People With Ego Quotes & Sayings

The key to searching for the truth is to hold passionately to your beliefs while simultaneously not feeling entrenched in your position, to be able to let go of the need to defend it in order to save face. It's almost a Buddhist thing, where you're not necessarily free of ego and concerns about status, but you're able to sit with them and maintain some objective separation. It's about letting ideas win, not people. It's about finding what's right, not being right. There — Adam Steltzner

What motivates people to be late? ... Some people are drawn to the adrenaline rush of that last-minute sprint to the finish line. Others receive an ego boost from over-scheduling and filling each moment with an activity. — Harvey MacKay

In the hands of the ego, marriage is a prison. It is exclusive. It is a place where people are constantly reminded of their failures and limited by the energies of another person. It is rife with judgment and blame. — Marianne Williamson

It's a mistake to think that God has conflict with anything. He's everything. So the more close you are to God, how can you be in conflict with anybody? Conflict comes from ego, and from thinking, "I'm right and you're wrong." If I can reach the point where I understand that what is right for me may be different than what is right for you, that would be a good step. But most people don't reach that point, and so they fight about it. — Goswami Kriyananda

If you turn back time and look, 5100 years ago in the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna did the same thing. He has been the first HR manager India knows. When Arjuna was so depressed and was not ready to do his job, Lord Krishna was with him in the battlefield, and told him all sorts of things. First, He warned Arjuna that people would blame him for sure. Then He incited Arjuna's ego and tried to wake him up. And then He offered His disciple different incentives, saying, "If you win, you will have the kingdom. If you lose, you will enjoy Heaven. Come on, fight." In many ways, Lord Krishna lifted Arjuna out of that depression. — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

There is another side [to ego] that can wreck a team or an organization. That is being distracted by your own importance. It can come from your insecurity in working with others. It can be the need to draw attention to yourself in the public arena. It can be a feeling that others are a threat to your own territory. These are all negative manifestations of ego, and if you are not alert to them, you get diverted and your work becomes diffused. Ego in these cases makes people insensitive to how they work with others and it ends up interfering with the real goal of any group efforts. — Bill Walsh

This is most people's reality: As soon as something is perceived, it is named, interpreted, compared with something else, liked, disliked, or called good or bad by the phantom self, the ego. — Eckhart Tolle

The kind of self-righteous intolerance once associated with the more puritanical forms of religion and the more extreme forms of Socialism now reappeared to promote the 'rights' of women, homosexuals, racial minorities, the disabled and any group of people who could be portrayed as being 'below the line' and therefore discriminated against...Unconsciously they were using the belief that they were acting in the name of selfless moral principle simply as a cloak for asserting their ego, and as a means to enjoy feelings of moral superiority. In the cause of 'toleration' and promoting collective 'rights,' they had become possessed by a fanatical and humorless intolerance. — Christopher Booker

I have seen cases where people seemed to become totally free of ego, and at some point in their lives the ego came back. It has happened, for example, to some spiritual teachers. At some point in their lives, they began to identify again with form. — Eckhart Tolle

I think I'm great. I mean, I might as well come out and say it. Like most people, I have an ego and I'm in show business, so you have to have kind of a healthy, conflagrated ego to a degree. On the other hand, I'm consumed, like a lot of people, with self-doubt and loathing and guilt. — Loudon Wainwright III

One of the great self-deceptions
and one of the great foolishnesses
is to tell yourself, Only I will know. Only you will know that you are a liar; only you will know you deal unethically with people who trust you; only you will know you have no intention of honoring your promise. Whose knowledge or judgment do you imagine is more important? It is precisely your own ego from which there is no escape. — Nathaniel Branden

What does syadvad (speech that does not hurt the ego of any living being) speech say? Speak in such a way that 5 people benefit from it and that it does not interfere [conflict] with anyone. — Dada Bhagwan

Pride entices us to favor people who build up our egos. Everyone wants to feel accepted and loved. The best way to rid your life of pride is to surround yourself with people who care for you for the right reasons and not just to stroke your ego. Pride is — Charles F. Stanley

I'm always gonna be all over my CD the most, of course. My talent is my talent. I ain't really tripping off no ego; I just like to make good music with good people. — Meek Mill

People are not afraid of death, they are afraid of losing their separation, they are afraid of losing their ego. Once you start feeling separate from existence the fear of death arises because then death seems to be dangerous. You will no longer be separate; what will happen to your ego, your personality? And you have cultivated the personality with such care, with such great effort; you have polished it your whole life, and death will come and destroy it — Rajneesh

Later, the talk turned to all the other guys/girls who were currently hot for the two of them. 'There's this total dweeb named Robert who's always calling me, and I feel bad because he's really nice, but I'm totally not interested,' Phoebe told Pablo.

