Self Well Being Quotes & Sayings

A common mistake people make is assuming compassion requires some kind of action they're not ready to take. In other words, if I feel compassion for this dangerous, havoc-wreaking person (or for my tedious co-workers, the guy who cut me off in traffic, my abusive parents, that politician, etc.) then I'll have to drop everything I'm into and go hug and try to heal or help...or
...do something I don't know how to do. Not so.

Compassion begins within; the compassion you have for yourself will guide you to act or detach with regard for your own well-being. — Laurie Perez

I'm not talking about the blood ecstasy. I'm talking about my being able to fill that emotion void she has. You know her as well as I do, maybe better. She aches with it. She needs to be accepted for who she is so badly. And I was able to do that. Do you know good that felt? To be able to show someone that, yes, you are someone worth sacrificing for? That you like them for their faults and that you respect them for their ability to rise above them? — Kim Harrison

I think the truth is that finding ourselves brings more excitement and well-being than anything romance has to offer, and somewhere we know that. — Bell Hooks

We all practice self-deception to a degree; no man can handle complete honesty without being cut at each turn. There's not enough room in a man's head for sanity alongside each grief, each worry, each terror that he owns. I'm well used to burying such things in a dark cellar and moving on. — Mark Lawrence

Good music makes a happy life. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Rethink Your Success Mindset: Times are getting tougher. We need tougher mindsets to ensure that we go beyond survive to thrive. — Tony Dovale

The very way that you think is a crucial component to your overall health and well being. Living towards the negative will only foster conflict and a sense of lack, while living towards the positive will create more opportunity for you to experience harmony and abundance. — Gary Hopkins

You don't have to be like anyone else. You just need to learn more about your own creative self and start blooming. — Deborah Day

While overeating would be seen by some as an indulgence of self, it is in fact a profound rejection of self. It is a moment of self-betrayal and self-punishment, and anything but a commitment to one's own well-being. — Marianne Williamson

It makes me sick, the way sadness is addicting. The way I can't stop. Sadness is familiar. It's comfortable and it's easy in a sense that it comes naturally to me. But everything else about it is hard. The way my body aches with self-hatred. The way my mind spins and spins with hopeless thoughts. The way it poisons everything I do, every relationship I have. Yet it's addicting, because I know sadness, and I know it very well. And there's a sort of comfort in that, like being home after a trip or sleeping in your own bed after being away. There's just a sense that this is where I belong. This is how it's supposed to be. — Marianna Paige

For now she need not think about anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of
to think; well, not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others. Although she continued to knit, and sat upright, it was thus that she felt herself; and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures. When life sank down for a moment, the range of experience seemed limitless. — Virginia Woolf

5. Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I vow to cultivate good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I vow to ingest only items that preserve peace, well-being, and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain TV programs, magazines, books, films, and conversations. I am aware that to damage my body or my consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society, and future generations. I will work to transform violence, fear, anger, and confusion in myself and in society by practicing a diet for myself and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for the transformation of society. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Sometimes I think that wisdoms slip from my mind like drool from the lips of an idiot ...
Where's all this stuff coming from? Is it any good? Any good in, you know, the wisdom sense? Who am I to spout this stuff anyway?
Well, here's the thing. You too can find yourself shedding wisdom like cat hair if you only allow yourself the liberty of introspection.
Think about what you alone know that no one else does. That one neat wonderful profound insight. It is fully yours. No one else on this planet of about six billion people understands it like you do.
Now, see if you can share it with someone. Bestow it, a gift of yourself.
Wisdom is like gossip. Except it's the good kind. — Vera Nazarian

But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. — Timothy Keller

We live in our heads ... which can be very scary places. We forget that we are not just and I, but a she and a you, too. We forget to see ourselves as others see us. For some people, the problem is narcissism - meaning they are selfish, too self-absorbed. But I think that your problem is that you are too selfless. You care about the needs of others more than you care about your own needs. You are strong for them even when it's a detriment to your own well-being. — Matthew Quick

