Self Neglect Quotes & Sayings

The causes of this mournful state of things are manifold. It may arise through a comparative neglect of prayer, for a neglected closet is the beginning of all spiritual decline. Or it may be the result of idolatry. The heart has been occupied with something else, more than with God; the affections have been set on the things of earth, instead of the things of heaven. A jealous God will not be content with a divided heart; he must be loved first and best. He will withdraw the sunshine of his presence from a cold, wandering heart. Or the cause may be found in self-confidence and self-righteousness. Pride is busy in the heart, and self is exalted instead of lying low at the foot of the cross. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

As a child you received messages from your family to keep your mouth shut and remain invisible. You also learned to become invisible in order to protect yourself. You no longer need to be invisible to survive. If people do not notice you, they may not abuse you, but they also will not love you or attend to your needs. Make yourself and your needs known. — Beverly Engel

We nourish the bodies of our children and friends and employees, but how seldom do we nourish their self-esteem? We provide them with roast beef and potatoes to build energy, but we neglect to give them kind words of appreciation that would sing in their memories for years like the music of the morning stars. — Dale Carnegie

What cannot be communicated to the [m]other cannot be communicated to the self. — John Bowlby

It is a base thing for a man to wax old in careless self-neglect before he has lifted up his eyes and seen what manner of man he was made to be, in the full perfection of bodily strength and beauty. But these glories are withheld from him who is guilty of self-neglect, for they are not wont to blaze forth unbidden. — Socrates

Doom comes about because of neglecting to evaluate one's self and because of just following one's whims. — Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya

NEVER BE SO BUSY BEING THE LIGHT FOR OTHERS THAT YOU NEGLECT TO SHINE ON YOURSELF — Qwana M. BabyGirl Reynolds-Frasier

My mother told me to raise my kids with calculated neglect. They get their self-worth from doing what they can do and not having everything done for them. — Lea Thompson

All children are born to grow, to develop, to live, to love, and to articulate their needs and feelings for their self-protection. — Alice Miller

The notion that a term can be modified arises from neglect to observe the eternal self-identity of all terms and all logical concepts, which alone form the constituents of propositions.* What is called modification consists merely in having at one time, but not at another, some specific relation to some other specific term; but the term which sometimes has and sometimes has not the relation in question must be unchanged, otherwise it would not be that term which had ceased to have the relation. — Bertrand Russell

More things are left undone through neglect of duty than through neglect of self-interest. — Francois Alexandre Frederic, Duc De La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education ... the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint ... It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold ... they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters. — Alexis De Tocqueville

But somewhere within each of us, buried at varying depths depending on the age and degree of neglect or abuse, shame or coercion we endured, there is a resistant, daydreaming, rebellious, creative, unique child
a true self who is waiting. — Gloria Steinem

We find these joys to be self evident: That all children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder, worthy of respect. The embodiment of life, liberty and happiness, children are original blessings, here to learn their own song. Every girl and boy is entitled to love, to dream and belong to a loving "village." And to pursue a life of purpose.
We affirm our duty to nourish and nurture the young, to honour their caring ideals as the heart of being human. To recognize the early years as the foundation of life, and to cherish the contribution of young children to human evolution.
We commit ourselves to peaceful ways and vow to keep from harm or neglect these, our most vulnerable citizens. As guardians of their prosperity we honour the bountiful Earth whose diversity sustains us. Thus we pledge our love for generations to come. — Raffi Cavoukian

When we are driven by ego and a relentless need to succeed, it's easy to blindly neglect the relationships, self-care and truth that will create joy and authentic fulfillment in our lives. — Shannon Tanner

[8] Consider who it is that you praise when you praise people dispassionately: is it those who are just, or unjust? - 'Those who are just.' - The temperate or the intemperate? - 'The temperate.' - The self-controlled or the dissolute? - 'The self-controlled.' [9] - You should know, then, that if you make yourself a person of that kind, you'll be making yourself beautiful; but if you neglect these virtues, you're bound to be ugly, whatever techniques you adopt to make yourself appear beautiful. — Epictetus

Never neglect an opportunity for improvement. — William Jones

He had lost that privilege of simple nature, the dissociation of love and pleasure. Pleasure was no longer as simple as eating; it was being complicated by love. Now was beginning that crazy loss of one's self, that neglect of everything but one's dramatic thoughts about the beloved, that feverish inner life all turning upon the [loved one]. — Thornton Wilder

