Self Dialogue Quotes & Sayings

Lelia gave a dharma talk about letting go of self-definition: I can't do this because of what happened to me in my childhood; I can't do that because I am very shy; I could never go there because I'm afraid of clowns or mushrooms or polar bears. The group gave a gentle, collective laugh of self-recognition. Teresa found the talk helpful, as she had been having an extended interior dialogue during meditation about how septuagenarians from Torrance were fundamentally unsuited for Buddhism. — Ann Patchett

Of all the heartache I will ever know, only some of it will be real. The rest, I will create. — Crystal Woods

True wisdom, as the fruit of self-examination, dialogue, and generous encounter between persons, is not acquired by a mere accumulation of data which eventually leads to overload and confusion, a sort of mental pollution. Real relationships with others, with all the challenges they entail, now tend to be replaced by a type of internet communication which enables us to choose or eliminate relationships at whim, thus giving rise to a new type of contrived emotion which has more to do with devices and displays than with other people and with nature. — Pope Francis

Enlightenment begins by getting acquainted with your inner voice or your higher self. The dialogue experienced in this process leads to a more comfortable, better-focused lifestyle. Over time this relationship blossoms into a higher and more efficient form of Self-Management. With practice, thoughts, feelings, emotions, and physical manifestations merge into a more harmonious state. This state of being allows for a softer, more gentile approach to life that not only benefits the individual, but the community as a whole — Gary Hopkins

We see buildings in Britain mostly as freestanding objects. They are not meant to have a dialogue with anything around them, or with history, or with ideas of any kind beyond the self-referential. What we call 'regeneration' is largely an excuse for building for maximum profit with a bit of sculptural design thrown in to catch the eye of the media. — David Chipperfield

Non-judgment quiets the internal dialogue, and this opens once again the doorway to creativity. — Deepak Chopra

If you persist over time, refusing to take offense, making your motive genuine, showing respect, and constantly searching for Mutual Purpose, then the other person will almost join you in a dialogue. — Ron McMillan

Dialogue, discussion, and participatory decision making are all part of building self-discipline. — Jim Highsmith

An inner dialogue of negative thoughts will be toxic and self-destructive, because it will cause you to doubt what you previously thought was obvious or doable. It will poison you against your goals and your self-worth. It will keep you from acting when you need to. In short, it will make it impossible to live up to your full potential. — Holly Burns

In order to create you have to believe in your ability to do so and that often means excluding whole chunks of normal life, and, of course, pumping yourself up as much as possible as a way of keeping on. Sort of cheering for yourself in the great football stadium of life.
(Barnes & Noble Review, email dialogue with Cameron Martin, Feb. 09, 2009) — T.C. Boyle

My challenge to you today is to observe your thoughts and internal dialogue and recognize if and when you speak poorly to yourself. We all have moments of self-deprecation and very often we are too hard on ourselves. Today, start to be caring and supportive of yourself. Observe that little voice in your head and say something positive to yourself instead! — Elaine Seiler

It's estimated that $55 million dollars is spent on aftercare in Kenya alone every year. This model is not practical or sustainable and does nothing to address the growing epidemic of sexual violence. It's crucial to get the world community to recognize self-defense as a viable means to prevention and begin a dialogue about how every single young or old woman can learn these simple life-saving techniques. — Lisa Cole

The self is an oral society in which the present is constantly running a dialogue with the past and the future inside of one skin. — David Antin

The true use of Shakespeare or of Cervantes, of Homer or of Dante, of Chaucer or of Rabelais, is to augment one's own growing inner self. Reading deeply in the Canon will not make one a better or a worse person, a more useful or more harmful citizen. The mind's dialogue with itself is not primarily a social reality. All that the Western Canon can bring one is the proper use of one's own solitude, that solitude whose final form is one's confrontation with one's own mortality. W — Harold Bloom

I am playing with my Self, I am playing with the world's soul, I am the dialogue between my Self and el espiritu del mundo. I change myself, I change the world. — Gloria E. Anzaldua

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

Continuous present is all we have, and stream of consciousness - which in a novel is arguably just as artificial as the stilted dialogue that you get in most conventional novels. They're all stratagems to try to get closer to the texture of lived life. — Will Self

A letter is not a dialogue or even an omniscient exposition. It is a fabric of surfaces, a mask, a form as well suited to affectations as to the affections. The letter is, by its natural shape, self-justifying; it is one's own evidence, deposition, a self-serving testimony. In a letter the writer holds all the cards, controls everything about himself and about those assertions he wishes to make concerning events or the worth of others. For completely self-centered characters, the letter form is a complex and rewarding activity. — Elizabeth Hardwick