One of the things that strikes me most though is how some people don't realise they're self-harming. The phrase 'self-harm' brings up thoughts of 'cutting', but that's only a small portion of it. When you drink excessively to drown your sorrows to the point you throw up and can't see straight and/or, like a girl at my school, ended up being driven to hospital to have her stomach pumped, you've brought harm to yourself. If you take drugs to feel numb and it becomes an addiction that you can't break, you've self-harmed. When you starve yourself or binge eat to fit the latest fashions, you're pushing your body further than it can go.
We need to start treating ourselves how we deserve to be treated, even if you feel that no one else does. Prove to the world you ARE worth something by treating yourself with the utmost respect and hope that other people will follow your example. And even if they don't, at least one person in the world is treating you well: YOU. — Carrie Hope Fletcher

Self persuasion was a concept much loved by evolutionary psychologists. I had written a piece about it for an Australian magazine. It was pure armchair science, and it went like this: if you lived in a group, like humans have always done, persuading others of your own needs and interests would be fundamental to your well-being. Sometimes you had to use cunning. Clearly you would be at your most convincing if you persuaded yourself first and did not even have to pretend to believe what you were saying. The kind of self-deluding individuals who tended to do this flourished, as did their genes. So it was we squabbled and scrapped, for our unique intelligence was always at the service of our special pleading and selective blindness to the weakness of our case. — Ian McEwan

It was the cause of many of Dad's outrages too, when people elected themselves his personal oracle of Delphi ... They'd made the mistake of abridging Dad, putting Dad in a nutshell, telling Dad How It Was (and getting it all wrong).
...
"The act of being personally misconstrued," Dad said, "informed to one's face one is no more complex than a few words haphazardly strung together like blotchy undershirts on a clothesline
well, it can fall the most self-possessed of individuals. — Marisha Pessl

... don't confuse between self-love and narcissism. Self- love is making yourself your number one priority but narcissism is start enforcing that priority over others. First one is healthy; second one is not. First one is for your mental healthiness and well-being while the second one is to mess up with other peoples' peace of mind to serve your own needs. — Gracia Hunter

The thing that I think was very brave of my younger self was that he decided he would be an idiot. Just persevere. That feels brave to me: deciding that I'm going to damn well be this person that I've set my heart on being. — Salman Rushdie

The purpose of ritual is to change the mind of the human being. It's a sacred drama in which you are the audience as well as the participant, and the purpose of it is to activate the parts of the mind that are not activated by everyday activity ... 'Magic' becomes the development of techniques that allow communication with hidden portions of the self, and with hidden portions of all other islands in this 'psychic sea.' — Margot Adler

I have discovered there are only a handful of good ideas in the whole world. You already know them. You have heard them your entire life. Here are some of the main keys to being more successful:
Take personal responsibility.
Things change, so be flexible.
Work smart and work hard.
Serve others well.
Be nice to others.
Be optimistic.
Have goals; want something big for yourself.
Stay focused.
Keep learning.
Become excellent at what you do.
Trust your gut.
When in doubt, take action.
Earn all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can.
Enjoy all you've got.
Above all keep it simple. — Larry Winget

For the rest, silence or good music, not much food, a lot of solitude, walks on the Heath, the time to think while others ... well, often fall apart. Not so bad, not so bad at all. Being queer and self-sufficient is the best present at this season. — Will Self

The individual and social instincts, - the one a most potent factor for individual endeavor, for growth, aspiration, self-realization; the other an equally potent factor for mutual helpfulness and social well-being. — Emma Goldman

The worst possible thing you can do when you're down in the dumps, tweaking, vaporous with victimized self-righteousness, or bored, is to take a walk with dying friends. They will ruin everything for you. First of all, friends like this may not even think of themselves as dying, although they clearly are, according to recent scans and gentle doctors' reports. But no, they see themselves as fully alive. They are living and doing as much as they can, as well as they can, for as long as they can. They ruin your multitasking high, the bath of agitation, rumination, and judgment you wallow in, without the decency to come out and just say anything. They bust you by being grateful for the day, while you are obsessed with how thin your lashes have become and how wide your bottom. — Anne Lamott

