Self Made Love Quotes & Sayings

When I am there [Tibet], I am very happy. The Tibetans radiate. They literally send out light. His holiness [the Dalai Lama] generates love and compassion to every human being. He has committed himself to that. I haven't made that leap yet. I haven't given up self-aspiration. I still love making movies. — Richard Gere

There is a false and momentary happiness in self-satisfaction, but it always leads to sorrow because it narrows and deadens our spirit. True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is shared. There is no end to the sharing of love, and, therefore, the potential happiness of such love is without limit. Infinite sharing is the law of God's inner life. He has made the sharing of ourselves the law of our own being, so that it is in loving others that we best love ourselves. — Thomas Merton

if you wanted to see me dead,you would whisper and i could kill self for you happiness it was a small thing but you made yourself corrupt for very small thing — Mohammed Zaki Ansari

God made you to love him supremely, but he lost you. He returned to get you back, but it took the cross to do it. He absorbed your darkness so that one day you can finally and dazzlingly become your true self and take your seat at his eternal feast. — Timothy Keller

We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world. — Martin Luther King Jr.

It wasn't that she didn't love me, I knew that she did, and that actually made it worse. If someone leaves you because they don't love you, it's a tough break, but as they say, life's a bitch, get a helmet. But if someone loves you and leaves you anyway, you enter a whole new realm of self-doubt and recrimination, what psychologists call the what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-me syndrome. — Jonathan Tropper

In my own field, I know that solid science can easily be done with ethics and compassion. There's nothing wrong with compassionate or sentimental science or scientists. Studies of animal thought, emotions, and self-awareness, as well as behavioral ecology and conservation biology, can all be compassionate as well as scientifically rigorous. Science and the ethical treatment of animals aren't incompatible. We can do solid science with an open mind and a big heart.
I encourage everyone to go where their hearts take them, with love, not fear. If we all travel this road, the world will be a better place for all beings. Kinder and more humane choices will be made when we let our hearts lead the way. Compassion begets compassion and caring for and loving animals spills over into compassion and caring for humans. The umbrella of compassion is very important to share freely and widely. — Marc Bekoff

I whispered to him,
You'll regret it if you let me go.
I don't wait for a man, if he's not willing to grow'
He didn't believe me, he made his choice
&
That was the last time, he ever heard my voice. — Nikki Rowe

Love never lies and it never tries, it's unafraid and heaven made.

Keep the faith, surrender the time, just like a grape we need to ripen on the vine.

Be like a fairy, constantly glow, leave a trail of love wherever you go.

Do not try to make sense of this world. Do try to know yourself and to grow yourself while in it.

The more you are, the more you have.

Rather than make the best of a situation, make the best situation. Create, don't negate.

Keep the dream alive and the heart open.

Be your most glorious self, and even better, be indifferent to what anyone may think of it.

Don't fear the dark, it's helping you find the light. We wouldn't know morning, if we didn't see night.

Never give to say you've given, never shy away from a good cry, never stop a laugh from happening, and always wonder, why?

Don't get mad, get motivated! — Allyson Giles

Love at first has nothing to do with unfolding, abandon and uniting with another person (for what would be the sense in a union of what is unrefined and unfinished, still second order?); for the individual it is a grand opportunity to mature, to become something in himself, to become a world, to become a world in himself for another's sake; it is a great immoderate demand made upon the self, something that singles him out and summons him to vast designs. — Rainer Maria Rilke

I promise you that the same stuff galaxies are made of, you are. The same energy that swings planets around stars makes electrons dance in your heart. It is in you, outside you, you are it. It is beautiful. Trust in this. And you your life will be grand. — Kamal Ravikant

Are you ready to possess your master piece; ready to live a life that is worthy of who you were made to be? You will likely shed a few tears - tears of joy, tears of pain, tears of revelation - you might scream out loud and laugh out loud. You might even stomp your feet, shake your fist or pound the air. That's okay, because later on you might just run out and hug a stranger, love an enemy and sing like never before as well. — J. Loren Norris

I need everyone to love me. My feelings of inadequacy and lack of parental attachment have made me one of those sick bitches who can't tolerate being ignored. My parents say all the right things when they are pretending to listen to me. But the truth is, they are more like cats. They accidentally had a litter of kittens, and then emotionally moved on to whatever ball of yarn rolled past their line of sight. When self-obsessed people breed, they make empty people like me who spend the rest of their time on earth trying to gain the love and approval they didn't get as children. This doesn't excuse my behavior. It's just to say, if my parents had actually noticed me, I probably wouldn't care so much about whether everyone else on the planet adored me. Unfortunately, I'm a bottomless pit of need. — Jenny Mollen