In order to prevent self-interest and ill-conceived projects, and all such dangerous innovations as finally ruined the Athenians, each man should not be at liberty to propose new laws at pleasure; this right should belong exclusively to the magistrates.... It is above all the great antiquity of the laws which makes them sacred and venerable; men soon learn to despise laws which they see daily altered; and states, by accustoming themselves to neglect their ancient customs under the pretext of improvement, often introduce greater evils than those they endeavor to remove.109 — Will Durant

In a man like Friedrich von Schlegel the courage to be as an individual self produced complete neglect of participation, but it also produced, in reaction to the emptiness of this self-affirmation, the desire to return to a collective. Schlegel, and with him many extreme individualists in the last hundred years, became Roman Catholics. The courage to be as oneself broke down, and one turned to an institutional embodiment of the courage to be as a part. — Paul Tillich

... everything may be done in a right way or a wrong; the right way is to do it as well as we can, as in God's sight; the wrong is to do it in a self-seeking spirit, which either leads us to neglect it to follow out some device of our own before and after the doing. — Elizabeth Gaskell

The impenitent sometimes excuse themselves by saying of professed Christians, "I am as good as they are. They are no more self-denying, sober, or circumspect in their conduct than I am. They love pleasure and self-indulgence as well as I do." Thus they make the faults of others an excuse for their own neglect of duty. But the sins and defects of others do not excuse anyone, for the Lord has not given us an erring human pattern. The spotless Son of God has been given as our example, and those who complain of the wrong course of professed Christians are the ones who should show better lives and nobler examples. If they have so high a conception of what a Christian should be, is not their own sin so much the greater? They know what is right, and yet refuse to do it. {SC 32.1} — Ellen G. White

Morrow [ ... ] felt that OASIS had evolved into something horrible. It had become a self-imposed prison for humanity. A pleasant place for the world to hide from its problems while human civilization slowly collapses, primarily due to neglect. — Ernest Cline

Love doesn't die a natural death. Love has to be killed, either by neglect or narcissism. Those guilty of these two crimes of the heart always hide behind excuses convenient; too ashamed, lacking in integrity and courage to face the truth. To them, it is always something other than their own actions, desires and self-importance that dictate circumstances. For these people, so blind to truth, true love can never be fully experienced for they have never really given of themselves all that they are. — Frank Salvato

Abandonment is at the core of addictions. Abandonment causes deep shame. Abandonment by betrayal is worse than mindless neglect. Betrayal is purposeful and self-serving. If severe enough, it is traumatic. What moves betrayal into the realm of trauma is fear and terror. If the wound is deep enough, and the terror big enough, your bodily systems shift to an alarm state. You never feel safe. You're always on full-alert, just waiting for the hurt to begin again. In that state of readiness, you're unaware that part of you has died. You are grieving. Like everyone who has loss, you have shock and disbelief, fear, loneliness and sadness. Yet you are unaware of these feelings because your guard is up. In your readiness, you abandon yourself. Yes, another abandonment. — Patrick J. Carnes

The poorest education that teaches self-control is better than the best that neglects it. — Dorothy Nevill

The essence of true nobility is neglect of self. Let the thought of self pass in, and the beauty of a great action is gone, like the bloom from a soiled flower. — James Anthony Froude

Time, place, and space for all things, but spending [the] majority of one's time playing in outer places, and far less time exploring inner space, is perhaps the worst form of neglect. Don't play yourself; the real you awaits. — T.F. Hodge

It is a certain sign of an ill heart to be inclined to defamation. They who are harmless and innocent can have no gratification that way; but it ever arises from a neglect of what is laudable in a man's self. — Richard Steele

If we were to focus our attention on one particular problem and neglect the others, we would fail to see the true scope of our current global issues. The changes made in that form of thinking are limited and self-contained. — Ian Somerhalder

Above all: only grant the suspicion that sport is a pastime for the most stupid as much space as it deserves, do not misuse it as a pretext to drift further in your customary state of self-neglect, distrust the philistine in yourself who thinks you are just fine as you are! Hear the voice from the stone, do not resist the call to get in shape! Seize the chance to train with a god! — Peter Sloterdijk

