Quotes & Sayings About Self Taught

Self-regulation can be taught to many kids who cycle between frantic activity and immobility. In addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, all kids need to learn self-awareness, self-regulation, and communication as part of their core curriculum. Just as we teach history and geography, we need to teach children how their brains and bodies work. For adults and children alike, being in control of ourselves requires becoming familiar with our inner world and accurately identifying what scares, upsets, or delights us. — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

First, my people must be taught the knowledge of self. Then and only then will they be able to under-stand others and that which surrounds them. Anyone who does not have a knowledge of self is considered a victim of either amnesia or unconsciousness and is not very competent. The lack of knowledge of self is a prevailing condition among my people here in America. Gaining the knowledge of self makes us unite into a great unity. Knowledge of self makes you take on the great virtue of learning. — Elijah Muhammad

As wonderful as they were, my parents didn't teach me anything about self-discipline, concentration, patience, or focus. If I hadn't had a family myself, I probably never would've done anything. Marriage taught me responsibility. — Dick Van Dyke

No one was interested in Malabo - this was why the people in the village must have suspected him of having a deeper motive for visiting. He wanted something from them - why else would he come all this way to live in a hut? Altruism was unknown. Forty years of aid and charities and NGOs had taught them that. Only self-interested outsiders trifled with Africa, so Africa punished them for it. — Paul Theroux

But it also taught me that it is easier to overcome people's judgments than to overcome our own self-judgment, the fear we internalize. — Ken Robinson

His education was sketchy, yet he was immensely learned in the oblique and selective way of someone self-taught. — Paul Theroux

This inability to just do nothing is a direct result of our habit of externalisation. As children we are never taught in schools, or in social settings, to look within ourselves for answers. Whether it is that our answers are found in some sort of religion, or another person, or in something else, we start to make this common practice. We are indecisive in life looking to friends, family, counsellors, teachers, and even strangers for advice. We are never taught or, better yet, shown how to look after our number one relationship in life, which is the relationship with one's self. — Evan Sutter

Look, if you're going to insist that I've taught you something, I guess I should give you a final exam." "Really?" "One question." "Sure." "Go look at an electron microscope photograph of an atom, okay? Don't just glance at it. It is very important that you examine it very closely. Think about what it means." "Okay." "And then answer this question. Does it make your heart flutter?" "Does it make my heart flutter?" "Yes or no. It's a yes or no question. No equations allowed." "All right, I'll let you know." "Don't be dense. I don't need to know. You need to know. This exam is self-graded. And it's not the answer that counts, it's what you do with the information." We locked eyes. His younger face flashed in my mind. The energetic, smiling bongo drum player I had seen pictured in the front of his book, The Feynman Lectures on Physics. A question popped from my lips. — Anonymous

Then ego goes on growing, because the society needs you as an ego, not as a Self. The Self is irrelevant for the society; your periphery is meaningful. And there are many problems. The ego can be taught and the ego can be made docile and the ego can be forced to be obedient. The ego can be made to adjust, but not the Self. The Self cannot be taught, the Self cannot be forced. The Self is intrinsically rebellious, individual. It cannot be made a part of society. — Rajneesh

If freedom, personal responsibility, self-initiative, honesty, integrity, and concern for others rank high in your system of values, and if they represent characteristics you would like to see in your children, then you will want to be a trustful parent. None of these can be taught by lecturing, coercion, or coaxing. They are acquired or lost through daily life experiences that reinforce or suppress them. You can help your children build these values by living them yourself and applying them in your relationship with your children. Trust promotes trustworthiness. Self-initiative and all of the traits that depend on self-initiative can develop only under conditions of freedom. — Peter Gray

Yes, I'm a reasonably good self-taught historian of the 1930s and '40s. I've never wanted to write about another time or place. I wouldn't know what to say about contemporary society. — Alan Furst

And what is justice? The princess thought of that proud word 'justice'. All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear and simple law - the law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was God. What had she to do with justice or injustice of other people? She had to endure and love, and that she did. — Leo Tolstoy

There have been many people for whom limitations, failure, loss, or pain in whatever form turned out to be their greatest teacher. It taught them to let go of false self-images and superficial ego-dictated goals and desires. It gave them depth, humility and compassion. It made them more real. — Eckhart Tolle

Being self-taught is no disgrace; but being self-certified is another matter. — Hugh Nibley

The few women who have been admitted to the study are usually given a second-class status in which they are taught only the basics of self-discovery. — Frederick Lenz

What is the value and worth of knowledge? My teachings have taught me that many will die for lack of knowledge. If knowledge and mindset are key ingredients to life - why do some reject it? Remove know from knowledge and you are standing on the ledge. When are we going to rescue ourselves from the ledge? — Bobby F. Kimbrough Jr.