The articles were extremely eye-opening. Not just in Teen Vogue but in Seventeen and CosmoGirl as well. They were all about being yourself, staying natural, loving your body as is, and going green! The messages were the exact opposite of Vik and Viv's.
Hmmmmm.
Frankie turned to face the full-length mirror that was up against the yellow wardrobe. She opened her robe and examined her body. Fit, muscular, and exquisitely proportioned, she agreed with the magazines. So what if her skin was mint? Or her limbs were attached with seams? According to the magazines, which were - no offense! - way more in touch with the times than her parents were, she was suppose to love her body just the way it was. And she did! Therefor if the normies read magazines (which obviously they did, because they were in them), then they would love her, too. Natural was in.
Besides she was Daddy's perfect little girl. And who didn't love perfect? — Lisi Harrison

Happiness, I think, has to come in the beginning, truly, from feeling a sense of well-being within yourself. To me it's that incredible sense of belonging and peace within your own self and heart that really is joy. — Goldie Hawn

I was jut vamping for time to make a few self-improvements: I knew damn well I'd never be a movie star, it's too hard; and if you're intelligent, it's too embarrassing. My complexes aren't inferior enough: being a movie star and having a big fat ego are supposed to go hand-in-hand; actually, it's essential not to have any ego at all. — Truman Capote

Make time daily for your well-being. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The solitary speaks.One receives as a reward for much ennui , ill-humour and boredom, such as a solitude without friends, books, duties or passions must entail, one harvests those quarters of an hour of the deepest immersion in oneself and nature. He who completely entrenches himself against boredom also entrenches himself against himself: he will never get to drink the most potent refreshing draught from the deepest well of his own being. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Countercultural liberties can open pathways to well-being that aren't recognized by mainstream culture - but can also result in a reckless disregard for self and others. — Ken Goffman

I am convinced that being fully committed to the moment, without any worries about the past or projections into the future, is the best attribute a closer can have. You wonder why the shelf life of so many short relievers is, well, so short? Why guys can be unhittable for a year or two and then disappear? It's because it takes a ton of concentration, and self-belief, to stay in the moment in this way and not let the highs and lows mess with your psyche. — Mariano Rivera

You can prepare for any challenge, if you daily nurture your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well-being. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Your discovery and realization of your personality for the well-being of humanity is much more essential — Sunday Adelaja

I had reached the point, at Balbec, of regarding the pleasure of playing with a troop of girls as less destructive of the spiritual life, to which at least it remains alien, than friendship, the whole effort of which is directed towards making us sacrifice the only part of ourselves that is real and incommunicable (otherwise than by means of art) to a superficial self which, unlike the other, finds no joy in its own being, but rather a vague, sentimental glow at feeling itself supported by external props, hospitalised in an extraneous individuality, where, happy in the protection that is afforded it there, it expresses its well-being in warm approval and marvels at qualities which it would denounce as failings and seek to correct in itself. — Marcel Proust

The poor man retains the prejudices of his forefathers without their faith, and their ignorance without their virtues; he has adopted the doctrine of self-interest as the rule of his actions, without understanding the science which puts it to use; and his selfishness is no less blind than was formerly his devotedness to others. If society is tranquil, it is not because it is conscious of its strength and its well-being, but because it fears its weakness and its infirmities; a single effort may cost it its life. Everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure. The desires, the repinings, the sorrows, and the joys of the present time lead to no visible or permanent result, like the passions of old men, which terminate in impotence. — Alexis De Tocqueville

One's liberation begins once he does the darshan of kashaya-free (absence of inner anger, pride, deceit and greed) Gnani purush [the enlightened one]. Who is considered kashaya-free? The one whose state is that where there was no kashaya, there is no kashaya, and there never will be any. The one who is never in the state of the non-Self. Doing darshan of such a One brings ultimate well being. — Dada Bhagwan

I think that it's always appropriate for Americans and for American foreign policy to make clear why we feel that self-government is most compatible with peace, the well-being of people, and human dignity. — Jeane Kirkpatrick