So large a portion of those who hold much capital, instead of using their various advantages for the greatest good of those around them, employ the chief of them for mere selfish indulgences; thus inflicting as much mischief on themselves, as results to others from their culpable neglect. A great portion of the rich seem to be acting on the principle, that the more God bestows on them, the less are they under obligation to practise any self-denial, in fulfilling his benevolent plan of raising our race to intelligence and holiness. — Catharine Beecher

Exactly what are you wanting to teach your children? -How to love and care for themselves, or how to neglect and abandon themselves? Self-sarifice is NOT setting a good example. — Miya Yamanouchi

The health care establishment is structured to profit from chemical and surgical intervention. Diet still takes the back seat to drugs and surgery. One criticism that is constantly leveled at the dietary argument is that patients will not make such fundamental changes. One doctor charges that Dr. Esselstyn's patients change their eating habits simply because of Esselstyn's "zealous belief."47 This criticism is not only wrong and insulting to patients; it is also self-fulfilling. If doctors do not believe that patients will change their diets, they will neglect to talk about diet, or will do it in an off-handed, disparaging way. — T. Colin Campbell

We might neglect our future selves because of some failure of belief or imagination. — Derek Parfit

By speaking the truth, we learn the difference between our authentic self and our facade. If we put our little masked self out there, the horror is that other people might accept and end up making love to it, while we starve and die of neglect behind it. It's much richer to interact genuinely with the world. When you speak the truth, it feeds and brightens your Spirit. When you don't, it dims your Spirit. Don't you want to live in a way that brightens your Spirit? To take a deep breath and feel what's rocketing and roiling around in your core? What a delight! — Ana T. Forrest

I was a very lonely child and it's funy but the first word that comes to my head is "starved". I felt starved of affection, starved of love and I felt that it wasn't OK to ask for it. Maybe there was a sense that if I deserved it, it would be there. There must be something I'd done which meant I didn't deserve it. — Carol Lee

Often, we tend to wrap ourselves around him so tight that we neglect our mission, our purpose, our calling, sometimes our children and even our God — N. Sophronia Crosby

Knowing that I am different from the body, I need not neglect the body. It is a vehicle that I use to transact with the world. It is the temple which houses the Pure Self within. — Adi Shankara

One of the greatest mistakes that people make who pursue self-discovery is they neglect to develop their careers. There is a popular notion that those who seek enlightenment should abandon the things of this world. — Frederick Lenz

As an advocate for kids for over twenty years, I have watched things change since I was in school. Thankfully, this book made me face what I intuitively knew was real but pretended wasn't: The youth of our culture have been deeply wounded by our collective neglect and adult-driven self-focus. Young people need adults to understand what they are going through and people to care about them without a personal agenda. This book was very helpful to me, and my attitude toward teens will never be the same. — Doug Fields

My parents never recognized the things that for me were achievements. I was praised for the things that came naturally to me, like my intelligence, but when I really put all my effort into looking nice (trying to), it went unrecognised. No-one ever told me I looked pretty or nice, or that I was a beautiful person (to them) and I needed them to... — Carol Lee

There is no hint here that preaching is thought of primarily as self-expression
of subjective experience or feeling-disclosure or autobiography or 'telling one's story' so as to neglect Scripture."275 It is the Word that is to be preached. — Ben Witherington III

Your life, my life, the life of each one of us is going to serve as either a warning or an example. A warning of the consequences of neglect, self-pity, lack of direction and ambition ... or an example of talent put to use, of discipline self-imposed, and of objectives clearly perceived and intensely pursued. — Jim Rohn

The peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and abandoned while they neglect the means of self-defence. The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside ... Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them; ... the weak will become prey. — Thomas Paine

Our human responsibility for animal rights, plant rights, and the rights of the earth to its health and wholeness is self-evident. Whatever our beliefs about the hereafter we are the temporary custodians of the here-and-now, and if we neglect our obligations or abuse our powers then we abrogate any rights to a further share in this planet's delights. — Densey Clyne

The diet industry is making a lot of money selling us fad diets, nonfat foods full of chemicals, gym memberships, and pills while we lose a piece of our self-esteem every time we fail another diet or neglect to use the gym membership we could barely afford. — Portia De Rossi