The dilemma for women who love to write may not have so much to do with finding the elusive literary voice, as with being reluctant to use the one that's already lurking inside, just waiting for the chance to speak up. Many of us, especiall,y those from the generations taught to be good, accommodating girls, are afraid of sounding too strong, too loud, too unconventional, or simply too much like the self we're afraid to reveal to the world. Most of us have at least an inkling of what form our writing voice should take, if only we might find the courage to reveal it. — Nava Atlas

I had a fantastic mother who taught me self-confidence. — Anna Torv

I had no training in research as such, and as a consequence, I am, in a sense, self-taught. — Yves Chauvin

And yet if anything in the world can save you, it is not a convent and not Catholicism, but simply an active interest in your fellow-creatures. When experience and observation have taught us love and charity, we are saved, and life is no longer terrible. Fate may be as cruel as she pleases ; but if we have warmth and love in our hearts, we shall never be alone, never in despair, and shall never think of self-destruction, if only out of pity for all our suffering brothers, whom, as long as we live, we have always the chance of helping. — Aimee Dostoyevsky

He self-serving, doubt-quenching, certainty-seeking faith that these folks are choosing to pursue is not faith as it's taught in Scripture ... the faith that God's people are called to embrace is one that encourages people to wrestle with God, to not be afraid of questions, and to act faithfully in the face of uncertainty. — Gregory A. Boyd

The earliest issue I can remember going through was body image issues. I was a chubby little kid and I got made fun of for it. I dealt with horrible, horrible self esteem issues, and I still struggle with that. I think it's what taught me a lot of empathy and compassion, though, but there are those days where I look in the mirror and I still see twelve year old fat Sara. — Sara Bareilles

To deny that human beings are filled with anti-social passions betrays a denial of reality and a lack of self-awareness. One has to be taught nonsense for a great many formative years to believe it. — Dennis Prager

I'm self-taught and emailed photographers I knew if I had questions I couldn't figure out from the manual or online. — Hanneli Mustaparta

ELet this point therefore stand: that those whom the Holy Spirit has inwardly taught truly rest upon Scripture, and that Scripture indeed is self-authenticated;16 hence, it is not right to subject it to proof and reasoning. — John Calvin

One of the things we haven't taught our people as a nation, that this is their country. We haven't told them that this Bahamas belongs to them. Whether it succeeds or fails it is entirely up to them. WE haven't told our people that they are valuable. I sometimes pass little boys playing in the road and I would stop my car and say to them: 'Excuse me baby, do you realize how valuable you are? Do not play in the road, if anything happen to you that is going to hurt us. Because you might be our Prime Minister one day. Iris Adderley, consultant in the Disability Affairs Devision of The Department of Social Services. — Drexel Deal

When people self-harm themselves its not always because they want people to notice them, or because they weren't taught better. They sometimes have all the attention a person could want and they have been taught better. People just don't realize that even within all that. Something terrible could be happening in a person's life, which may lead them to cutting. Don't judge. — Triss

I love color. When I paint, I use a lot of color. I love art that has a vibrancy of color and compositions. I adore the Impressionists, and I'm influenced strongly by them as a self-taught artist. — Pierce Brosnan

Spiritual instruments suffer in their potency when their use is taught through non-spiritual messages which are self-propagating. — Mahatma Gandhi

Because we live in a world under siege," I say. "Life sucks for mages and magicians- you taught me that. Bad things happen to those of us who get involved, but if we didn't fight, we'd be in an even worse state. None of it it's your fault, any more than it's the fault of the moon or the stars."
Dervish nods slowly, then arches an eyebrow "The moon or the stars?"
"I always get poetic when I'm dealing with self-pitying simpletons. — Darren Shan