'Believe me, I know what that's like,' Pablo told Phoebe. 'There's this girl at Hunter who's, like, obsessed with me. She's, like, this big fat girl. Ass like a truck. She's always writing me these love letters. Maybe I should fuck her. You know, just to be nice.' (Smile, smile.)

'You're so bad.' (Phoebe shaking her head; Pablo loving it; Phoebe loving it, too. What was more ego-enhancing than making dumb jokes at the expense of ugly women? Phoebe could never decide whom she hated more--other people or herself.) — Lucinda Rosenfeld

Most people confuse "self-knowledge" with knowledge of their conscious ego personalities. Anyone — C. G. Jung

When an experience is so powerful that it motivates people to change the whole pattern of their lives, we call that a breakthrough, or an epiphany. The value of an epiphany doesn't lie just in some new or exciting insight. You might be walking down the street and pass a stranger. Your eyes meet, and for some reason there is a connection. It isn't sexual or romantic or even a suspicion that this person could mean something in your life. Instead, the epiphany is that you are that stranger - your experiencer merges with his. Call this a feeling or a thought, it doesn't matter which - it's the sudden expansion that counts. You are flung outside your narrow boundaries, if only for a moment, and that makes all the difference. You have tasted a hidden dimension. Compared to the habit of shutting yourself behind the walls of ego, this new dimension feels freer and lighter. You have a sense that your body can't contain you anymore. — Deepak Chopra

So how did you end up making a fool of yourself in front of twenty thousand people?
I had a bigger hole to fill.
What do you mean?
A rock star is someone with a hole in his heart almost the size of his ego. — Michka Assayas

If i cherish you because I hold you dear, because in you my heart finds nourishment, my need satisfaction, then it is not done for the sake of a higher essence whose hallowed body you are, not on account of my beholding in you a ghost, an appearing spirit, but from egoistic pleasure; you yourself with *your* essence are valuable to me. — Max Stirner

People confuse ego, lust, insecurity with true love. — Simon Cowell

My mother said, "Arturo, stop that. Your sister's tired."

"Oh Holy Ghost, Oh Holy inflated triple ego, get us out of the depression. Elect Roosevelt. Keep us on the gold standard. Take France off, but for Christ's sake keep us on!"

"Arturo, stop that"

"Oh Jehovah, in your infinite mutability see if you can't scrape up some coin for the Bandini family."

My mother said, "Shame, Arturo. Shame."

I got up on the divan and yelled, "I reject the hypothesis of God! Down with the decadence of a fraudulent Christianity! Religion is the opium of the people! All that we are or ever hope to be we owe to the devil and his bootleg apples!"

My mother came after me with the broom. — John Fante

That's what I want you to tell me. See, I deal with ... well, most days, bizarre paranormal crap. You are Queen Weird. I need the queen on this before I have to start hiring a new staff of medical examiners who don't freak out when the dead move off their tables. You know where I can find some of these unusual people? I know you hang out with them. (Tate)
Thanks, Tate. I always look forward to these ego-bolstering pep talks of ours. (Simone) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

It's incredibly easy as a director to be egotistical. Of course, it is because you have 200 people on set every day listening to your every word and whatever you say goes, and that can be slightly corrupting. And actually, to be a good director, you have to take ego out of it, because hopefully what you've done is surrounded yourself with brilliant people. Let them be brilliant and you just shepherd that and marshal that and hopefully guide it however you can, but definitely not to the extent that you're overbearing. — Dan Mazer

When bands got really big and sold a lot of records back in the day and did really well on the road, everyone developed a certain ego. And there's a certain entitlement that comes with that. And it stops people from communicating the way you used to communicate when you were in a band together and it was all for one, one for all. — Scott Weiland

I share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only by a change in our world view. We shall have to shift from the materialistic, dualistic belief that people and their environment are separate, toward a new conciousness of an all-encompassing reality, which embraces the experiencing ego, a reality in which people feel their oneness with animate nature and all of creation. — Albert Hofmann