You cannot be fair to others without first being fair to yourself.
Know that a well-honed sense of justice is a measure of personal experience, and all experience is a measure of self.
Know that the highest expression of justice is mercy.
Thus, as the supreme judge in your own court, you must have compassion for yourself.
Otherwise, cede your gavel. — Vera Nazarian

Angry obsessive thoughts about another weaken your state of mind and well being. If you must have revenge, then take it by choosing to be happy and let them go forever. — Gary Hopkins

We create the world around us based on our thoughts, feelings, beliefs and emotions. Evil, dark forces, dark energy etc. are forms of the "negative" and are all a projections of the self. There is no separation. Once one realizes this, these energies start to fade and eventually disappear. What's left is wholeness, contentment, self-realization, gratitude and a perpetual state of well-being. There is a popular saying amongst the healing community "where the mind goes, energy flows". Use this mantra to your benefit. Lose the "non-sense" of all despair and anguish and catapult your self to a higher place that is incapable of entertaining the "negative" or "destructive". Achieving this (even in increments) will only transform you to into a better positive place — Gary Hopkins

Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart's revelation that another person is every bit as real as you are. And this is why love, as I understand it, is always specific. Trying to love all of humanity may be a worthy endeavor, but, in a funny way, it keeps the focus on the self, on the self's own moral or spiritual well-being. Whereas, to love a specific person, and to identify with his or her struggles and joys as if they were your own, you have to surrender some of your self. — Jonathan Franzen

Sometimes we must undergo hardships, breakups, and narcissistic wounds, which shatter the flattering image that we had of ourselves, in order to discover two truths: that we are not who we thought we were; and that the loss of a cherished pleasure is not necessarily the loss of true happiness and well-being. (109) — Jean-Yves Leloup

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

When it comes to our own well being, it is not a matter of doing the math, it is a matter of choosing the formula. When you add up the numbers, keep the primary factors in mind. Then multiply all sums by a positive outlook. The numbers will inevitably change and so will any undesirable equivalence. The math is merely the meter for the moment in an ever changing flux of the dynamic human equation. — Tom Althouse

If you have self-respect, you will take satisfaction in being well groomed and will not allow yourself to perform shabbily. You will continue to work toward high standards and goals to serve others, to continue and to practice self-discipline. You will not compromise your standards or beliefs. — Marvin J. Ashton

Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do. Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you. Sanity means tying it to your own actions. — Marcus Aurelius

At my heaviest, I was 5'8 and 175 pounds. I ate well, but in too large quantities, and I rarely made a concerted effort to burn off the extra calories. I'd beat myself up about being overweight, even though I had the tools to be in shape. Then I'd resort to an unhealthy diet to lose the weight that was making me self-conscious. — Daphne Oz

In the course of aesthetic experience, the perceiver may be overwhelmed by this 'mere object', overcome with emotion, altered to the very roots of his being.[ ... ] The experience of beauty involves an exchange of power, and as such, it is often disorienting, a mix of humility and exaltation, subjugation and liberation, awe and mystified pleasure.[ ... ] Many people, fearing a pleasure they cannot control, have vilified beauty as a siren or a whore. Since at one time or another though, everyone answers to 'her' call, it would be well if we could recognize the meaning of our succumbing as a valuable response, an opportunity for self-revelation rather than defeat.[ ... ] It entails a flexibility and empathy toward 'Others' in general and the capacity to see ourselves as both active and passive without fearing that we will be diminished in the process. — Wendy Steiner

Most adult children of toxic parents grow up feeling tremendous confusion about what love means and how it's supposed to feel. Their parents did extremely unloving things to them in the name of love. They came to understand love as something chaotic, dramatic, confusing, and often painful - something they had to give up their own dreams and desires for. Obviously, that's not what love is all about. Loving behaviour doesn't grind you down, keep you off balance, or create feelings of self-hatred. Love doesn't hurt, it feels good. Loving behaviour nourishes your emotional well-being. When someone is being loving to you, you feel accepted, cared for, valued, and respected. Genuine love creates feelings of warmth, pleasure, safety, stability, and inner peace. — Susan Forward