Our religious systems have taught us to "train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6) I couldn't disagree more. How about, "feed a child what it needs, so when it gets grows up, it will "be" its own unique unpredictably creative self. — Christopher Zzenn Loren

The best schools tend to have the best teachers, not to mention parents who supervise homework, so there is less need for self-organised learning. But where a child comes from a less supportive home environment, where there are family tensions perhaps, their schoolwork can suffer. They need to be taught to think and study for themselves. — Sugata Mitra

Jesus confronted many of the important issues of His time. He went into the temple, taught the New Testament message, and took action against those who were buying and selling on holy ground. He healed the widow, forgave the adulterer, and by His example, the righteous walked away in shame. He had said, whoever is without sin, cast the first stone (John 8:7 - paraphrase)! Not one pebble, nor one rock was thrown. He who had that right to judge, Jesus Christ, did not cast judgement either. He looked upon the sinner lovingly, and embraced them. He guided them to change and opened blind eyes to see. By Christ alone, was and is salvation attained. Truth is in the New Testament, and a Holy Spirit-guided understanding of it. It must be read without regard for self. For when self enters in, that is when misinterpretations and heresies arise. — Zechariah Barrett

We do not need to attend classroom training programmes for everything. Observation opens the windows of knowledge around us — Sukant Ratnakar

Cancer taught me a plan for more purposeful living, and that in turn taught me how to train and to win more purposefully. It taught me that pain has a reason, and that sometimes the experience of losing things-whether health or a car or an old sense of self-has its own value in the scheme of life. Pain and loss are great enhancers. — Lance Armstrong

I think the ability to focus is a thread that runs through so-called successful people. And that's something that can be developed. It can be self-taught. — Fred L. Turner

It must be frustrating to survive the gauntlet that is our western medical schooling system only to one day come to the realization that you have been taught only to manage illness and disease instead of curing it. — Gary Hopkins

All great contemporary artists, schooled or not, are essentially self-taught and are de-skilling like crazy. I don't look for skill in art ... Skill has nothing to do with technical proficiency ... I'm interested in people who rethink skill, who redefine or reimagine it: an engineer, say, who builds rockets from rocks. — Jerry Saltz

Since I've started fighting it has taught me a lot about self respect, self confidence and self control. — Gina Carano

I'm a self-taught guitarist, but I have a classical music background. — Adam Jones

My lowest self says: "That person is acting like a total jerk!"
My slightly higher self says: "That person is acting like a total jerk right now only because he's going through a really hard time in life, and his parents never taught him how to behave better, and he might have some sort of mild mental illness, and also he has a drinking problem ... so I should try to be more compassionate and generous toward sad, tragic, miserable people like that."
My even higher self says: "We are all just flawed and frightened human beings in an uncertain world, struggling to survive."
Then finally my VERY highest self says: "Lord, please help me stop acting like a total jerk."
... and that's when it finally stops being about the other person at all. — Elizabeth Gilbert

My father taught me that losing your temper is a self-indulgent act. — Hugh Jackman

Like the 'little emperors' of one-child China, too many Boomers were taught early that the world was made (or saved) for their comfort and enjoyment. They behaved accordingly, with a self-indulgence that was wholly rational, given their situation. — Eric Liu

Think back to your own childhood. I'm sure most of us have been scolded for not tidying up our rooms, but how many of our parents consciously taught us how to tidy as part of our upbringing? Our parents demanded that we clean up our rooms, but they, too, had never been trained in how to do that. When it comes to tidying, we are all self-taught. — Marie Kondo

Educators best serve students by helping them be more self-reflective. The only way any of us can improve - as Coach Graham taught me - is if we develop a real ability to assess ourselves. If we can't accurately do that, how can we tell if we're getting better or worse? — Randy Pausch

Abraham Lincoln, a predecessor of Barack Obama in both the White House and the Illinois state legislature, had eighteen months of formal education and became a soldier, surveyor, postmaster, rail-splitter, tavern keeper, and self-taught prairie lawyer. Obama went to Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard Law School, and became a "community organizer." I'm not sure that's progress--and it's certainly not "sustainable. — Mark Steyn

An artist who is self-taught is taught by a very ignorant person indeed. — John Constable