The question of what we are can only be answered by ourselves. We each decide what we are by the life choices we make. How we were made, who are parents are, where we are from, the color of our skin, who we choose to love, all those things do not define us. Our actions define us, and will keep defining us until even after death. — P.C. Cast

The problem with romance is the occlusion. The tunnel vision, drawing your every gaze downstream, into those other eyes, the flotsam of your better self, your clearer self, along for the ride. It doesn't matter what secrets swirl and bob in the waters beneath you, as you float toward that lady at Delphi, who, you imagined, reading Mythology, must have been beautiful. It doesn't matter that Charybdis, with no body, with no form, with only a mouth-as-being, couldn't have been evil, because she lacked the brain for it. It doesn't matter that following the logical course of events, the natural course, always disadvantages someone else, because love, after all, is simply a competition for resources, made infinitely complex and unknowable when squared and cubed and raised to every other emotional exponent - and then layered with sex and society and a bad memory for what those resources were in the first place. — Darin Bradley

You are a child of the universe, "fearfully and wonderfully made." In the history of creation, there has never been anyone like you. Accept this reality about yourself- that you are a special, unique human being who has a place on this earth that no one else can fill. Acknowledge yourself as a glorious expression of your loving Creator. This healthy self-love will form the foundation of a joyful and satisfying life. Then, as you love and accept yourself, your inner light will shine outward to bless and heal your fellow human beings. — Douglas Bloch

I know that what had happened with my father - his insults, his criticism, the way he made me feel that I was defective and deformed - had hurt me. I'd encountered enough of those self-help articles in women's magazines to know that you don't go through that kind of cruelty unscathed. With every man I met, I'd watch myself carefully.
Did I really like that editor, I'd wonder, or am I just searching for Daddy? Do I love this guy, I'd ask myself, or do I just think he'd never leave me, the way my father did? — Jennifer Weiner

I sighed, because that's what unrequited love made you do. Sigh with self-pity. — Sariah Wilson

None of it made any sense to her - the deceit, the betrayal, the sheer chutzpah of it. Like something from a movie. Who in real life acted this way? But then she remembered this had happened in India, and India was not real life. The most heartbreaking, most desperate, most bizarre stories she had ever heard all came from India. Every story was epic; every emotion was exaggerated; every action was melodramatic. Desperate love, mad obsessions, outbursts of rage, bizarre self sacrifice, self immolation. Young women eat rat poison, jumping off buildings, or burning themselves alive. Young men throwing themselves onto railroad tracks in the path of oncoming trains. And all this self destruction over issues that in the West would be solved by a simple elopement or estrangement from one's parents or a move to a different city. — Thrity Umrigar

All throughout Scripture we see Jesus loving people whom others deemed foul, broken, dirty, and unworthy...People may criticize you for giving your time and attention to people who are ostracized or considered permanently broken. They may say it's not safe, that they're not worth your time, and that these people gave up the right to be treated well when they made their bad decision. They said that to Jesus too. But while many self-proclaimed followers of God sat back and criticized the openness of Jesus' love for people, he called them out for their lack of it: (Mark 2:14-15). — Jarrid Wilson

All the lines that held me to my life were sliced apart in swift cuts, like clipping the strings of a bunch of balloons. Everything that made me who I was - my love for the dead girl upstairs, my love for my father, my loyalty to my new pack, the love for my other brothers, my hatred for my enemies, my home, my name, my self - disconnected from me in that second - snip, snip, snip - and floated up into space. — Stephenie Meyer

And in Life's noisiest hour,
There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,
The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.
You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within ;
And to the leading Love-throb in the Heart
Thro' all my Being, thro' my pulse's beat ;
You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light,
Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve
On rippling Stream, or cloud-reflecting Lake.
And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,
How oft! I bless the Lot that made me love you. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Being idolized and being torn down felt oddly similar. They both made me feel alone.
Friendship and trust should be earned, and when you're famous, people seem to want to give them to you whether you've earned them or not, and it felt dishonest to me. Fame was not real. It was all a projection - fame made me a blank canvas that people projected their love, lust, troubles, self-worth, and desire upon.
Fame and power do not change us, they amplify us. — Jewel

He loved possessions, not masses of them, but a select few that he did not part with. They gave a man self-respect. Not ostentation but quality, and the love that cherished the quality. Possessions reminded him that he existed, and made him enjoy his existence. It was as simple as that. And wasn't that worth something? He existed. Not many people in the world knew how to, even if they had the money. It really didn't take money, masses of money, it took a certain security. — Patricia Highsmith

An important distinction can be made between religion and spirituality. Religion [is] concerned with faith in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition ... Spirituality is concerned with qualities of the human spirit, love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony, that bring happiness both to self. — Dalai Lama