When I was a young philosopher, I asked a senior colleague, Pat Suppes (then and now a famous philosopher of science and an astute student of human nature), what the secret of happiness was. Instead of giving me advice, he made a rather droll observation about what a lot of people who were happy with themselves seem to have done, namely:
1. Take a careful inventory of their shortcomings and flaws
2. Adopt a code of values that treats these things as virtues
3. Admire themselves for living up to it
Brutal people admire themselves for being manly; compulsive pedants admire themselves for their attention to detail; naturally selfish and mean people admire themselves for their dedication to helping the market reward talent and punish failure, and so on. — John R. Perry

According to Hugh Thomas, author of 'A History of the World', the greatest medical advance in history has been garbage collection. The greatest psychological advance in history is just around the corner and will also have to do with cleaning up. Cleaning up lies and "coming out of the closet" is getting more attention these days. Some day we will look back on these years of suffocation in bullsh*t in the same way we look back on all the years people lived in, and died from, their garbage. — Brad Blanton

Either way, we both agree that ambivalence is a key to success. I will say it again. Ambivalence is key. You have to care about your work but not the result. You have to care about how good you and how good you feel, but now about how good people think you are or how good people think you look I realize this is extremely difficult. I am not saying I am particularly good at it. I'm like you. Or maybe you'er better at this and I am. You will never climb Career Mountain and get to the top and shout, 'I made it!' You will rarely feel done or complete or even successful Most people I know struggle with that complicated soup of feeling slighted on one hand and like a total fraud on the other. Our ego is a monster that loves to sit at the head of the table, and I have learned that my ego is just as rude and loud and hungry as everyone else's. It doesn't matter how much you get; you are left wanting more. Success is filled with MSG. — Amy Poehler

Whereas the health of an individual depends on the ego's regular descent and return to and from the unconscious, a society's longevity depends on actual people journeying into the unknown and returning with ideas. — Dan Harmon

Q: Why do you think that people are so protective of their egos? Why is it so hard to let go of one's ego? A: People are afraid of the emptiness of space, or the absence of company, the absence of a shadow. It could be a terrifying experience to have no one to relate to, nothing to relate with. The idea of it can be extremely frightening, though not the real experience. It is generally a fear of space, a fear that we will not be able to anchor ourselves to any solid ground, that we will lose our identity as a fixed and solid and definite thing. This could be very threatening. — Chogyam Trungpa

What I hate is that not many people admit to having a big ego, but you have to - and there's nothing wrong with it. — Marina And The Diamonds

I'm totally a narcissist, so I was doing all this performance and having lots of weird ego time, and learning to set aside my love for the ego and find a deeper love for myself and through that seeing myself as one with all beings. And through loving myself, loving all people in the world, that was my cure for narcissism, the only cure. — Larkin Grimm

I think that the only choice that we have in life is whether we align ourselves with God or not. I think everything else is all taken care of for us. You know? If you choose to align with your source, with your spirit, then your life will go in a certain direction. If you choose to align yourself with your ego, and your false self, and the belief that who you are is what you accomplish and what other people think of you and what you accumulate, if you just go that route - the outer route, if you will, the outer path - your life will go in a different direction. — Wayne Dyer

The world of the grotesque is the darkness within us. Well before Freud and Jung shined a light on the workings of the subconscious, this correlation between darkness and our subconscious, these two forms of darkness, was obvious to people. It wasn't a metaphor, even. If you trace it back further, it wasn't even a correlation. Until Edison invented the electric light, most of the world was totally covered in darkness. The physical darkness outside and the inner darkness of the soul were mixed together, with no boundary separating the two. They were directly linked. Like this." Oshima brings his two hands together tightly. "But today things are different. The darkness in the outside world has vanished, but the darkness in our hearts remains, virtually unchanged. Just like an iceberg, what we label the ego or consciousness is, for the most part, sunk in darkness. And that estrangement sometimes creates a deep contradiction or confusion within us. — Haruki Murakami

When I'm talking to people, I find myself quoting the three organizing rules of Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter was initiated by three young women, and too few people know that. But, anyway, the first one is lead with love. The second is low ego, high impact. The third is move with the speed of trust. I must say those make me feel very hopeful for the future. — Gloria Steinem