The predominant teachings of this age are that there are no limits to man's capacity to govern others and that, therefore, no limitations ought to be imposed upon government. The older faith, born of long ages of suffering under man's dominion over man, was that the exercise of unlimited power by men with limited minds and self-regarding prejudices is soon oppressive, reactionary, and corrupt. The older faith taught that the very condition of progress was the limitation of power to the capacity and the virtue of rulers. — Walter Lippmann

A person who refuses to manage himself and discipline his flesh will be disciplined and taught by life itself. — Sunday Adelaja

James Thurber was an inspiration because his drawings were so primitive. I am self-taught - I didn't go to art school - so I thought when I started doing them, 'If James Thurber can be a cartoonist, I can,' because his stuff is very raw. — Bruce Eric Kaplan

It is true that the poet does not directly address his neighbors; but he does address a great congress of persons who dwell at the back of his mind, a congress of all those who have taught him and whom he has admired; they constitute his ideal audience and his better self. — Richard Wilbur

When I was growing up and trying to get my foot on the ladder, I had the self-belief that my mother taught me, and it never occurred to me that anything could go wrong. I've learned life can't be like that. — Diana Quick

Self-confidence is not taught or learned; it is earned by surpassing your own self-limitations. — John Raynolds

In the bush he taught the knots I use to tie my blanket to my saddle Ds also the way I stand to use a carpenter's plane and the trick of catching fish with a bush fly and a strip of greenhide these things are like the dark marks made in the rings of great trees locked forever in my daily self. — Peter Carey

I'm Irish and always will be, but America has taught me so much. Maybe it's here in the U.S. that we find a healing, for in the broader melting pot we get to look at some of these self-destructive attributes that we bring to bear upon our own quarrels and begin to solve them in ways other than just splitting apart. — Fionnula Flanagan

In their pure form, the martial arts demand the intense awareness of the meditative mind, and have nothing to do with anger or wanton aggression. A practitioner is taught from the outset that the skills must never be used for personal gain, but only in self-defence or in the protection of others
and even then only enough force as is absolutely necessary should be used. — David Fontana

I didn't graduate high school, so I never got a teacher's education, I'm mostly self-read, self-taught. I always loved music, so I would probably either be in a band with another group of people, or an arranger, a producer, a musicologist, a music history guy, something to do with music. Either that, or I would probably be in jail. Or dead. — Billy Joel

I would turn the question around to people, especially those reporters who wrote some of those articles. Are you advocating our daughters shouldn't learn self-defense? Because that's what was taught at that rally. — Matt Shea

The old lessons (work, self-discipline, sacrifice, teamwork, fighting to achieve) aren't being taught by many people other than football coaches these days. The football coach has a captive audience and can teach these lessons because the communication lines between himself and his players are more wide open than between kids and parents. We better teach these lessons or else the country's future population will be made up of a majority of crooks, drug addicts, or people on relief. — Bear Bryant

[In eighteenth-century Britain] engineers for the most began as simple workmen, skilful and ambitious but usually illiterate and self-taught. They were either millwrights like Bramah, mechanics like Murdoch and George Stephenson, or smiths like Newcomen and Maudslay. — John Desmond Bernal

Anita Johnston, Ph.D., author of Eating in the Light of the Moon, taught me to look in the mirror with curiosity rather than fear. So I may look at my reflection and think, 'That's interesting. I wonder why my body seems bigger today than it did yesterday. Maybe it's water weight. Maybe it's my outfit. Or maybe my eyes are just playing tricks on me.' I know it's not possible for me to gain a noticeable amount of weight overnight, so I will go no further than that. I move on with my day without skipping a beat - and definitely without missing a meal. — Jenni Schaefer

There's no "get rich quick." There's no "overnight success."

However, this doesn't mean that when you decide to start a business that you're just starting. You could start making new money tomorrow.

I was fishing with my son and taught him that you can't catch a fish unless your line is in the water. A truth my dad once taught me.
You may have spent years learning a skill or creating a product or service that you just simply haven't thought to monetize. Like leaving a fishing pole on the ground along side the river, but not having your line in the water yet.

All you need to create a new stream of income is to make something consumable and offer it at a price that someone will pay.

If you're not making offers, you're not making money.