At first glance, this seems an improbable scenario due to both the Martians' and Emily Dickinson's dispositions. Dickinson was a recluse who didn't meet anybody, preferring to hide upstairs when neighbors came to call and to float notes down on them.14 Various theories have been advanced for her self-imposed hermitude, including Bright's Disease, an unhappy love affair, eye trouble, and bad skin. T. L. Mensa suggests the simpler theory that all the rest of the Amherstonians were morons.15 None of these explanations would have made it likely that she would like Martians any better than Amherstates, and there is the added difficulty that, having died in 1886, she would also have been badly decomposed. — Connie Willis

Science does not see beyond the atom interacting with atom, the chemicals interacting with chemicals. The scientist cannot see the impressive existence of himself. Academics will never learn the meaning of life because they don't feel it; they can only accept its existence as fact. "I think therefore I am." And yet, thought is a cloud reflecting the impressions of a consciousness. I am therefore I think. The academic mind does not appreciate life in the festive sense therefore - derailed to love by a numb perspective. Life is an unknown, death is a mystery; no, life is a mystery, death is the unknown - in the sense that I will un-know my self in death. Science ignores the ultimate question in pursuance of the distant things, the most superficial things. One must discover from the inside out to discover he is made of nothing, and in that supreme emptiness, he is connected directly to everything that he studies. — Matthew Holbert

I love you, he whispered, and that was the moment he knew what he was going to do. When you loved someone, you put their needs before your own. No matter how inconceivable those needs were; no matter how fucked up; no matter how much it made you feel like you were ripping yourself into pieces. — Jodi Picoult

She thought back to what he had said. /I could make you very happy./ It was something men said then, when they were trying to persuade you, and that was what they meant. It seemed rash and sweeping to her, dazzling but *presumptuous*. She had to try to see herself, then, as somebody who could be /made happy/. The whole worrying, striving, complicated bundle of her
was that something that could just be picked up and /made happy/? — Alice Munro

I knew my value because the world seemed to be denying it, and that just made me want to prove it even more. — A.J. Mendez Brooks

But if Miss Golightly remained unconscious of my existence, except as a doorbell convenience, I became, through the summer, rather an authority on hers. I discovered, from observing the trash-basket outside her door, that her regular reading consisted of tabloids and travel folders and astrological charts; that she smoked an esoteric cigarette called Picayunes; survived on cottage cheese and Melba Toast; that her vari-colored hair was somewhat self-induced. The same source made it evident that she received V-letters by the bale. They were torn into strips like bookmarks. I used occasionally to pluck myself a bookmark in passing. Remember and miss you and rain and please write and damn and goddamn were the words that recurred most often on these slips; those, and lonesome and love. — Truman Capote

But this time, so far as I can tell, my mother has not made her husband her desire incarnate, though she does love him very much. And for his part, so far as I can tell, he doesn't try to talk her out of her self-deprecation, nor does he abet it. He simply loves her. I am learning from him. — Maggie Nelson

There's a line you never get to cross, as long as you live. The edge of your body. You're trapped inside your skin, and no matter how many times you reach out to touch a friend or a lover, no matter how close you hold someone or how fiercely you make love, when it begins, when it ends, and all the moments in between, you are still yourself, alone. I know you knew this. It was in all the love songs you wrote. I think it was the hidden impulse we both had, down inside, that made us take razors to our skin, that desire to open up and let the world in, to let ourselves out, to take that sharp thin line of flesh and erase it. — Michael Montoure

Their Love said, "Made for Each Other"
Our Love says, "Made from Each Other — Jasleen Kaur Gumber

One of the biggest oxymorons is the term "self-made" man or woman. No man or woman ever "made" him- or herself. The psalmist understood this when he wrote, "It is [God] who has made us, and not we ourselves" (Psalm 100:3, NKJV). I also love what he goes on to say at the end of the verse: "We are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. — Henry Cloud

I knew that coming from a family with an unhealthy social origins, things would be harder for me. Nonetheless, in my heart, hope never died. However, over time, I had learned that trying never died either. Trying was one thing I always had to do more than others, because, in the self-proclaimed society of equals, we were made to be less equal than many of the families around us. — Teodor Flonta

Wendre had appealed to Horn as no woman ever had. She had a man's mind and a woman's heart. She was self-reliant, proud, courageous. She grasped the situation quickly, accepted the odds, and did what had to be done without complaining. This was no spoiled child of empire, no sheltered darling of an all-powerful father; this was a woman fit to stand and fight beside any barbarian from the restless marches, made for love and ready to battle for it. — Jack Williamson

One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others. There was a time when I felt lousy about my over-forty body, saw myself as too fat, too this, or too that. Yet I fantasized about finding a lover who would give me the gift of being loved as I am. It is silly, isn't it, that I would dream of someone else offering to me the acceptance and affirmation I was withholding from myself. This was a moment when the maxim "You can never love anybody if you are unable to love yourself" made clear sense. And I add, "Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself. — Bell Hooks