As you grow up, you form a mental image of who you are, based on your personal and cultural conditioning. We may call this phantom self the ego. It consists of mind activity and can only be kept going through constant thinking. The term ego means different things to different people, but when I use it here it means a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind. — Anonymous

Another very common use, in all cultures, of psychoactive substances is to give people transcendent experiences. To allow them to transcend their human and ego boundaries to feel greater contact with the supernatural, or with the spiritual, or with the divine, however they phrase it in their terms. — Andrew Weil

When you were in a room with Kurtis James, whether it was one or a hundred other people, Kurtis seemed to be the only one there — Dee Remy

Many fear the loss of the Ego, but it is actually gain.
When a person loses the Ego, she can become One with All.
This is the Source of all Power, Grace, and Dignity.
The loss of Ego and the merging into the One actually increases personal power beyond verbal description.
Some experience this in the Marriage merger of two into one, and that is good, however, the married couple can also surrender its collective Ego to become One with All.
This is what some people hint at when they say God is the 3rd Person in their marriage.
Obviously, God is much more than that.
Perhaps such a married couple could say,
We are One with God,
We are One with All. — Sienna McQuillen

We become more devoted to pleasing other people than establishing a relationship with ourselves. We believe we are what we have and what we do and we believe we are what other people think we are. Ego is in many ways the primary cause of most of our misconception and woe. — Evan Sutter

Fight against your ego with the four swords of training: eat little, sleep little, speak little, and be patient when people harm you ... Then the ego will walk the paths of obedience, like a fleeing horseman in the field of battle. — Yahya Ibn Mu'adh Al-Razi

because then they don't have to struggle with the need to die to the ego-driven self and become a humble servant of all people, which is what Jesus requires. It's much — Chuck Queen

I wondered if I was just doing this as some kind of ego trip. Then I decided I didn't care. Not enough is made of the fact that being of service makes you feel good. I think nonprofits should guarantee that giving your time and money makes your skin better and your ass smaller. Why not? There are so many people in the world with so little. Who cares why you decide to help? — Amy Poehler

People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.
A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.
A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master ... — Elizabeth Gilbert

[Dona Maria] saw that the people of this world moved about in an armor of egotism, drunk with self-gazing, athirst for compliments, hearing little of what was said to them, unmoved by the accidents that befell their closest friends, in dread of all appeals that might interrupt their long communion with their own desires. — Thornton Wilder

People come into public life for different reasons. None of us are ego-challenged, I think, or we probably wouldn't be doing what we're doing, so if anyone tells you that they don't like the sound of the applause and the ego gratification, I don't think they're being straight with you. — Evan Bayh

It is not my methodology to engage too much with critics for many reasons:
- I honestly believe that my ego is not worthy of my having to defend it. There are far more important things in the ummah than me having to respond to critics.
- By and large, criticism is a part of human life and nature and we have ourselves to accomplish more than just responding to what people say about us.
- The best way to silence the speech of the critics it through the deafening noise of your own actions.
- Criticising is the job that requires zero qualifications. — Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi

Nothing makes sense anymore, because all the meaning and purpose that life had for them was associated with accumulating, succeeding, building, protecting, and sense gratification. It was associated with the outward movement and identification with form, that is to say, ego. Most people cannot conceive of any meaning when their life, their world, is being demolished. And yet, potentially, there is even deeper meaning here than in the outward movement. — Eckhart Tolle

He has yet to confront society with this ego-shattering, life-redeeming elixir, and take the return blow of reasonable queries, hard resentment, and good people at a loss to comprehend. — Joseph Campbell

We all, if we go with ego I go or you go ego thing, it's got to be free from all of that and just roll, because music is a spiritual thing. It's got to come through us and can't just hit us. It's got to be part of us that comes through us and goes to the people, and then they come back to us and give us more spirit. — Dr. John

It is precisely through the onset of old age, through loss or personal tragedy, that the spiritual dimension would traditionally come into people's lives. This is to say, their inner purpose would emerge only as their outer purpose collapsed and the shell of the ego would begin to crack open. The emphasis shifts from doing to Being, and our civilization, which is lost in doing, knows nothing of Being. It asks: being? What do you do with it? — Eckhart Tolle

When you get talented people together with egos, this is kind of what happens. — Tommy Ramone