The dialogue is solo now. I don't talk. No matter who's in bed with me I never do. My thoughts slip off into nightmares sometimes but I don't share them. I have become now what I only began to be then - completely self-protective. — Jack Ketchum

Do not seek to find hope among your leaders. They are the repositories of poison. Their interest in you extends only so far as their ability to control you. From you, they seek duty and obedience, and they will ply you with the language of stirring faith. They seek followers, and woe to those who question, or voice challenge. 'Civilization after civilization, it is the same. The world falls to tyranny with a whisper. The frightened are ever keen to bow to a perceived necessity, in the belief that necessity forces conformity, and conformity a certain stability. In a world shaped into conformity, dissidents stand out, are easily branded and dealt with. There is no multitude of perspectives, no dialogue. The victim assumes the face of the tyrant, self-righteous and intransigent, and wars breed like vermin. And people die. — Steven Erikson

Sadly, in the volatile arena of the sexuality/Christianity debate, interaction is often reduced to name calling by angry gay activists and self-righteous Christian conservatives. Name calling never enhances conversation, rational discussion or creates a constructive dialogue. It only reinforces each other's perceptions/positions. It must be remembered however, that one of the reasons some LGBT people are quick to revert to name calling (bigot, homophobe, hater) is because they learnt about its impact early in life (faggot, queer, pervert). — Anthony Venn-Brown

I really appreciate when people use their fame and their voice for more than just self-promotion, starting a dialogue about a topic or an issue much bigger than themselves. — Questlove

If I could offer only one key to understanding this divine dialogue, it would be to remember that it takes place in the depths of consciousness and that Krishna is not some external being, human or superhuman, but the spark of divinity that lies at the core of the human personality. This is not literary or philosophical conjecture; Krishna says as much to Arjuna over and over: "I am the Self in the heart of every creature, Arjuna, and the beginning, middle, and end of their existence" (10:20). — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

The disowned parts of ourselves are what get in the way of us having the relationships we long for, the careers we don't know how to create, and the goals we want to achieve. It is by getting in touch with ALL the parts of ourselves - by having a gentle dialogue with all the "selves" we have inside - that we integrate them into a more comfortable, peaceful way of being with ourselves. — Shakti Gawain

We have to replace our focus on personalities with a focus on ideas so that the opinionated and self-serving pronouncements and forms of cyber-bullying are replaced by thoughtful dialogue and open-minded conversation. — Anthony Carmona

We are all constructed out of our self dialogue. — Bryant McGill

Without God man neither knows which way to go, nor even understands who he is ... One of the deepest forms of poverty a person can experience is isolation ... Poverty is often produced by a rejection of God's love, by man's basic and tragic tendency to close in on himself, thinking himself to be self-sufficient or merely an insignificant and ephemeral fact, a "stranger" in a random universe ... The human being develops when ... his soul comes to know itself and the truths that God has implanted deep within, when he enters into dialogue with himself and his Creator ... It is not by isolation that man establishes his worth, but by placing himself in relation with others and with God. — Pope Benedict XVI

That which man dreams of and to Which he aspires, unless fulfilled in his own lifetime, can produce no actual satisfaction to him. It will be self deceiving and a waste of time to advocate dialogue with those who are not ready to listen, because it is obvious that the freedom of millions is not a commodity subject to bargaining. It is better to die free than to live as slaves. — Haile Selassie

Conversation. In Laches, he discusses the meaning of courage with a couple of retired generals seeking instruction for their kinsmen. In Lysis, Socrates joins a group of young friends in trying to define friendship. In Charmides, he engages another such group in examining the widely celebrated virtue of sophrosune, the "temperance" that combines self-control and self-knowledge. (Plato's readers would know that the bright young man who gives his name to the latter dialogue would grow up to become one of the notorious Thirty Tyrants who briefly ruled Athens after its defeat by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War.) None of these dialogues reaches definite conclusions. They end in aporia, contradictions or other difficulties. The Socratic dialogues are aporetic: his interlocutors are left puzzled about what they thought they knew. Socrates's cross-examination, or elenchus, exposes their ignorance, but he exhorts his fellows to — Plato

The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself which to turn into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. — Iris Murdoch

