she was a desiccated, vulnerable shadow of her former self and it was hard to — Carol Drinkwater

You can either wonder or worry. It is better to choice the former. — Lailah Gifty Akita

For who can wonder that man should feel a vague belief in tales of disembodied spirits wandering through those places which they once dearly affected, when he himself, scarcely less separated from his old world than they, is forever lingering upon past emotions and bygone times, and hovering, the ghost of his former self, about the places and people that warmed his heart of old? — Charles Dickens

When I felt ill and was on the way to becoming a burden to the other men, I noticed a growing chill in their attitude toward me. For people like us, living day and night on the brink of danger, the normal instinct of survival seems to strike inward, like a disease, distorting the personality and removing all motives other than those of sheer self-interest. That is why this afternoon I did not wait to go and tell my former comrades-in-arms what had happened to me. For one thing, they probably already knew; besides, it seemed unfair to risk awakening their dormant sense of humanity. — Shohei Ooka

We call them survivors, but once the vampires get you, the person you were dies, like any traumatized part of you never leaves that room, that car, that moment, and you walk forward a ghost of your former self. You rebuild yourself over the years, but the person you were isn't the person you become. The great bad thing happens, and you become a ghost in your own life, and then you become flesh and blood and remake your life, but the ghosts of what happened don't go away completely. They wait for you in low moments, and then they wail at you, shaking their chains in your face and trying to strangle you with them. — Laurell K. Hamilton

...The happy Warrior... 'tis, finally, the man, who, lifted high, conspicuous object in a nation's eye, or left unthought-of in obscurity,- who, with a toward or untoward lot, prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not- plays, in the many games of life, that one where what he most doth value must be won: whom neither shape or danger can dismay, nor thought of tender happiness betray; who, not content that former worth stand fast, looks forward, persevering to the last, from well to better, daily self-surpast: who, whether praise of him must walk the earth for ever, and to noble deeds give birth, or he must fall, to sleep without his fame, and leave a dead unprofitable name- finds comfort in himself and in his cause; and, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws his breath in confidence of Heaven's applause: this is the happy Warrior; this is he that every man in arms should wish to be. — William Wordsworth

You have no obligations to your former self, they are dumber than you and they don't exist. — Hank Green

Kaien Cross: You both entered the room in the same pose! Ooh! If Yuki had seen it, she'd have been so happy! The mystique!
Ichiru: Zero, is he always like this?
Zero: Yeah ... he doesn't act anything like his "former self" now ... why're you sticking to me?
Ichiru: Because you hate it when I do it (I'm being a pest).
Zero(to Cross): Hey. Don't take a photo.
Kaien Cross (thinking): The Kiryus really are twins. — Matsuri Hino

A true military officer is in one particular like a true monk. Not with more self-abnegation will the latter keep his vows of monastic obedience than the former his vows of allegiance to martial duty. — Herman Melville

If any person wants to see clearly just how much she has changed - whether for better or worse - let her revisit after some lapse of time any place where she has ones lived. She will meet her former self at every turn, with every familiar face, in every old recollection ... She will see how much she has gained in some respects, how much she has lost - irretrievably lost - in others. — L.M. Montgomery

I'm broken, I have a crack in me for all my life. I was made a woman prematurely, criminally early, and initiated into life from its worst side, in the false, boulevard interpretation of a self-confident aging parasite from former times, who profited from everything and allowed himself everything. — Boris Pasternak

With thousands of years of history frozen in time, it's no wonder that many southerners like me romanticize the north as a place where we can freeze our former selves, thaw, and then bloom anew. Here it's just you, the land, and your thoughts, and you can't leave until you've wrestled with yourself and emerged a survivor. But then again, the light is much more intense up here and everything looks different because of it. The sun hasn't set in a couple of months, and you can see things much more clearly when it is light all of the time. — Shannon Mullen

This is what it means, for me, to be called. This is what it means to follow the living Lord...It meant letting go of everything in my life that I thought might give me security, and coming to the realization that such trust ought never be placed in anything but the living Son of God.

Being called by God, I learned...means being called to surrender - not just surrendering once, and then returning to our former way of life, but an entire life of surrender...

Christian calling means being called by the living, resurrected Christ to follow Him. And it is in following Christ, through continual self-surrender, that we begin to realize who we are, and what it means to walk with God day by day. — Ryan J. Pemberton

Politics in the United States consists of the struggle between those whose change has been arrested by success or failure, on one side, and those who are still engaged in changing themselves, on the other. Agitators of arrested metamorphosis versus agitators of continued metamorphosis. The former have the advantage of numbers (since most people accept themselves as successes or failures quite early), the latter of vitality and visibility (since self-transformation, though it begins from within, with ideology, religion, drugs, tends to express itself publicly through costume and jargon). — Harold Rosenberg

Accepting the reality of our sinfulness means accepting our authentic self. Judas could not face his shadow; Peter could. The latter befriended the impostor within; the former raged against him. — Brennan Manning

To live meant feeding my former self to my current self. — Cameron Conaway

None has more frequent conversations with a disagreeable self than the man of pleasure; his enthusiasms are but few and transient; his appetites, like angry creditors, are continually making fruitless demands for what he is unable to pay; and the greater his former pleasures, the more strong his regret, the more impatient his expectations. A life of pleasure is, therefore, the most unpleasing life. — James Goldsmith

Our oh-so-brief relationship had been like spending a day in the sunlight when you've lived your whole life underground (my former self being the mole man in this story). Maybe that was all we got when it came to relationships like that - flashes of sunlight. Maybe it was too bright to be sustained for any extended period of time. Maybe I should be thankful. — Cora Carmack

Many teachers of the Sixties generation said "We will steal your children", and they did. A significant part of America has converted to the ideas of the 1960s - hedonism, self-indulgence and consumerism. For half of all Americans today, the Woodstock culture of the Sixties is the culture they grew up with - their traditional culture. For them, Judeo-Christian culture is outside the mainstream now. The counter-culture has become the dominant culture, and the former culture a dissident culture - something that is far out, and 'extreme'. — Pat Buchanan

I had to re-write "Philosophy" a lot. It was more obscure than what's in the book now, even! Some things I had to go back to and excise my former self, who was even more dense. I think you should teach whatever you want, Brian! That's the point of books like White Girls, to help free our thoughts! — Hilton Als