Get your line in the water! — Richie Norton

Religion, as it is generally taught all over the world, is said to be based upon faith and belief, and, in most cases, consists only of different sets of theories, and that is the reason why we find all religions quarrelling with one another. — Abhijit Naskar

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, painted here by his friend Jan Vermeer, was a self-taught instrument maker. — Bill Bryson

Everything I've ever taught in terms of self-help boils down to this - I cannot believe people keep paying me to say this - if something feels really good for you, you might want to do it. And if it feels really horrible, you might want to consider not doing it. Thank you, give me my $150. — Martha Beck

Many who are self-taught far excel the doctors, masters, and bachelors of the most renowned universities. — Ludwig Von Mises

I felt the need to clarify we were there for the self defense class, in case he also taught about dog breeding or riding the high seas. — Richelle Mead

The Buddha taught that all life is suffering. We might also say that life, being both attractive and constantly dangerous, is intoxicating and ultimately toxic. 'Toxic' comes from toxicon, Pendell tells us, with a root meaning of 'a poisoned arrow.' All organic life is struck by the arrows of real and psychic poisons. This is understood by any true, that is to say, not self-deluding, spiritual path. — Gary Snyder

You were taught that love is supposed to be patient and kind, and not something that challenges you and changes you and makes you who you are. — Brianna Wiest

No matter what corruption he's taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment - just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity?-an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as his standard of value. — Ayn Rand

Any musician with a slight level of self-awareness can be taught to write a 'good' song. A great song is completely original. It feels as if the performer is the only person who could bring it to life. — Greta Salpeter

Everything that happens to you is your teacher. The secret is to learn to sit at the feet of your own life and be taught by it.
Polly B. Berends — Polly Berrien Berends

Three days a week she helped at the Manor Nursing Home, where people proved their keenness by reciting received analyses of current events. All the Manor residents watched television day and night, informed to the eyeballs like everyone else and rushed for time, toward what end no one asked. Their cupidity and self-love were no worse than anyone else's, but their many experiences' having taught them so little irked Lou. One hated tourists, another southerners; another despised immigrants. Even dying, they still held themselves in highest regard. Lou would have to watch herself. For this way of thinking began to look like human nature
as if each person of two or three billion would spend his last vital drop to sustain his self-importance. — Annie Dillard

I am self-taught. In other words, God is my teacher. — Akiane Kramarik

Many people who excel are self-taught. — Herb Ritts

Those accustomed to failure fear the novelty of success. Those taught the lessons of subordination are oft timid in the school of self-service. — M T Anderson

The lessons which I remember the longest are always the ones that are self-taught — Stephen King

Tips can make someone a better writer but not necessarily a good writer. That's a larger package - a matter of character. Golfing is more than keeping the left arm straight. Every good golfer is a complex engine that runs on ability, ego, determination, discipline, patience, confidence, and other qualities that are self-taught. So it is with writers and all creative artists. If their values are solid their work is likely to be solid. — William Zinsser

He had not liked the things taught to him in college. He had been taught a great deal about social responsibility, about a life of service and self-sacrifice. Everybody had said it was beautiful and inspiring. Only he had not felt inspired. He had felt nothing at all. — Ayn Rand

If it had taught them nothing else, twenty years of living past high school had taught them self-preservation ... No one was going to risk putting his ego on the line; they would come prepared with dates, flattering clothes, and a well-rehearsed, carefully edited biography. They would all be kind to each other. High school was enough torture for one lifetime. — Sharyn McCrumb

How could this word be a party of May's vocabulary if neither one ever taught her? Just like that, she has deepened. Beneath her blond-white hair are these two new eyes that see what he can't guess. She is capable of withholding, then revealing. How has she learned to be this new thing that she is? He cups his hand to the back of her head, and holds her close, feeling already that all of it will pass too soon, that she is already becoming her own self, composed of secret knowledge. — Emily Ruskovich

Galway Kinnell came out with that wonderful big, breathy, hollow voice of his and read, for the first time in public, "The Bear." That poem impressed me so much that I memorized it. I used it for years when I taught in prisons. It's a powerful extended metaphor for what the writing life is really all about. It's a uniquely powerful poem about self-transformation, and that's what we're asking, really, beyond even our objection to the war. We're asking people to look at themselves and think about what might be possible with a little self-transformation. — Sam Hamill

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

I've written since I was 10 years old, so I guess I'm self-taught. I've had some luck along the way, I must admit, and I've worked hard. — Linda Lael Miller