Free human dialogue, wandering wherever the agility of the mind allows, lies at the heart of education. If teachers do not have the time, the incentive, or the wit to produce that; if students are too demoralized, bored, or distracted to muster the attention their teachers need of them, then THAT is the educational problem which has to be solved ... That problem ... is metaphysical in nature, not technical — Neil Postman

Dialogue with the self is the source of all insight and insight is the only thing that can change your life. — Oli Anderson

Life is, to some extent, an extended dialogue with your future self about how exactly you are going to let yourself down over the coming years. — Charles Yu

If we are to know ourselves, philosophy needs to maintain an ongoing dialogue with the sciences of mind. — George Lakoff

I'm self-entertaining. My dialogue is with myself. — Michael Heizer

A destructive thought process exists within all of us, and we are plagued to varying degrees by an internal dialogue that is harmful, restrictive, and at its ultimate extreme, self-destructive. — Lisa Firestone

Monitor your self-talk, that internal dialogue of what you are telling yourself every day. — Tom Benfield

The 7 Principles for Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desires
1. You are a ripple in the fabric of the cosmos
2. Through the mirror of relationships you discover your nonlocal self
3. Master your inner dialogue
4. Your intent weaves the tapestry of the universe
5. Harness your emotional turbulence
6. Celebrate the dance of the cosmos
7. Access the conspiracy of improbabilities
Living synchrodestiny & spontaneous fulfillment of desires ... — Deepak Chopra

We are all either conditioned by belief system or consciousness. Belief system is built through the world, consciousness is built from within. — Matthew Donnelly

One of the most wonderful things about Pride and Prejudice is the variety of voices it embodies. There are so many different forms of dialogue: between several people, between two people, internal dialogue and dialogue through letters. All tensions are created and resolved through dialogue. Austen's ability to create such multivocality, such diverse voices and intonations in relation and in confrontation within a cohesive structure, is one of the best examples of the democratic aspect of the novel. In Austen's novels, there are spaces for oppositions that do not need to eliminate each other in order to exist. There is also space - not just space but a necessity - for self-reflection and self-criticism. Such reflection is the cause of change. We needed no message, no outright call for plurality, to prove our point. All we needed was to reach and appreciate the cacophony of voices to understand its democratic imperative. There was where Austen's danger lay. — Azar Nafisi

We define our identity always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us. Even after we outgrow some of these others - our parents, for instance - and they disappear from our lives, the conversation with them continues within us as long as we live. — Charles Taylor

There's often rarely any dialogue in a sex scene. With your fellow actor, it's good to talk about what the unspoken dialogue is, that's happening in the scene. You've got to play something rather than feel self-conscious or exposed. — Geoffrey Rush

The real meaning of travel, like that of a conversation by the fireside, is the discovery of oneself through contact with other people, and its condition is self-commitment in the dialogue. — Paul Tournier

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

From the beginning, Judeo-Christian principles have been the foundation for American public dialogue and government policy. They serve as the solid basis for political activism in support of a better socioeconomic environment. Found in American homes, truth from the Hebrew Christian Bible has enabled individual liberty to prevail over secular empires because it is a practical message about reality from man's Creator.
In their quest for liberty, Americans focused upon the conspicuously self-evident "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." It is the governing character of these principles (laws), such as humility, the Golden Rule, and the Ten Commandments, that leads to success. This is the sure foundation upon which man's right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" rests. Called "virtue" by America's Founding Fathers, the impartial and divine element frees man to do what is right. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. 3:17). — David A. Norris

I hate solitude, but I'm afraid of intimacy. The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself which to turn into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. The company which I need is the company which a pub or a cafe will provide. I have never wanted a communion of souls. It's already hard enough to tell the truth to oneself. — Iris Murdoch

I have no problem with responsible gun owners who own weapons for self-protection, hunting, or just sport. The ones who believe they have a constitutional right to 100-round magazines to fight off I don't know what - a zombie apocalypse? - try to shut down dialogue with threats and other macho posing because of their flawed beliefs. — Kurt Eichenwald

Your ability to respond is the way you are. Only your ability to act is connected with the outside world. Responsibility is not about talking, thinking, or doing. Responsibility is about being. That's the way life is - not an independent, self-contained bubble but a moment-to-moment dialogue with the universe. You don't have to work at making it that way. You just have to see it the way it is. — Sadhguru

Incapacity for true dialogue implies an incapacity for tolerance, self-reflection and empathy. — Azar Nafisi

You entered into a Socratic dialogue in order to change; the object of the exercise was to create a new, more authentic self. — Karen Armstrong