Whatever discoveries we may have made in the regions of self-love, there still remain many unknown lands. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

We can not overestimate the fervent love of liberty, the intelligent courage, and the sum of common sense with which our fathers made the great experiment of self-government. — James A. Garfield

Why are you kissing me?" she squeaked out breathlessly.
"God, how can I not?" He ran his hands up and down her arms. "I think you're made for me to kiss. I need to kiss you. You need to be kissed," he said firmly, as if he'd reached some decision that brooked no debate. This did not sound like the smooth-talking and self-possessed charmer of his reputation. — Catherine LaRoche

And so, what of it all? What of me and my passions and personas, my great loves and failures of love, my writing, my politics? What of the clanging opinions, the endless queries as to the whys and wherefores of how I chose to conduct myself? In the end, there is but one answer to every question, whether it is spit at me or made as gentlest inquiry: I was I. — Elizabeth Berg

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

Our can-do culture has made many of us believe that we should always be self-sufficient. Somewhere along the way, we also got the message that asking for help is a sign of weakness. We often forget that we're interdependent creatures whose very existence depends on the kindness of others, including - with a bow to Tennessee Williams - strangers. — Sharon Salzberg

I AM GRATEFUL FOR ALL OF THE
BACKSTABBING
BECAUSE IT MADE ME
A STRAIGHT-SHOOTER! — Qwana M. BabyGirl Reynolds-Frasier

Because you are an energetic being and your thoughts and feelings are energy, your journey may be compared to an intricately woven fabric. As the weaver of the fabric of your life, you alone decide whether your life will be beautifully intertwined with threads of gold and silver and blended with the colors of the rainbow, or made with strands of straw and cotton in shades of grays, browns, and other dark, heavy colors. — Susan Barbara Apollon

Our true self is made manifest in love. — Lailah Gifty Akita

God did not create a human family made up of segregated, dissociated, mutually independent members. No; he would have them all united by the bond of total love of Him and consequent self-dedication to assisting each other to maintain that bond intact. — Pope Pius XII

Have come through a very painful and very joyful experience. Heard she behaved badly in the hospital. Found this terribly hard to bear. Unimaginably hard. I turned on her with hatred and disgust, until I suddenly remembered how often I myself have been (and still am, though only in thought) guilty of the very thing I was hating her for - and immediately I was filled with a mixture of self-loathing and pity for her, and this made me feel good again. If only we were always quick enough to see the beam in our own eye, how much kinder we would be! — Leo Tolstoy

She'd been in love with the way Todd made her feel about herself. Evan had been her best friend, but his treatment of her, in a way, had been a rejection. Every single day for two damn years, she'd felt rejected by him. It was no wonder her self-esteem had been so beaten down she'd fal en for the first sweet-talker to come along. — Cherrie Lynn

Elizabeth Bishop wrote love poems, and poems about lovemaking, and one of the best poems ever written in English about the loss of love, but she had made her way through life as an orphan, a solitary. Reticence wasn't the reason she'd become a poet of the self - of a singular "mind in action," as she'd once described the effect she hoped to achieve in her poems. She had discovered early on, perhaps too early, that she was "an I . . . an Elizabeth" - and she'd treasured that painful, "unlikely" self-awareness ever since, knowing it was the same thing as her imagination. — Megan Marshall

Liz?"
"Hmmm?"
"Why do you care about me?"
The question seems to startle me. It's uncharacteristic for Richie, who is usually so cool and self-assured. I open my eyes. "Why would you ask me that?"
"Because I don't understand. We're so different."
I reach around the side of his face. Once again, I wipe fresh beads of sweat from his forehead. This time, I don't even bother wiping my hands on my pants. I lace my fingers into his again, and the two of us lie together, his damp clamminess seeping onto my made up face and my pretty clothes. Obviously, I couldn't care less.
"But we fit," I whisper. "Like this." And I tighten my grip around him.
"Mmm." He smiles, his eyes still closed.
"You're right. We do."
"Richie ... I'm lying. I don't like you."
"You don't?" His voice cracks.
"No." I bring my lips close to his ear. "I love you Richie Wilson. — Jessica Warman

All good stories are true. Even if they were completely made up by the storyteller, there is something in them that resonates with us. Courage. Love. Self-sacrifice. The storyteller makes his story real through the telling. — C.E. Laureano

It's probably not just by chance that I'm alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he's terribly strong. And if he's stronger than I, I'm the one who can't live with him. ... I'm neither smart nor stupid, but I don't think I'm a run-of-the-mill person. I've been in business without being a businesswoman, I've loved without being a woman made only for love. The two men I've loved, I think, will remember me, on earth or in heaven, because men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness. I've done my best, in regard to people and to life, without precepts, but with a taste for justice. — Coco Chanel