We are attempting to build, within our movement, non-exploitative ways of relating to one another based on trust and concern rather than political expediency. We have serious personal/political intentions in breaking down hierarchical and elitist structures, and for experimenting with leaderless groups and collective decision making. In dealing with the media these revolutionary principles and practices are destroyed. The media works to create leaders, it knows no way of relating to us on our own terms. Being interviewed and presented as a leader is a real ego trip
the media brings out the most counter-revolutionary traits in people. Elitism, dissension and division are the ultimate results. — Nancy Ferro

I'm so tired of this vision of fashion of a diva with a big ego, and you think of big dark glasses to be pretentious and keep far away from the people. — Carine Roitfeld

People say "I want peace." If you remove I (ego), and your want (desire), you are left with peace. — Sathya Sai Baba

We search our entire lives to create a genuine and reliable self that can relate with other people and faithfully express our artistic temperament. Our battle for personal authenticity requires us to penetrate layers of self-deception, conquer ego defense mechanism, and destroy a false self that is intent upon meeting other people's expectations. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The irony is that the opposite is true: available people are the ones who are dangerous, because they confront us with the possibility of real intimacy. They might actually hang around long enough to get to know us. They could melt our defenses, not through violence but through love. This is what the ego doesn't want us to see. Available people are frightening. They threaten the ego's citadel. The reason we're not attracted to them is because we're not available ourselves. — Marianne Williamson

When you go to a movie with so many stars [like The Expendables 3], you don't know what you're going to find, exactly. You don't know if it's going to be an ego trip, ego on the set, who is taking this position, where the camera is, I want to be in front of this guy - that's true ... It's worse, actually, when you have people around you that are very hungry to obtain something that they never had. Success. — Antonio Banderas

There's a bunch of people who sit around and make excuses for themselves and get upset with artists, but you already know what this is - it's an ego-driven business. — Rico Love

I don't know why people don't want to talk about their numbers. I guess in a sense, there's a bit of performer nudity, a bit of ego nudity when you expose your numbers, I guess because someone's are higher or someone's are lower. I've never really talked about the numbers with anyone, so maybe I'm not supposed to. — Chris Hardwick

I am a storyteller. The type that went from place to place, gathered people in the square and transported them, inspired them, woke them up, shook their insides around so that they could resettle in a new pattern, a new way of being. It is a tradition that believes that the story speaks to the soul, not the ego ... to the heart, not the head. In todays world , we yearn so to 'understand', to conquer with our mind, but it is not in the mind that a mythic story dwells.
So I do not offer interpretation. What I offer is to tell the story again, and again ... on and on, if need be - until the ego has stepped aside and the soul can hear. I trust that the life of the story continues long after I have gone, if the listener can step aside and be taken up and in, to a world where words speak not to the mind, but to the soul.
I invite you to trust it too. — Donna Jacobs Sife

It is everywhere, not just in places where people don't have enough, but even more so where they have more than enough. Is that surprising? No. The affluent world is even more deeply identified with form, more lost in content, more trapped in ego. — Eckhart Tolle

If you're like most people, you'll do one thing for two to three years, then something else for two to three years, and then - somewhere in that five- to seven-year distance from Yale - you'll see a need to fully commit to something that's a longer-term project: graduate school, for example, or a job you need to stick with for some real time. The question is: where do you need to be with yourself such that when the time comes to 'cast your whole vote,' you're reasonably confident you're not being either fear-based or ego-driven in your choice . . . that the journey you're on is really yours, and not someone else's? If you think of your first few jobs after Yale in this way - holistically and in terms of your growth as a person rather than as ladder rungs to a specific material outcome - you're less likely to wake up at age forty-five married to a stranger." Yikes! — Marina Keegan

Some studies of successful language learners have suggested that they're more "open to new experiences" than the rest of us. Temptingly, psychologist Alexander Guiora proposed that we have a self that's bound up in our native language, a "language ego", which needs to be loose and more permeable to learn a new language. Those with more fluid ego boundaries, like children and people who have drunk some alcohol, are more willing to sound not like themselves, which means they have better accents in the new language. — Michael Erard

I have been continuously surprised by people who come to me and say they are afraid of love. What is the fear of love? It is because when you really love somebody your ego starts slipping and melting. You cannot love with the ego; the ego becomes a barrier. and when you want to drop the barrier the ego says, 'This is going to be a death. Beware!' — Rajneesh