Civility means a great deal more than just being nice to one another. It is complex and encompasses learning how to connect successfully and live well with others, developing thoughtfulness, and fostering effective self-expression and communication. Civility includes courtesy, politeness, mutual respect, fairness, good manners, as well as a matter of good health. Taking an active interest in the well-being of our community and concern for the health of our society is also involved in civility. — P. M. Forni

As an epiphany of God, Jesus discloses that at the center of everything is a reality that is in love with us and wills our well-being, both as individuals and as individuals within society. As an image of God, Jesus challenges the most widespread image of reality in both the ancient and modern world, countering conventional wisdom's understanding of God as one with demands that must be met by the anxious self in search of its own security. In its place is an image of God as the compassionate one who invites people into a relationship which is the source of transformation of human life in both its individual and social aspects. — Marcus J. Borg

I think that the church in America today is so obsessed with being practical, relevant, helpful, successful, and perhaps well-liked that it nearly mirrors the world itself. Aside from the packaging, there is nothing that cannot be found in most churches today that could not be satisfied by any number of secular programs and self-help groups. — Michael Horton

Being with a friend in great pain is not easy. It makes us uncomfortable. We do not know what to do or what to say, and we worry about how to respond to what we hear. Our temptation is to say things that come more out of our own fear than out of our care for the person in pain. Sometimes we say things like 'Well, you're doing a lot better than yesterday,' or 'You will soon be your old self again,' or 'I'm sure you will get over this.' But often we know that what we're saying is not true, and our friends know it too.
We do not have to play games with each other. We can simply say: 'I am your friend, I am happy to be with you.' We can say that in words or with touch or with loving silence. Sometimes it is good to say: 'You don't have to talk. Just close your eyes. I am here with you, thinking of you, praying for you, loving you. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

But she had loved her philosopher so strongly that she had made him believe that her body was aroused and ecstatic. Ibn Rushd had been fooled. Men were easily deceived in such matters because they wanted to believe they had the power to arouse. She wanted to make him believe he pleased her. But the truth was that she could give physical pleasure to a man but not receive it, she could only imagine what such pleasure might be like, she could watch and learn, and offer up to her lover the outward signs of it, while trying to fool herself, as well as him, that yes, she was being pleasured too, which made her an actress, a phony, and a self-deceiving fool. — Salman Rushdie

According to law of attraction to rid ourselves of disease we should visualize a healthy and healed self. Think thoughts of well being, Speak words of well being and let doctors do their job. — Arun Saraf

Well, I know a guy, he's from far far away
He's a songwriter, he got something to say
He says, "People in this city are too busy to hang out
This town's so spread out, no one would hear you if you shout"
Everyone's got a script to sell and someplace else they want to be
There's always a lock that would open if you could just find the key"
(It Ain't Easy Being Green) — Shannon McNally

A well-developed sense of self is a necessary if not sufficient condition of your well-being. Its presence does not guarantee fulfillment, but its absence guarantees some measure of anxiety, frustration, or despair. — Nathaniel Branden

the Culture had placed its bets - long before the Idiran war had been envisaged - on the machine rather than the human brain. This was because the Culture saw itself as being a self-consciously rational society; and machines, even sentient ones, were more capable of achieving this desired state as well as more efficient at using it once they had. That was good enough for the Culture. — Iain M. Banks

I have never cataloged what I would want in a marriage. I might as well do it now ... I want an arrangement in which love and passion mingle and last. I want a rock to lean against. I want sex to pierce reality and come blazing out the other side. I want to feel that someone has my back. I want it to be us against the world. I want marriage to be cool. I want the words wife and husband to resonate with joy. I want our intimacy to be inviolate. I want it all under one roof. I want the institution to deserve my energy and my commitment and the last decades of my life.I want what Jane Cooper called "A radiance of attention/Like the candle's flame when we eat." I want to wake up next to a person who feels what I feel - that there is a constant, self-renewing joy in being with the other. — Wendy Plump