If we think we monopolize the truth and we still organize a dialogue, it is not authentic. We have to believe that by engaging in dialogue with the other person, we have the possibility of making a change within ourselves, that we can become deeper. Dialogue is not a means for assimilation in the sense that one side expands and incorporates the other into its "self." Dialogue must be practiced on the basis of "non-self." We have to allow what is good, beautiful, and meaningful in the other's tradition to transform us. — Thich Nhat Hanh

The ancient voices that speak in Scripture evoke an ongoing dialogue that requires our active participation. Their sacred conversation about life in God's presence begs to be continued among believers today, for the fact of the matter is, the Bible is not self-interpreting. It is a living word through which God continues to meet us and speak to us in our own particular historical moment, and thus it demands to be newly interpreted for new historical situations. And interpretation is not simply reiteration of the text, repeating what was said before, but the hard work of bringing it into our own time and place. So every new generation of believers must join the interpretive conversation as it experiences the living God in relation to new circumstances. — Frances Taylor Gench

In order to start our mythic journey to end our suffering, we need to enter into a real and dynamic dialogue with our hearts. Start by writing a letter to your heart, telling it all that's going on with you now and asking it for guidance. — Carolyn Elliott

Nerds obsess. We zealously deconstruct. We have a very active internal monologue (which may feel more like a dialogue sometimes). I think that so many of the things we undertake are a partial attempt to distract this monologue. We are hyper-self-aware. We have difficulty chilling out. — Chris Hardwick

[M]y discovering my own identity doesn't mean that I work it out in isolation, but that I negotiate it through dialogue, partly overt, partly internal, with others. — Charles Taylor

The self is configured in ways that both reflect and influence the very foundations of social life and everyday living. Without the guidance set by a particular set of ideas about what it means to be human, political conflict would be impossible. The shape of the self in a particular era indicates which goals individuals are supposed to strive toward, and how individuals are to comport themselves while striving; it indicates what is worthwhile, who is worthwhile, and which institutions determine worthwhileness. In other words, the self emerges out of a moral dialogue that sets the stage for all other political struggles. Once the self is set, the rest of the struggles begin to appear in the clearing: they materialize. — Philip Cushman

I must have dialogue with the Chinese government, and dialogue requires compromise. Therefore, I'm speaking for genuine self-rule, not for independence. — Dalai Lama

Labels such as, 'evangelical', 'fundamental', 'charismatic', 'liberal' contribute to polarization and produce a climate of implied or outspoken distrust. Respectful dialogue becomes virtually impossible. What we desperately need to offset this disunity and distrust is a new and cleansing theology of communication. — Robert H. Schuller

Just like the body responds with sore muscles when we add mileage, the initial discomfort felt when we listen to the Voice Inside reflects growth. The good news: anxiety initially triggered by listening to our inner dialogue is short-term vs. the unnamed, interminable dread that piggybacks suppression. Even better, we can manage it with self-talk, deep breathing (inherent to running), the Tribe and social support. — Gina Greenlee

Daniel is asleep. A care assistant, a different one today is swishingaroundthe room with a mop that smells of pine cleaner.

Elisabeth wonders what's doing to happen to all the care assistants. She realizes she hasn't so far encountered a single care assistant here who isn't from somewhere else in the world. That morning on the radio she;d heard a spokesperson say, but it's not just that we;ve been rhetorically and practically encouraging the opposite of integration for immigrants to this country. It's that we've been rhetorically and practically encouraging ourselves not to integrate. We've been doing this as a matter of self-policing since Thatcher taught us to be selfish and not just to think but to believe that there's no such thing as society.

Then the other spokesperson in the dialogue said, well, you would say that. Get over it. Grow up. Your time's over. Democracy. You lost. — Ali Smith

Great artistic works are often based on solving several psychological problems simultaneously. In literature this is often accomplished by splitting apart the conflict and assigning each aspect to a different character. Marjie Rynearson, for instance, wrote an award-winning play, Jenny, about the meeting and reconciliation of two women: the mother of a murder victim and the mother of the murderer. Within the dialogue between the two characters she sought to resolve two sets of problems: the rage and grief of the victim's mother, and the horror, guilt, and grief of the murderer's mother. She worked on the play for several years, and only when it was finished did she realize that through it she was struggling to resolve her feelings about the suicide of her best friend. Rynearson had simultaneously been, in effect, both the friend of the victim and the friend of the perpetrator of the killing. The power of the work lay in its simultaneous resolution of conflicting problems. — Linda Austin