I don't know if you made the world, Father Kolkan. And I don't know if you made my people or if they made themselves. But if it was your words they taught me as a child, and if it's your words that encourage this vile self-disgust, this ridiculous self-flagellation, this incredibly damaging idea that to be human and to love and to risk making mistakes is wrong, then... Well, I guess fuck you, Father Kolkan. — Robert Jackson Bennett

One of the biggest things I've done is learn how to love myself, flaws and all. Even the things I don't like about myself, I accept. People have made fun of me and made me self-conscious about talking so softly, for example, but I accept that as who I am and I'm not changing it for anybody. I'm at peace with who I am now, and once you've achieved that, all the other stuff disappears. — Ricky Williams

Place where man laughs, sings, picks flowers, chases butterflies and pets birds, makes love with maidens, and plays with children. Here he spontaneously reveals his nature, the base as well as the noble. Here also he buries his sorrows and difficulties and cherishes his ideals and hopes. It is in the garden that men discover themselves. Indeed one discovers not only his real self but also his ideal self?he returns to his youth. Inevitably the garden is made the scene of man's merriment, escapades, romantic abandonment, spiritual awakening or the perfection of his finer self. — Confucius

To be unable to bear disapproval was an unworthy weakness. But in her case it came nowise of the pride which blame stirs to resentment, but altogether of the self-depreciation which disapproval rouses to yet greater dispiriting. Praise was to her a precious thing, in part because it made her feel as if she could go on; blame, a misery, in part because it made her feel as if all was of no use, she never could do anything right. She had not yet learned that the right is the right, come of praise or blame what may. The right will produce more right and be its own reward--in the end a reward altogether infinite, for God will meet it with what is deeper than all right, namely, perfect love. — George MacDonald

And suddenly the miracle happens. I look across at the woman who has just made some coffee and is now reading the newspaper, whose eyes look tired and desperate, who is her usual silent self, who does not always show her affection in gestures, the woman who made me say yes when i wanted to say no, who forced me to fight for what she, quiet rightly, believed was my reason for living, who let me set off alone because her love for me was greater even than her love for herself, who made me go in serch of my dream,; and suddenly, seeing that small, quiet woman, whose eyes said more than words, who was often terrified inside, but always courageous in her actions, who could love someone without humbling herself and who never ever apologized for fighting for her man - suddenly. my fingers press down on the keys. — Paulo Coelho

God made you the way He wanted you to be and He does not make mistakes. He has a plan for your life that is much bigger than you can imagine. — Michele Woolley

My season of compromise is OVER. The reason I am misunderstood ... I am not stuck up, I am selective. You can't let everyone get close to you. Being pleasing and sacraficing parts or all yourself to the undeserving is self-sabaotage. You're not a victim, you made a choice. If it doesn't work, make a new one. Next. — C. Nzingha Smith

I call education, not that which smothers a woman with accomplishments, but that which tends to consolidate a firm and regular system of character; that which tends to form a friend, a companion, and a wife. I call education not that which is made up of the shreds and patches of useless arts, but that which inculcates principles, polishes taste, regulates temper, cultivates reason, subdues the passions, directs the feelings, habituates to reflection, trains to self-denial, and, more especially, that which refers all actions, feelings, sentiments, tastes, and passions, to the love and fear of God. — Hannah More

My main interest ... is the love of truth, whether pleasant or not. Truth is self-sufficient, and there is nothing to which it can be subordinated without loss. When truth is made subservient to anything else, however great (say religion), it becomes impure and sordid. — George Sarton

Peacemaking contains all the elements of the Christian faith. Peacemaking is the result of not only taking the beatitudes seriously, but living them. It involves right relationships. Right relationships with God, right relationships with God's people and right relationships with God's creation. It involves love. Proper love of self, love of God and creation, and love of all people - even our enemies. It is not passive, it is active; it is peacemaking not peacekeeping. Above all, it is following the way of Jesus, which was the way of the cross, where his power was 'made perfect in weakness' (2 Cor. 12:9). — Donald R. Clymer

But I can tell you this: that I am deeply proud of Rebecca. That she made a split-second decision to save the life of her son, turning the wheel of her vehicle so that her side of it would be impacted by an oncoming car instead of his. She gave her life in the exercise of the greatest gift that God grants us - the ability to change the trajectory of history. — Dexter Palmer

In this moment
Do not wait to be beautiful. Be your beautiful, authentic self right now.
If the world offers up negativity and despair, surprise the world by giving back love and kindness. Send out the energy that you wish to experience, and you are certain to experience it.