Being all fashioned of the self-same dust, let us be merciful as well as just — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Kant comes to identify the institution of property with freedom because he sees it in a fundamental sense as an extension of the self. An object which is, he argues, my property belongs solely and exclusively to myself, and it is my right to consume or use it in whatever way I please. Indeed, so strongly does the individual feel about his ownership, Kant thinks, that if somebody takes it without his consent they harm the individual just as much as though they had injured his body. From this point of view, the individual has every justification in feeling as upset about the theft of a favourite book as he has about a bruised knee. To threaten the individual's property, in the sense of its being an extension of the self, prejudices not only his feeling of well-being but also his very existence. — Howard Williams

Tom was anxious about whether he could keep his job at the hospital or would have to go on relief, he exclaimed, "If I could not support my family, I'd as soon jump off the dock." That is, if the value of being a self-respecting wage-earner were threatened, Tom, like the salesman Willie Loman and countless other men in our society, would feel he no longer existed as a self, and might as well be dead. — Rollo May

she had never been alone to care for her own self one day of her life, nor could it ever have occurred to her that she might become responsible for the well- being of another. — John Williams

All the material wealth cannot be substituted for the spiritual, physical, emotion and mental well-being. — Lailah Gifty Akita

We commonly confuse love with the strong emotions most often associated with it, such as joy, attachment, lust, infatuation, pleasure, pain, fear, and hope, to name a few. But, love is not a feeling; love itself is an action. There are countless emotions and beliefs that can cause us to love. Love is the willing giving of self to another living being. Love is giving the life, time, energy, and resources that we would normally give or use for our self to someone else. Love is an action that enhances the well-being of another living being. — C W Newman

If we can find forgiveness in our hearts for those who have caused us hurt and injury, we will rise to a higher level of self-esteem and well-being. — James E. Faust

Well, we start with this outrageous idea that the ground of being, existence itself, is a person, and that this person is intimately concerned with each of our lives and desires us to turn our hearts toward him. Once you accept that level of insanity - or faith, as we prefer to call it - then it makes perfect sense to try to discern what God's purpose is for your life through a disciplined process of prayer and self-examination, discernment, as we say. — Michael Gruber

Within our core self is an indelible blueprint of unrivaled individuality - the singular being that each of us exists to express. In this three-dimensional movie called "Life" there are no stand-ins, body doubles, or understudies - no one can fill in for us by proxy! Realization of this truth alone eliminates the need to imitate, conform, limit, or betray our loyalty to the originality of Self. Imagine the relief of removing your carefully crafted masks fashioned by societal forms of conditioning and instead responding to what comes into your experience directly from your Authentic Self. One of the first principles to honor in your relationship with yourself is to respect and trust your own inner voice. This form of trust is the way of the heart, the epitome of well-being. — Michael Bernard Beckwith

There is no perfect love. There is only a right kind of love. This kind of love cares for your well-being, gives you the freedom to live your life, and stretches you to become your best self. — Janet Ong Zimmerman

Visionary feminism is a wise and loving politics. It is rooted in the love of male and female being, refusing to privilege one over the other. The soul of feminist politics is the commitment to ending patriarchal domination of women and men, girls and boys. Love cannot exist in any relationship that is based on domination and coercion. Males cannot love themselves in patriarchal culture if their very self-definition relies on submission to patriarchal rules. When men embrace feminist thinking and preactice, which emphasizes the value of mutual growth and self-actualization in all relationships, their emotional well-being will be enhanced. A genuine feminist politics always brings us from bondage to freedom, from lovelessness to loving. — Bell Hooks

... food is capable of feeding far more than a rumbling stomach. Food is life; our well-being demands it. Food is art and magic; it evokes emotion and colors memory, and in skilled hands, meals become greater than the sum of their ingredients. Food is self-evident; plucked right from the ground or vine or sea, its power to delight is immediate. Food is discovery; finding an untried spice or cuisine is for me like uncovering a new element. Food is evolution; how we interpret it remains ever fluid. Food is humanitarian: sharing it bridges cultures, making friends of strangers pleasantly surprised to learn how much common ground they ultimately share. — Anthony Beal

