Freeing Self Quotes & Sayings

Therefore to make pretensions about honoring him more, while not calling people to the most radical, soul-freeing satisfaction in God alone, is self-contradictory. It won't happen. God is glorified in His people by the way we experience him, not merely by the way we think about him. Indeed the devil thinks more true thoughts about God in one day than a saint does in a lifetime, and God is not honored by it. The problem with the devil is not his theology, but his desires. Our chief end is to glorify God, the great Object. We do so fully when we treasure him. desire him, delight in him so supremely that we let goods and kindred go and display his love to the poor and the lost. — John Piper

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

She put her tongue out and felt the raw edges of the torn silk. She looped her tongue around them and drew them into her teeth. Just a little bit, she thought, that's all I need to free my eyelids. She pulled the tasteless web between her teeth and ground, pulling her jaw down in a grimace - it felt as it she was eating the very skin off her face. But the silk over her eyelids shifted. — Stephen M. Irwin

My feelings are intelligent, directive, and revealing
From the inside out they rise, flow, reveal
Uncovering, releasing, freeing
Reshaping my experience
Lifting my mood — Deborah Sandella

A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaningless of an individual existence. It cures the poignantly frustrated not by conferring upon them an absolute truth or by remedying the difficulties and abuses which made their lives miserable, but by freeing them from their ineffectual selves and it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole. — Eric Hoffer

In a state of flow, however, maintaining focused attention on these absorbing activities requires no exertion of self-control, thereby freeing resources to be directed to the task at hand. — Daniel Kahneman

Meditation is the freeing of ourselves from all mental states and concepts of self. — Frederick Lenz

Neither fear nor self-interest can convert the soul. They may change the appearance, perhaps even the conduct, but never the object of supreme desire ... Fear is the motive which constrains the slave; greed binds the selfish man, by which he is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed (James 1:14). But neither fear nor self-interest is undefiled, nor can they convert the soul. Only charity can convert the soul, freeing it from unworthy motives. — Bernard Of Clairvaux

If we are to understand the human condition, and if we are to accept ourselves in all the complexity, self-doubt, extravagance of feeling, guilt, joy, the slow freeing of the self to its full capacity for action and creation, both as human being and as artist, we have to know all we can about each other, and we have to be willing to go naked. — May Sarton

I feel like I've been known for having long black hair, so when I took all my extensions out and cut my own hair, it was the most freeing thing, I think, I've ever done. That was my 21st year: I cut my hair, I was doing Broadway; I was living in New York, and I was really having a moment of becoming my individual self, and it was amazing. — Keke Palmer

If we are talking about a loving God, we are talking about a God who asks us to trust him, whether we get what we ask for or don't. But he will never force us to trust him. That is entirely up to us. We have free will and we can accept his love or reject it, or claim it doesn't exist at all. We can trust him or distrust him as we like. But if he really and truly is the God of the Bible, who loves me with an unchanging and self-sacrificial love (agape), then I really and truly can trust him in all circumstances, which is tremendously freeing. In fact, I can go one step further than trusting him. To use a biblical phrase, I can rejoice in him. But is only possible if we really do know that God has our best interests at heart at all times. Of course, we have to decide on our own whether we believe that. But if we come to see that, that is true and do allow ourselves to believe it, we are precisely where he created us to be: in his loving hands. — Eric Metaxas

Stop concentrating on NOT thinking about something, because ultimately you'll end up thinking about it. The same philosophy holds true when it comes to freeing your mind from a negative past. By persistently trying to move away from what you don't want, you are forced to think about it so much that you end up carrying its weight along with you. But if you instead choose to focus your energy on what you do want, you'll naturally leave the negative weight behind as you progress forward. — Anonymous

I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections.
and it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly, that I am ill.
I am ill because of wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional self,
and the wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time can help
and patience, and a certain difficult repentance
long difficult repentance, realization of life's mistake, and the freeing oneself
from the endless repetition of the mistake
which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify. — D.H. Lawrence

I'm near tears at this moment. But I also get an unexpected burst of courage, and here's what it feels like:
I don't care anymore if this guy hates me or badmouths me to other club owners. Because now - and I've never felt this before - I actively want him to hate me. It becomes imperative, for my self-worth, that and asshole like Reed actively loathe me. If someone like this were to like me, to like my comedy, and to like the way I conduct myself professionally, it would mean I suck as a person.
I've encountered this a few times since then. Not very often. But there are those rare occasions - and they're bracing, freeing sensations when they occur - when you absolutely crave someone's disapproval and disgust. You can see it actually helping your career, your social relations, and your life if it becomes known that this person thinks you're shit. — Patton Oswalt

Researchers would eventually discover that autistic people stim to reduce anxiety - and also simply because it feels good. In fact, harmless forms of self-stimulation (like flapping and fidgeting) may facilitate learning by freeing up executive-functioning resources in the brain that would otherwise be devoted to suppressing them. — Steve Silberman