Happiness and fulfillment are alive in this moment. Allow them to flow freely and creatively through your life.
Fall in love all over again with the miracle of being. Your imagination is great and magnificent, yet it cannot hold even a fraction of the possibilities.

You'll do, say and act your best when you feel your best. Feel the limitless wonder of this very moment.
Be beautiful, alive, aware and filled with the energy of the possible. In this moment, is every dream made and fulfilled — Ralph S. Marston Jr.

It's been long since thinking humanity has learnt that love is a majestic creation of the brain, yet that knowledge hasn't made love be deemed any less glorious. Then why should it threaten the religious believer to learn that divinity as well is a natural creation of the brain? — Abhijit Naskar

What they used to call soul. What they used to call spirit. Indivisible, complete, that thing made of mind, distinct from body.
He thought he had one - a soul, a spirit, a nature, an essence. He thought his mind was proof of it.
If mood, facial expression, hunger pain, love of color, if everything human and happenstance came not from the soul, the core of self, but from synapses firing and electrical signals, from the stuff in the brain that could be manipulated and X-rayed, what could he say about himself with any degree of certainty? Was mind just body more refined?
He refused to believe that. — Joshua Ferris

And in this self-expression I put all the thoughts I had about her, I released the anger she made me feel, my amorous way of thinking about her, my determination to exist for her, the desire for me to be me, and for her to be her, and the love for myself that I put in my love for her
all the things that could be said only in that conch shell wound into a spiral. — Italo Calvino

For twenty-one years, I have been paralyzed by the fear of what this society will do with me if they ever were to know of the thoughts that I continually push away. For more than two decades, I have made a choice to be straight. After all, it's as easy as making a choice, isn't it? This culture has made sure that I know that. Anyone who is anything other than straight was just someone deceived by the devil. He is unnatural. He is confused. He is mistaken. He is weak. He can control it if he desires to control it. Such a compelling and ongoing argument has been made that I have always trusted it.
I believed that if I hid it long enough, and ran from it long enough, and refused to acknowledge it for long enough, I could indeed succeed at living up to their decrees. I believed that I could force myself to never be anything else. — Dan Pearce

Being with him made me want to make my own dreams, discover my own path. I was my best self when I was with him. — Heather Anastasiu

I understood that at the core, our essence is made of pure love. We are pure love-every single one of us. How can we not be, if we come from the Whole and return to it? I knew that realizing this meant never being afraid of who we are. Therefore, being love and being our true self is one and the same thing! — Anita Moorjani

We are all made from the same seeds. It makes sense to say that compassion, love sunshine, water and nourishing seeds will grow into healthy, happy, fulfilled plants. You don't have to like a certain kind of bread or be a bread maker to have faith. God invented more than brand of toasters to spread the seeds of faith. Those who become self-righteous bread makers shall have self-righteous toaster consciousness.
If our belief system excludes us from sharing bread with those who do not believe the exact same manner as we do, that's when its time to re-evaluate our belief system. — Sadiqua Hamdan

Critics say the OWS protesters hate the rich. Come on! Success is the national religion, and almost everyone is a believer. Americans love winners. But that's just the problem. These guys on Wall Street are not winning - they're cheating. And as much as we love the self-made success story, we hate the cheater that much more. — Matt Taibbi

To many an upright poor person, it seems needless to invent a god who will wash the feet of beggars and exalt those who do not care to labor. What is this but a denial of thrift and a sickly obsession with the victim? The so-called common people are quite able to penetrate this ruse ("The good lord must indeed love the poor, since he made so many of them"). Many decent people are made uneasy by the constant injunction to give alms and to dwell among those who have lost their self-respect. They can also see the hook sticking out of the bait: abandon this useless life, leave your family, and follow the prophet who says that the world is soon to pass away. Such an injunction coupled with an implicit or explicit "or else" is repulsive to many conservatives who believe in self-reliance and personal integrity, and who distrust "charity," just as it was repulsive to the early socialists who did not think that poverty was an ideal or romantic or ennobled state. — Christopher Hitchens

The soul of me is very selfish. I have gone my way after a fashion that made me the center of the plan. And you who are so individual, who are so independent a spirit, whose soul is also a kingdom, have been so loyal, so forgiving, so self-sacrificing in your willingness to live my life. Nothing but love cold have accomplished so wonderful a thing. — Woodrow Wilson

Let me carry you out. I'll never let you touch the ground. I was made to carry you, Olivia. You're fucking heavy with all of your guilt and self-loathing. But, I can do it. Because I love you. — Tarryn Fisher

So she retreated into herself, rebuilt the damaged pathways of her mind, explored long-unvisited memories, wandered among the trillions of human lives that were open to her observation, read over the libraries of every book known to exist in every language human beings had ever spoken. She created out of all this a self that was not utterly linked to Ender Wiggin, though she was still devoted to him, still loved him above any other living soul. Jane made herself into someone who could bear to be cut off from her lover, husband, father, child, brother, friend. — Orson Scott Card