Operate within a new form of science that asks not just what is possible, but what is appropriate - appropriate to the well-being of self and Earth. Such a question does not originate in the mental realm but the spiritual, and is felt bodily, once our senses and heart are attuned. So the central part of our being that simply must be allowed to function and be attended is the heart. — Joseph Chilton Pearce

What these [personality] tests tell employers about potential employees is hard to imagine since the 'right' answer should be obvious to anyone who has ever encountered the principle of hierarchy and subordination. Do I work well with others? You bet, but never to the point where I would hesitate to inform on them for the slightest infraction. Am I capable of independent decision making? Oh yes, but I know better than to let this capacity interfere with a slavish obedience to orders ... The real function of these tests, I decide, is to convey information not to the employer but to the potential employee, and the information being conveyed is always: You will have no secrets from us. We don't just want your muscles and that portion of your brain that is directly connected to them; we want your innermost self. — Barbara Ehrenreich

I don't buy into the dystopian scenarios of self-aware robots enslaving mankind, but you don't have to be a sci-fi conspiracy theorist to acknowledge that plenty of good, well-paying jobs are being taken over by machines. — Marco Rubio

Good music, good life. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My dark side says,] I am no good ... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

What the world needs now is liberated men who have the qualities Silverstein cites, men who are 'empathetic and strong, autonomous and connected, responsible to self, to family and friends, to society, and capable of understanding how those responsibilities are, ultimately, inseparable.' Men need feminist thinking. It it the theory that supports their spiritual evolution and their shift away from the patriarchal model. Patriarchy is destroying the well-being of men, taking their lives daily. — Bell Hooks

For now she need not think of anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of - to think; well not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others ... and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures. — Virginia Woolf

I want to be a well-rounded human being with none of these knotty lumps of rage and guilt and self-disgust. — Nick Hornby

After all, Christmastide is the time of year for warming brandies, for assertive burgundies and meaty Medoc wines, and for gladsome whiskies. And an Islay malt: well, this is the octave of St Andrew, and you will doubtless recall that he is not only the patron saint of Alba, of Scotland, but was also a fisherman. How better to toast my favorite apostle (he being all the things I personally am not, starting with humble and self-effacing) than with the sea-salty dram of an Islay whisky? — Markham Shaw Pyle

If you love too much, you lose yourself.
If you love too little, you never find yourself. — Janet Gallagher Nestor

Real love is to expand our own capacity for tolerance and caring, to actively seek another's well-being. All else is simply a charade of self-interest. Zeke — Richard Paul Evans

embodied in the remark that dear far-away Ruth's intentions were doubtless good. She and Kent are even yet looking for another prop, but no one presents a true sphere of usefulness. They complain that people are self-sufficing. With Saltram the fine type of the child of adoption was scattered, the grander, the elder style. They've got their carriage back, but what's an empty carriage? In short I think we were all happier as well as poorer before; even including George Gravener, who by the deaths of his brother and his nephew has lately become Lord Maddock. His wife, whose fortune clears the property, is criminally dull; he hates being in the Upper — Henry James

The creative writer uses his life as well as being its victim; he can control, in his work, the self-presentation that in actuality is at the mercy of a thousand accidents. — John Updike

The bike does this; it is an apotheosis of self-sufficiency, in which a well-loved machine will unhesitatingly and quietly mediate intentional being into momentum. As you ride a bike and start to ride it well, there are moments when it becomes an affirmation of life devoid of separation and distinction; you ride through the earth unthinkingly rather than across it. There is no need to account for who you are in others' terms, in language, even. Your characteristics give way to your being. The effort put into the bike can take you out of your socialized, represented self into what Heidegger called 'disclosing self', where you simply are ever-shifting endeavour. — Robin Holt

Our greatest battles lie deep within our own psyches as we face fear, insecurity, and self-doubt. These internal adversaries pose a far greater threat to our lives and our well-being than the external difficulties of daily life. Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. Plato — Dan Millman

You have to maintain who you are as a person and stay true to yourself - that's my biggest moral as a human being, as well as a very self-deprecating sense of humor. — Josh Hutcherson