And then, just when you thought you made it or that you belong here, the return movement begins. Perhaps people close to you begin to die, people who were a part of your world. Then your physical form weakens; your sphere of influence shrinks. Instead of becoming more, you now become less, and the ego reacts to this with increasing anxiety or depression. — Eckhart Tolle

With humility comes the willingness to stop trying to control or change other people or life situations or events ostensibly 'for their own good'. To be a committed spiritual seeker, it is necessary to relinquish the desire to be 'right' or of imaginary value to society. In fact, nobody's ego or belief systems are of any value to society at all. The world is neither good nor bad nor defective, nor is it in need of help or modification because its appearance is only a projection of one's own mind. No such world exists. — David R. Hawkins

I do not belong to any spiritual group or tradition. I am just interested in exploring what it means to live with open eyes.
People in spiritual organizations also tend to get caught in ideas of how it should be, and in the need of the ego to create hierachies of power, status, roles, ambition and obidience.
Spiritual Masters teach on many different levels at the same time. Some people take what they can, and some take something deeper. — Swami Dhyan Giten

I happen to believe that America is dying of loneliness, that we, as a people, have bought into the false dream of convenience, and turned away from a deep engagement with our internal lives - those fountains of inconvenient feeling - and toward the frantic enticements of what our friends in the Greed Business call the Free Market. We're hurtling through time and space and information faster and faster, seeking that network connection. But at the same time we're falling away from our families and our neighbors and ourselves. We ego-surf and update our status and brush up on which celebrities are ruining themselves, and how. But the cure won't stick. — Cheryl Strayed

People are different in many ways that can't be denied. We look different; we have different tastes and backgrounds. If you focus on differences, as the ego does, you can't escape the tendency to feel better or worse than someone else. This is the game of comparison, and comparison always leads to judgment. Yet without trying to erase any differences you don't have to play the game of comparison. Permit everyone to have what you have: wholeness. See with the eyes of your true self and know that if you are complete, everyone else must also be complete. — Deepak Chopra

The aim of far too many teachings these days is to make people "feel good," and even some Buddhist masters are beginning to sound like New Age apostles. Their talks are entirely devoted to validating the manifestation of ego and endorsing the "rightness" of our feelings, neither of which have anything to do with the teachings we find in the pith instructions. So, if you are only concerned about feeling good, you are far better off having a full body massage or listening to some uplifting or life-affirming music than receiving dharma teachings, which were definitely not designed to cheer you up. On the contrary, the dharma was devised specifically to expose your failings and make you feel awful. — Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

I'm always afraid, because I do most of my stuff at home, where nobody bothers me, and I don't have to stroke somebody's ego or be careful about hurting someone's feelings. But I also want to know that I can still go into the world and be with other people and make music. — Jack White

Moderns consider themselves wholly rational, unemotional, scientific, and atheistic. Where earlier humanity had realized its unconscious through religion, moderns dismiss both religion and the unconscious as prescientific delusions. Instead, moderns proudly identify themselves with their ego and thereby boast of their omnipotence: nowadays most people identify themselves almost exclusively with their consciousness, and imagine that they — C. G. Jung

Nnu Ego was like those not-so well-informed Christians who,promised the Kingdom of Heaven,believed that it was literally just round the corner and that Jesus Christ was coming on the very morrow. Many of them would hardly contribute anything ton this world,reasoning, "What is the use? Christ will come soon" They became so insulated in their beliefs that not only would they have little to do with ordinary sinners,people going about their daily work, they even pitied them and in many cases looked down on them because the Kingdom of God was not for the likes of them. Maybe this was a protective mechanism devised to save them from realities too painful to accept. — Buchi Emecheta

Curran strode toward me, eyes blazing. "If I let her go, I'll need a replacement. Want to volunteer for the job."
He looked like he wouldn't be taking no for an anser. I swiped Slayer from its sheath and backed away from the edge of the roof. "And be girlfriend number twenty-three soon to be dumped in favor of girlfriend number twenty-four who has slightly bigger boobs? I don't think so."
He kept coming. "Oh Yeah?"
"Yeah, you get these beautiful women, make them dependent on you, and then you dump them. Well, this time a woman left you first, and your enormous ego can't deal with it. And to think that I hoped we could talk like reasonable adults. If we were the last two people on Earth, I'd find myself a moving island so I could get the hell away from you. — Ilona Andrews