LOVE OF THE GOD"
"Love has power, power of Devine
It fills meaning of one life,
Love is the gift, Gift that gets of fortune,
Rather you aren't going for,
but Some divines put you in.
Without love, Life is like blank book,
Like in darkness one tries to look.
There are some shoulder made for each and Everyone,
To let your self lean and get relax.
But when you are shrugged off by own,
God himself comes and give you calmness.
Be believer of God, he will always with you.
Either anyone loves you or not but he will.
We find gains and such things in sake of Love,
But in his way he always just make you feel better even how wrong or bad you are!
He has his own way to spread love in one life, We should have such a trust and would get that we need to have!!!!
-Samar Sudha — Samar Sudha

It says in the Bible, in plain words, that God made a self-portrait. He created man in His own image - man and woman - for God is Love.Why should we start thinking of a god up in the clouds with wings, if He dwells within us in the spirit of Love?! — Thor Heyerdahl

Roller Boogie is a relic from - when else? - the '70s. This is a tape I made for the eight-grade dance. The tape still plays, even if the cogs are a little creaky and the sound quality is dismal. It's a ninety-minute TDK Compact Cassette, and like everything else made in the '70s, it's beige. It takes me back to the fall of 1979, when I was a shy, spastic, corduroy-clad Catholic kid from the suburbs of Boston, grief-stricken over the '78 Red Sox. The words "douche" and "bag" have never coupled as passionately as they did in the person of my thirteen-yer-old self. My body, my brain, my elbows that stuck out like switchblades, my feet that got tangled in my bike spokes, but most of all my soul - these formed the waterbed where douchitude and bagness made love sweet love with all the feral intensity of Burt Reynolds and Rachel Ward in Sharkey's Machine. — Rob Sheffield

I put my hand out and wiped the vomit from his lips, and cooed soothing words to him. It squeezed my heart to see him suffer like this - but where my genuine concern for him ended and where my self-interest began, I could not tell: no servant can ever tell what the motives of his heart are.
"Do we loathe our masters behind a facade of love - or do we love them behind a facade of loathing?
"We are made mysteries to ourselves by the Rooster Coop we are locked in. — Aravind Adiga

To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name. — Thomas Merton

Oh, Tatiana wouldn't even consider staying here for a moment," Gideon said. "She has fled to the Blackthorns', her in-laws, and good riddance. She is not a stupid girl-in fact, she considers her intelligence to be quite superior-but she is a self-important and vain one, and there is no love lost between her and my brother. And he had been awake for days, mind you. Waiting in that great blasted house, locked out of the library, pounding on the door when no answer came from my father ... "
"You feel protective of him," Sophie observed.
"Of course I do; he is my little brother." He moved forward and brushed a hand over Gabriel's tousled brown hair; the other boy moved and made a restless sound but did not wake. — Cassandra Clare

Our personal identities are socially situated. We are where we live, eat, work, and make love. [ ... ]
Our sense of identity is in large measure conferred on us by others in the ways they treat or mistreat us, recognize or ignore us, praise us or punish us. Some people make us timid and shy; others elicit our sex appeal and dominance. In some groups we are made leaders, while in others we are reduced to being followers. We come to live up to or down to the expectations others have of us. The expectations of others often become self-fulfilling prophecies. Without realizing it, we often behave in ways that confirm the beliefs others have about us. Those subjective beliefs create new realities for us. We often become who other people think we are, in their eyes and in our behavior. — Philip G. Zimbardo

Before entering into any kind of intimate relationships, whether friendship, familial re-connection, or romance, the idea of "needing" or "being needed" must be eliminated. It's harmful to me and others. Need is no kind of foundation for anything. Rather, I choose to be wanted. "Want" is a deliberate choice. Wanting is not based in fear or ego (which are one in the same, I believe). Want comes from recognition of someone else's goodness and loving them for it. Being wanted is unconditional. It does not require emotional games be played, it does not require reparations be made or obligations be met. Being wanted is good, in and of itself. — Jennifer DeLucy

He knew damn well that no one could possibly love her as completely as he once had. Even the man he was today was incapable of that depth of emotion and connection. She'd killed the innocence in him that had made it possible to love a woman without any thought of self-preservation. He'd been wide open when she cut his heart out and scars had formed, creating a thick shield that he couldn't get past and no woman could get through. — Sylvia Day

The more unworthy you feel yourself to be, the more evidence have you that nothing but unspeakable love could have led the Lord Jesus to save such a soul as yours. The more demerit you feel, the clearer is the display of the abounding love of God in having chosen you, and called you, and made you an heir of bliss. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