Greeting the ageing self In trying to depathologize age, we need to make an important distinction, between resisting ageism (stereotyping or discriminating on the basis of age) and resisting age itself. The first opens the door to a path of rich potential, freeing us to keep on developing and changing, while the second closes it, condemning us to an endless attempt to recover the irretrievable. — Anne Karpf

The left-hand path adept seeks to liberate him/herself from passive subjection to the illusory nature of Maya, thus freeing the consciousness from the binds of self-created delusion. — Zeena Schreck

The fractured self is not something that needs to be rectified fixed and made whole; by freeing thought of the blinkers of representation, the space of fracture, of multiplicity (as opposed to unity) becomes a powerful place and one from which the most radical ideas can emerge. — Ria Banerjee

Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another. — Toni Morrison

Artists strive to free this true and spontaneous self in their work. Creativity, meditation are ways of freeing an inner voice. — Gloria Steinem

Prayer is one action where I lay aside my abilities to immerse myself wholly in God's capabilities. And the liberation found in such an action is less about being engaged with God and more about being freed from myself. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Dialogue is about freeing human beings from the beliefs and attitudes that make human beings miserable. — Oli Anderson

Life is simpler when we feel controlled. When we tell ourselves that we are controlled, we can shift the responsibility of freeing ourselves onto that which controls us. When we do that, we don't have to bear the responsibility of our unhappiness or shoulder the burden of self-ownership. We don't have to do anything. And nothing will ever change. — Ken Ilgunas

When you hear of Gay Pride, remember, it was not born out of a need to celebrate being gay.
It evolved out of our need as human beings to break free of oppression and to exist without being criminalized, pathologized or persecuted.
Depending on a number of factors, particularly religion, freeing ourselves from gay shame and coming to self-love and acceptance, can not only be an agonising journey, it can take years.
Tragically some don't make it.
Instead of wondering why there isn't a straight pride be grateful you have never needed one.
Celebrate with us. — Anthony Venn-Brown

Question (The Great Problematic): Will the ultimate liberation of the erotic from its dialectical relationship with Christianity result in
(a) The freeing of the erotic spirit so that man- and womankind will make love and not war?
or (b) The trivialization of the erotic by its demotion to yet another technique and need-satisfaction of the organism, toward the end that the demoniac spirit of the autonomous self, disappointed in all other sectors of life and in ordinary intercourse with others, is now disappointed even in the erotic, its last and best hope, and so erupts in violence
and in that very violence which is commensurate with the orgastic violence in the best days of the old erotic age
i.e., war? — Walker Percy

True liberty comes with the abandonment of self in our worshiping God, freeing us to worship in His way, not ours. — Ray Hughes

Providence has ordained that I should be the greatest liberator of humanity. I am freeing man from the restraints of an intelligence that has taken charge, from the dirty and degrading self-mortification of a false vision called conscience and morality, and from the demands of a freedom and independence which only a very few can bear. — Adolf Hitler

The most tragic consequence of our criticism of a man is to block his way to humiliation and grace, precisely to drive him into the mechanisms of self justification and into his faults instead of freeing him from them. For him, our voice drowns the voice of God. — Paul Tournier

... you might go to great lengths to avoid disappointing the people in your life, as I did for many years in relationships. The problem with this approach, however, is that it sets an impossible standard. Disappointment is inevitable in all relationships. It is impossible for two people to have the exact same feelings and desires all of the time. Inevitably, someone will want something, and the other person will not. A natural response to not getting something that we want is disappointment.

As long as we avoid disappointing others at any cost to our ourselves, we will never feel truly safe and connected in our relationships. We will always have that nagging fear that if we were to disappoint them, they would be gone. This is a fine razor's edge to walk along. It can be incredibly freeing and relaxing to acknowledge that you will disappoint people in your life, and that they will disappoint you. — Aziz Gazipura

Enzo looks up at me. Suddenly, the blackness in his eyes seems to fade, replaced by the familiar warm brown of his irises, the red slashes, the glow of life. I see a hint of his old self there, fighting through the darkness of the Underworld to gaze at me one last time. It is the look he'd given me when we used to dance.
This is the real Enzo.
"Let me go," he whispers. It is his voice. It is the voice that once comforted me, gave me strength. And as I try to take in his words, the final tendrils of the tether linking us unravel from around my heart, freeing me. — Marie Lu

Love is taking care of oneself by freeing one's mind of worries and conducting one self with propriety. — Master Cheng Yen

When we prioritize and focus and that becomes the anchor the relationship becomes the anchor and it trumphs everything else than it's at once freeing and anxiety relieving because the connection itself feeds empowerment and self-worth and self-esteem so it takes away the anxiety of raising a child. — Shefali Tsabary