The spiritual efficacy of all encounters is determined by the amount of personal ego that is in play. If two people meet and disagree fiercely about theological matters but agree, silently or otherwise, that God's love creates and sustains human love, and that whatever else may be said of God is subsidiary to this truth, then even out of what seems great friction there may emerge a peace that - though it may not end the dispute, though neither party may be "convinced" of the other's position - nevertheless enters and nourishes one's notion of, and relationship with, God. Without this radical openness, all arguments about God are not simply pointless but pernicious, for each person is in thrall to some lesser conception of ultimate truth and asserts not love but a lesson, not God but himself. — Christian Wiman

Resentment is the emotion that goes with complaining and the mental labeling of people and adds even more energy to the ego. Resentment means to feel bitter, indignant, aggrieved, or offended. You resent other people's greed, their dishonesty, their lack of integrity, what they are doing, what they did in the past, what they said, what they failed to do, what they should or shouldn't have done. The ego loves it. Instead of overlooking unconsciousness in others, you make it into their identity. Who is doing that? The unconsciousness in you, the ego. Sometimes the "fault" that you perceive in another isn't even there. It is a total misinterpretation, a projection by a mind conditioned to see enemies and to make itself right or superior. At other times, the fault may be there, but by focusing on it, sometimes to the exclusion of everything else, you amplify it. And what you react to in another, you strengthen in yourself. — Eckhart Tolle

In most people, the term "consciousness" identifies with that socially conditioned Ego. At a number of people this identification is so powerful that they are unaware that their life is governed by a socially conditioned mind. — Frank M. Wanderer

God doesn't give us pain to make us strong. He gives us strength to look inside ourselves and realize we are not innocent victims. When you learn humility, you are no longer a victim because a humble man is not self-absorbed. He seeks to understand why people are hurting him and takes responsibility for his part in their grief. Humility doesn't dwell with anger or pride, and neither does God. — Shannon L. Alder

People deal with all sorts of obstacles at work. There is the fear of failure, plus confrontations with mindless bureaucracy, with other people's egos, with your own ego, with unethical practices, with incompetence, and a wide variety of issues related to race, gender, and sexual orientation — Lodro Rinzler

All people are, at heart, egocentric. We exist at the center of our own little universes. We believe that we are living out our lives as best we can, and that we have our own sphere of influence which exists of both friends and enemies. They in turn have their own friends and enemies with whom they interact. That is a given. But we, each of us, tend to put ourselves ahead of others because we believe that we are significant. We must attend to our own needs, desires, wants, and aspirations, because each of us is our own greatest priority. No one else cares for us as much as we do, no one else can exist in our skin. We think we're important. It is where our sense of self-worth comes up, where our egos reside, where "we" are. And we believe that each of our lives means something. — Peter David

Everything wrong with America led to the point where the country built that tower of Babel, which consequently had to be destroyed. And then came the next shock. We had to realize that the people that did this were brilliant. It showed that the ego we could hold up until September 10 was inadequate. — Norman Mailer

Sitting with the poor and less fortunate people removes the ego and pride from your heart. — Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya

A lot of people who work with wildlife work with wildlife to satisfy their own egos. And I don't really agree with that. What I do is get in nice and close to the animal to make the animal look good. My aim in this world is to make that brown snake, that crocodile, that koala, that red-backed spider, that black widow, look good. That's my job. I have absolutely no problem with my ego or my staff's ego. — Steve Irwin

I'm tired of people disturbing the peace, getting on the radio and sounding a hot mess. If I can tell what the note really is, why let them go to the note they think it is? I've got that mama vibe. I don't look at it with an ego. — Betty Wright

On a film crew, you can see very quickly that some people who are working with you are stronger than you. Then you have to have the humility to listen to them. And because very often they have better ideas than yours, it can be tough on the evil ego. But it makes a better film. — Denis Villeneuve

The way the normal human ego tries to fill its emptiness and deal with its discomfort is by comparing itself to other people. All the time. — Timothy Keller

Our pride, our ego, our fear of failing too often keeps us from achieving greatness, keeps us stuck in jobs we don't like, working with people we can't stand, engaging in pursuits we're not wholeheartedly passionate about. — Kevin Kelly DO The Pursuit Of Xceptional Execution