I have learned that the kindness of a teacher, a coach, a policeman, a neighbor, the parent of a friend, is never wasted. These moments are likely to pass with neither the child nor the adult fully knowing the significance of the contribution. No ceremony attaches to the moment that a child sees his own worth reflected in the eyes of an encouraging adult. Though nothing apparent marks the occasion, inside that child a new view of self might take hold. He is not just a person deserving of neglect or violence, not just a person who is a burden to the sad adults in his life, not just a child who fails to solve his family's problems, who fails to rescue them from pain or madness or addiction or poverty or unhappiness. No, this child might be someone else, someone whose appearance before this one adult revealed specialness or lovability, or value. — Gavin De Becker

Many felt a profound malaise at the idea that the sources of benevolence should be just enlightened self-interest, or simply feelings of sympathy. This seemed to neglect altogether the human power of self-transcendence, the capacity to go beyond self-related desire altogether
and follow a higher aspiration. This — Charles Taylor

The essence of greatness is neglect of the self. — James Anthony Froude

The greatest damage done by neglect, trauma or emotional loss is not the immediate pain they inflict but the long-term distortions they induce in the way a developing child will continue to interpret the world and her situation in it. All too often these ill-conditioned implicit beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies in our lives. We create meanings from our unconscious interpretation of early events, and then we forge our present experiences from the meaning we've created. Unwittingly, we write the story of our future from narratives based on the past ... Mindful awareness can bring into consciousness those hidden, past-based perspectives so that they no longer frame our worldview.'Choice begins the moment you disidentify from the mind and its conditioned patterns, the moment you become present ... Until you reach that point, you are unconscious.' ... In present awareness we are liberated from the past. — Gabor Mate

Do not just believe in God and neglect the fact that He has an unprecedented belief in you. — Johnnie Dent Jr.

If you neglect to exercise self-control, you are not only likely to injure others, but you are sure to injure yourself! — Napoleon Hill

I'd rather fiddle with my phone for precious seconds than neglect an apostrophe; I'd rather insert a word laboriously keyed out than resort to predictive texting for a - acceptable to some - synonym. — Will Self

Our "ego" or self-conception could be pictured as a leaking balloon, forever requiring the helium of external love to remain inflated, and ever vulnerable to the smallest pinpricks of neglect. — Alain De Botton

During my PhD, I was depressed for eight-months, state of deep-worry. The stressful life leads to neglect of spirituality and wellness. I recovered by inspiration of great souls, friends and family. Ever since, I have sought spirituality of soul and well-being over all other things. — Lailah Gifty Akita

In every generation there have been matters which the general public is irresistibly tempted to ignore, partly through actual lack of information, but far more through indolence, or even through active dislike of inconvenient facts. In such cases, Parliament and Press are often under the subtlest temptations of all, and bear the heaviest guilt for their neglect of the common weal. In times of dangerous self-complacency, a nuisance may be most useful: indeed, it may become useful in proportion to its crying insistence. — George G. Coulton

[On Anger]
[T]he instinct of self-preservation, setting itself against everything that interferes with our pleasures and comfort. What is called temper, with its fruits of anger and strife, has its roots in the physical constitution, and is one among the sins of the flesh.
[of the spirit ... ]
[T]he doing our will rather than His. In relation to our fellow-men it shows itself in envy, hatred, and want of love, cold neglect or harsh judging of others.
[of fear ... ]
The fear of God need never hinder the faith in Him. And true faith will never hinder the practical work of cleansing. — Andrew Murray

Naturalism is the view that the physical world is a self-contained system that works by blind, unbroken natural laws. Naturalism doesn't come right out and say there's nothing beyond nature. Rather, it says that nothing beyond nature could have any conceivable relevance to what happens in nature. Naturalism's answer to theism is not atheism but benign neglect. People are welcome to believe in God, though not a God who makes a difference in the natural order. — William A. Dembski

Until you experience real loneliness, you shall never know what real loneliness is. So many people feel miserable and lonely just because they ignore their inner man, create a gap between themselves and their inner man, and neglect their true self! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

They warn us when we're kids that we're going to have to suffer, but they neglect to mention the indignity. What self-respecting fetus, if shown its future as a proctology patient, boot-camp recruit, or game show contestant, would still elect to be born? — Tom Robbins