An uplifting, fat-tastic voyage to self-love, Read My Hips made me realize that I no longer need to be weighed down by constantly judging my body. I devoured this book-it's deliciously inspiring! — Hillary Carlip

Now, 'that sort of Bear' is of course a bear who wants to be flattered, and it is plain that the Christophoric ear is using Pooh to make its own devious request that it (the ear's projection, 'Christopher Robin') be made the center of attention. The Milnean voice, however, in its didactic-paternal role, is unprepared simply to feed the self-love of the Christophoric ear; it (the voice) must also see that it (the ear) is properly edified in a moral sense. The stories, therefore, will express a vector of the two forces pleasing and teaching the Christophoric ear. — Frederick C. Crews

Fame was not real. It was all a projection
fame made me a blank canvas that people projected their love, lust, troubles, self-worth, and desire upon. Fame and power do not change us; they amplify us. If we are insecure, we grow more so. If we are addictive, we become a greater addict and insatiable. If we are desirous of truth, we seek it more. If we are generous, we become more so. If we seek to fill holes through dishonest means, we have greater access to do so. Fame and power are masterful teachers. — Jewel

When you have reached the point where you no longer expect a response, you will at last be able to give in such a way that the other is able to receive, and be grateful. When Love has matured and, through a dissolution of the self into light, become a radiance, then shall the Lover be liberated from dependence upon the Beloved, and the Beloved also be made perfect by being liberated from the Lover. — Dag Hammarskjold

Bargaining This stage is characterized by the non-BP making concessions in order to bring back the "normal" behavior of the person they love. The thinking goes, "If I do what this person wants, I will get what I need in this relationship." We all make compromises in relationships. But the sacrifices that people make to satisfy the borderlines they care about can be very costly. And the concessions may never be enough. Before long, more proof of love is needed and another bargain must be struck. depression Depression sets in when non-BPs realize the true cost of the bargains they've made: loss of friends, family, self-respect, and hobbies. The person with BPD hasn't changed. But the non-BP has. — Paul Mason

I guess I just believed that I had moved beyond my old self. And now ... I find that I can't escape the mistakes I've made.
So redemption didn't save you from consequence?
No. It didn't, I whispered. And that was it. Redemption hadn't saved me from consequence. And I felt betrayed. I felt like the love that had been poured over me had been withdrawn before I'd had a chance to prove I was worthy of it. — Amy Harmon

The radical hermeneutic of suspicion that characterizes all of post-modernity is essentially nihilistic, denying the very possibility of creative or healing love. In the cross and resurrection of Jesus we find the answer: the God who made the world is revealed in terms of a self-giving love that no hermeneutic of suspicion can ever touch, in a Self that found itself by giving itself away, in a Story that was never manipulative but always healing and recreating, and in a Reality that can truly be known, indeed to know which is to discover a new dimension of knowledge, the dimension of loving and being loved. — N. T. Wright

How I adore you and want you. You can't know how much ... I love belonging to you
I glory in it, that you alone have bent me to your will, shattered my self-possession, robbed me of my mystery, and made me yours, so that away from you I am nothing but a useless puppet, an empty husk. — Violet Trefusis

How I hated myself, thwarted, poisoned and tortured myself, made myself old and ugly. Never again, as I once fondly imagined, will I consider that Siddartha is clever. But one thing I have done well, which pleases me, which I must praise- I have now put an end to that self-detestation, to that foolish empty life. I commend you, Siddartha, that after so many years of folly, you have again a good idea, that you have accomplished something, that you have again heard the bird in your breast sing and followed it. — Hermann Hesse

He clothed his motives in the names of virtue, and I have wondered whether he ever knew that no gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love.
There was a man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forces were loose in the world to utilize their fears. This man was hated by the few. When he died the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, What can we do now? How can we go on without him? — John Steinbeck

Once you start recognizing the truth of your story, finish the story. It happened but you're still here, you're still capable, powerful, you're not your circumstance. It happened and you made it through. You're still fully equipped with every single tool you need to fulfill your purpose. — Steve Maraboli

Anyway, how can you say things like that? You don't know me at all. She wasn't really caught up in this game, but she was enjoying it, as she had enjoyed the dozens of declarations that had been made to her since she was eleven. Her earliest memories were of being told how beautiful she was. Something in her never believed the words, never felt satisfied. It wasn't modesty; it was a craving for more proof than anyone had ever yet given her. Her mind worked constantly at trying to understand for herself exactly what other people saw when they looked at her. She could never grasp it whole and living. Her deepest fantasy was to step outside of her skin and look at herself and find out just what people were thinking about. She spent her life experimenting with people to see how she could make them react, as if, in their response, she could discover herself. — Judith Krantz