Demanding recognition for something you did and getting angry or upset if you don't get it; trying to get attention by talking about your problems, the story of your illnesses, or making a scene; giving your opinion when nobody has asked for it and it makes no difference to the situation; being more concerned with how the other person sees you than with the other person, which is to say, using other people for egoic reflection or as ego enhancers; trying to make an impression on others through possessions, knowledge, good looks, status, physical strength, and so on; bringing about temporary ego inflation through angry reaction against something or someone; taking things personally, feeling offended; making yourself right and others wrong through futile mental or verbal complaining; wanting to be seen, or to appear important. — Eckhart Tolle

We all know people who become strongly identified with, and attached to, their intelligence. It can become a big ego trap, harmful to oneself or others. Intelligence can also be a great blessing, providing invaluable clarity. — Joseph Goldstein

Architects are mostly self-centered and their buildings express their ego. [They are] not social buildings to make it more comfortable for people - to make life better for people. The cities have to be designed so people can get together and talk with one another. — Jacque Fresco

Ego stops you from getting things done and getting people to work with you. That's why I firmly believe that ego and success are not compatible. — Harvey MacKay

When you seek power and control over other people, you waste energy. When you seek money or power for the sake of the ego, you spend energy chasing the illusion of happiness instead of enjoying happiness in the moment. When you seek money for personal gain only, you cut off the flow of energy to yourself, and interfere with the expression of nature's intelligence. But when your actions are motivated by love, there is no waste of energy. When your actions are motivated by love, your energy multiplies and accumulates - and the surplus energy you gather and enjoy can be channeled to create anything that you want, including unlimited wealth. — Deepak Chopra

I was indeed a snob, if you agree with this definition: 'A person who believes that their tastes in a particular area are superior to those of other people.' I do believe that. Not superior to all other people, but to some, most probably including those who think Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen is a great film. That is not simply ego on my part. It is a faith that after writing and teaching about films for more than 40 years, my tastes are more evolved than those of a fanboy. — Roger Ebert

There are people who have renounced all possessions but have a bigger ego than some millionaires. If you take away one kind of identification the ego will quickly find another. It ultimately doesn't mind what it identifies with as long as it has an identity. Anticonsumerism or antiprivate ownership would be another thought form, another mental position, that can replace identification with posessions. Through it you could make yourself right and others wrong. As we shall see later, making yourself right and others wrong is one of the principal egoic mind patterns, one of the main forms of unconsciousness. In other words, the content of the ego may change; the mind structure that keeps it alive does not. — Eckhart Tolle

A person functioning exclusively in the Cartesian mode may be free from manifest symptoms but cannot be considered mentally healthy. Such individuals typically lead ego-centred, competitive, goal-oriented lives. Overpreoccupied with their past and their future, they tend to have a limited awarenessof the present and thus a limited ability to derive satisfaction from ordinary activities in everyday life. They concentrate on manipulating the external world and measure their living standard by the quantity of material possessions, while they become ever more alienated from their inner world and unable to appreciate the process of life. For people whose existence is dominated by this mode of experience no level of wealth, power, or fame will bring genuine satisfaction — Fritjof Capra

Another aspect of the emotional pain that is an intrinsic part of the egoic mind is a deep-seated sense of lack or incompleteness, of not being whole. In some people, this is conscious, in others unconscious. If it is conscious, it manifests as the unsettling and constant feeling of not being worthy or good enough. If it is unconscious, it will only be felt indirectly as an intense craving, wanting and needing. In either case, people will often enter into a compulsive pursuit of ego-gratification and things to identify with in order to fill this hole they feel within. So they strive after possessions, money, success, power, recognition, or a special relationship, basically so that they can feel better about themselves, feel more complete. But even when they attain all these things, they soon find that the hole is still there, that it is bottomless. Then they are really in trouble, because they cannot delude themselves anymore. Well, they can and do, but it gets more difficult. — Eckhart Tolle

Spiritual practices help us move from identifying with the ego to identifying with the soul. Old age does that for you too. It spiritualizes people naturally. — Ram Dass

I surrounded myself with people who indulged my ego. They treated me as though I was Ziggy Stardust or one of my characters, never realising that David Jones might be behind it. — David Bowie