All Christians are called to develop God-given talents, to make the most of their lives, and to develop to the fullest their God-given gifts and capabilities. But Jesus taught that ambition that centers on the self is wrong. — J. Oswald Sanders

Experience had taught him how far their minds reflected each other. But he was the elder, by a matter of minutes, and that brief extra interval of light, while his brother still struggled in pain and darkness, had given him self-reliance and an instinct of protection towards the other who was afraid of so many things. — Graham Greene

We shall never learn to feel and respect our real calling and destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider every thing as moonshine, compared with the education of the heart. — Walter Scott

I try to teach people to continually search and question the meaning of everything they are taught and everything they believe in. My job is not so much to impart a philosophy but to train people in the methods of self-discovery. — Frederick Lenz

I'm self-taught. I didn't just become a man, it was a decision. — Aiden Shaw

Real good luck would be to abandon life without ever encountering dishonesty, or hypocrisy, or self-indulgence, or pride. But the "next best voyage" is to die when you've had enough. Or are you determined to lie down with evil? Hasn't experience even taught you that - to avoid it like the plague? Because it is a plague - a mental cancer - worse than anything caused by tainted air or an unhealthy climate. Diseases like that can only threaten your life; this one attacks your humanity. — Marcus Aurelius

My father was a trained accountant, a BCom from Sydenham College and a self-taught violinist. In the 1920s, when he was in his teens, he heard a great violinist, Jascha Heifetz, and he was so inspired listening to him that he bought himself a violin, and with a little help from an Italian teacher, he learned to play it. — Zubin Mehta

Don't forget the real business of war is buying and selling. The murdering and violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death's a stimolous to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try 'n' grab a piece of that Pie while they're still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. — Thomas Pynchon

Our standards of morality are begotten of the past needs of society, but is society to remain always the same? The observance of communal traditions involves a constant sacrifice of the individual to the state. Education, in order to keep up the mighty delusion, encourages a species of ignorance. People are not taught to be really virtuous, but to behave properly. We are wicked because we are frightfully self-conscious. We nurse a conscience because we are afraid to tell the truth to others; we take refuge in pride because we are afraid to tell the truth to ourselves. How can one be serious with the world when the world itself is so ridiculous! — Okakura Kakuzo

Wisdom is the most-sought intellectual degree whose subjects are regularly learned throughout life with an open mind in an open university called life and taught by a teacher who is none other than self-experience only. — Anuj

We sometimes hurt those we love because they need to be "taught a lesson," when we really want to punish. We were depressed and complained we felt bad, when in fact we were mainly asking for sympathy and attention. This odd trait of mind and emotion, this perverse wish to hide a bad motive underneath a good one, permeates human affairs from top to bottom. This subtle and elusive kind of self-righteousness can underlie the smallest act or thought. Learning daily to spot, admit, and correct these flaws is the essence of character-building and good living. An honest regret for harms done, a genuine gratitude for blessings received, and a willingness to try for better things tomorrow will be the permanent assets we shall seek. — Alcoholics Anonymous

I am thankful when I am hungry because then I know that when I eat, the food will taste better. Life has taught me that my true contentment rests in hope, and the pleasure itself is secondary. It is self-awareness, not happiness, that maintains peace. — Criss Jami

Then science came along and taught us that we are not the measure of all things, that there are wonders unimagined, that the Universe is not obliged to conform to what we consider comfortable or plausible. We have learned something about the idiosyncratic nature of our common sense. Science has carried human self-consciousness to a higher level. This is surely a rite of passage, a step towards maturity. — Carl Sagan

I celebrate myself," the poet Walt Whitman wrote. The thought is so delicious it is almost obscene. Imagine the joy that would come with celebrating the self - our achievements, our experiences, our existence. Imagine what it would be like to look into the mirror and say, as God taught us, "That's good. — Joan D. Chittister

Unlike other peoples the United States found their origin in a deliberate act of corporate self-assertion, and ever since the Revolution every little American has been taught to associate himself personally with this creative act. — Christopher Dawson

I don't think people realise how vital libraries are or what a colossal danger it would be if we were to lose any more. Having had a truncated school life myself, all of my education from the age of 17 has been self-taught. I wouldn't be the person I am today if it wasn't for the opportunities the library gave me. — Alan Moore