Harris: Yes. In fact, self-deception might have paid evolutionary dividends in other ways. Robert Trivers argues, for instance, that people who can believe their own lies turn out to be the best liars of all - and an ability to deceive rivals has obvious advantages in the state of nature. Now, clearly many things may have been adaptive for our ancestors - such as tribal warfare, rape, xenophobia - that we now deem unethical and would never want to defend. But I'm wondering if you see any possibility that a social system that maximizes truth-telling could be one that fails to maximize the well-being of all participants. Is it possible that some measure of deception is good for us? — Sam Harris

Change is the only constant. Your ability to navigate and tolerate change and its painful uncomfortableness directly correlates to your happiness and general well-being. See what I just did there? I saved you thousands of dollars on self-help books. If you can surf your life rather than plant your feet, you will be happier. Maybe I should have called this book Surf Your Life. The cover could feature a picture of me on a giant wave wearing a wizard hat. I wonder if it's too late. I'll make a call. — Amy Poehler

I am dead against art's being self-expression. I see an inherent failure in any story which fails to detach itself from the author-detach itself in the sense that a well-blown soap-bubble detaches itself from the bowl of the blower's pipe and spherically takes off into the air as a new, whole, pure, iridescent world. Whereas the ill-blown bubble, as children know, timidly adheres to the bowl's lip, then either bursts or sinks flatly back again. — Elizabeth Bowen

My research offers impressive evidence that we feel better when we attempt to make our world better ... to have a purpose beyond one's self lends to existence a meaning and direction - the most important characteristic of high well-being. — Gail Sheehy

purgation deals essentially with our "trust structures," especially those deep inner postures of our being that do not rely on God but on self for our well-being. — M. Robert Mulholland Jr.

To long for total spiritual well-being is right and natural, but to believe that one is anywhere near it is to be utterly self-deceived. — J.I. Packer

Life so far seemed like a kind of dance to him, and he was pleased to discover that he was pretty good at it. Lf there was something hollow underneath it all, a well of fear that sometimes seemed to pull everything else into it and leave him clutching the stone rim for fear of falling into himself, well, that was part of being human, he supposed. That's what the booze was for. — Nathan Ballingrud

But often it is a seemingly irresolvable relationship that teaches us the most, once we're willing to be vulnerable and honest, once we're willing to connect with what Chogyam Trungpa called "the genuine heart of sadness." As warriors in training we do our best to hold the person in our heart without any hypocrisy. One thing we can do with a difficult relationship is to place a picture of the person somewhere we will see it often and think, "I wish for your deepest well-being". Or we can write down the person's name, along with the aspiration that they may be safe, may be happy, may live in peace.
Regardless of what specific action we take, our aspiration is to benefit the other person and wish them well. — Pema Chodron

Is it possible to covet a much longer life for one's self and be as devoted to the well-being of the next generation? It's a long argument. — Leon Kass

I also realized that in my family drama a very limited number of character traits were available to the players. In my mind, either I could be weak, wimpy, submissive, and pathetic, or I could be a raging tyrant and bully who demanded total compliance from everyone in my realm. The notion of being strong and assertive while staying calm, insisting on appropriate boundraries and on being treated with respect and dignity, were not in my realm of experience. Once I realized that I was much happier with the person I was in the rest of my life, I realized it was foolish not to be that "me" around my family as well. I began to feel liberated and genuinely felt they could take the new me or leave it. So far, they've chosen to leave it, but I feel a sense of integrity and self-respect that I had never experienced before. — Mark Sichel

Not to find one's way in a city may well be uninteresting and banal. It requires ignorance - nothing more," says the twentieth-century philosopher-essayist Walter Benjamin. "But to lose oneself in a city - as one loses oneself in a forest - that calls for quite a different schooling." To lose yourself: a voluptuous surrender, lost in your arms, lost to the world, utterly immersed in what is present so that its surroundings fade away. In Benjamin's terms, to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. And one does not get lost but loses oneself, with the implication that it is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender, a psychic state achievable through geography. — Rebecca Solnit