Quotes & Sayings About The Self Absorbed

Self esteem is not the same as being self centered, self absorbed or selfish. Self esteem is also not complacency or overconfidence, both of which and set us up for failure. Self esteem is a strong motivator to work hard. Self esteem is related to mental health and happiness. — Glenn R. Schiraldi

According to Plato, the wise man is the best ruler precisely because he doesn't care unduly about political honor and power, much less about bodily pleasures. He is too absorbed in the pleasures of learning to be tempted by the lesser pleasures of glory, wealth, and hedonism. His rule is therefore benevolent and unmarred by self-interest, because the passions which in lesser men would be absorbed in material goods and sensual pleasures are sluiced off into the pleasures of the mind. The — Waller R Newell

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

He had been drawn to psychiatry, in spite of his recognition that those who became psychiatrists did so as a result of their own messed-up childhoods, always looking, looking, looking for the answer in the writings of Freud, Horney, Reich, of why they were the anal, narcissistic, self-absorbed freaks that they were, and yet at the same time denying it, of course - what bullshit he had witnessed among his colleagues, his professors! — Elizabeth Strout

What is the meaning of 'gossip?' Doesn't it originate with sympathy, an interest in one's neighbor, degenerating into idle curiosity and love of tattling? Which is worse, this habit, or keeping one's self so absorbed intellectually as to forget the sufferings and cares of others, to lose sympathy through having too much to think about? — Lucy Larcom

Defined simply, narcissism means excessive self-preoccupation; pragmatism means excessive focus on work, achievement, and the practical concerns of life; and restlessness means an excessive greed for experience, an overeating, not in terms of food but in terms of trying to drink in too much of life...And constancy of all three together account for the fact that we are so habitually self-absorbed by heartaches, headaches, and greed for experience that we rarely find the time and space to be in touch with the deeper movements inside of and around us. — Ronald Rolheiser

Before my accident I was a little too ... selfish and self-absorbed and for me, to now be at the place where I can kinda give back and inspire people. I'm blessed. I'm really blessed. — Rick Allen

Here I had a wonderful man who cared for me
and I was screwing around with a self-absorbed, conniving monster who'd betrayed me
in the worst possible way. — Kelley Armstrong

Kyra." Fred caught Kyra's eyes. "I'm not in love with Ariana and I don't want half the kingdom."
"You don't?"
He shook his head. "But I might stick around for a little while longer. There are some interesting things in the Kingdom of Mohr."
"Like what?"
"Like a certain funny and extremely talented potioner."
Kyra took a breath. "I have to warn you, Hal isn't that great as a boyfriend. He's pretty self absorbed. — Bridget Zinn

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

Most people are just too self-absorbed, well-meaning, and lazy to bother orchestrating Machiavellian plans to slight or insult us. It's more often a boring, complicated story of wrong assumptions, miscommunication, bad administration, and cover-ups - people trying, and mostly failing, to do the right thing, hurting each other not because that's their intention but because it's impossible to avoid. — Tim Kreider

By "moral discipline," I mean self-discipline based on moral standards. Moral discipline is the consistent exercise of agency to choose the right because it is right, even when it is hard. It rejects the self-absorbed life in favor of developing character worthy of respect and true greatness through Christlike service. — D. Todd Christofferson

Fortified with self-loathing, with the reserves of sardonic contempt he'd absorbed in his time spent around Milacar, he'd gone to the gate tight-lipped and filled with a strange, queasy energy, as if walking to his own execution as well as Jelim's. He'd known at some deep, cold level that he would cope. He was wrong. Utterly. — Richard K. Morgan

I had the same sensation as when we watch someone sleep. When asleep we all become children again. Perhaps because in the state of slumber we can do no wrong and are unconscious of life, the greatest criminal and most self- absorbed egotist are holy, by a natural magic, as long as they're sleeping. For me there's no discernible difference between killing a child and killing a sleeping man. — Fernando Pessoa

The essays are very solipsistic and self-absorbed, I'm totally conscious of that. To me, book writing is fun, and I basically just write about things that are entertaining to myself. — Chuck Klosterman

Jesus gave a vivid object lesson his last night with the disciples by washing their feet, like a servant. Parents know the self-giving principle by instinct as they pour their energies into their self-absorbed children. Volunteers in soup kitchens and hospices and mission projects learn this lesson by doing.* What seems like sacrifice becomes instead a kind of nourishment because dispensing grace enriches the giver as well as the receiver. — Philip Yancey

Edna looked straight before her with a self-absorbed expression upon her face. She felt no interest in anything about her. The street, the children, the fruit vender, the flowers growing there under her eyes, were all part and parcel of an alien world which had suddenly become antagonistic. — Kate Chopin

A spirituality that is only private and self-absorbed, one devoid of an authentic political and social consciousness, does little to halt the suicidal juggernaut of history. On the other hand, an activism that is not purified by profound spiritual and psychological self-awareness and rooted in divine truth, wisdom, and compassion will only perpetuate the problem it is trying to solve, however righteous its intentions. When, however, the deepest and most grounded spiritual vision is married to a practical and pragmatic drive to transform all existing political, economic and social institutions, a holy force - the power of wisdom and love in action - is born. This force I define as Sacred Activism. — Andrew Harvey

This self-absorbed perspective treats God as a genie who simply exists to serve you in your selfish pursuit of personal fulfillment. But God is not your servant, and if you fall for the idea that life is supposed to be easy, either you will become severely disillusioned or you will live in denial of reality. Never forget that life is not about you! You exist for God's purposes, not vice versa. Why would God provide heaven on earth when he's planned the real thing for you in eternity? God gives us our time on earth to build and strengthen our character for heaven. — Rick Warren

Absorbed in this world, you've made it your burden. Rise above this world. There is another vision. All your life you've paid attention to your experiences, but never to your Self. Are you searching for your Soul? Then come out of your prision. Leave the stream and join the river that flows into the Ocean. It will not lead you astray. Let the beauty you seek be what you do. — Rumi

I've always wanted to be a dad. I just can't wait to have a little rug rat running around. I used to want five or six kids, but maybe I've become too self-absorbed over the years. I think two would be perfect. — Josh Duhamel

Commitment, by its nature, frees us from ourselves and, while it stands us in opposition to some, it joins us with others similarly committed. Commitment moves us from the mirror trap of the self absorbed with the self to the freedom of a community of shared values. — Michael Lewis

You don't have the touching rights." "How do I get those?" Stop being a self-absorbed spoiled baby. "You get those if I fall in love with you." He stopped. "In love. You're serious?" "Yes." That would shut him up. "What is this, the sixteenth century? Should I write you a sonnet next?" "Is it going to be a good sonnet? — Ilona Andrews

It's effortless to let go of self-absorbed people. It's challenging to let go of someone you care about and it's exceedingly difficult to let go of an ideal and a belief in someone because what exacerbates the disappointment of finding out they weren't who they presented themselves to be, is the betrayal of it. — Donna Lynn Hope

They say that depression makes you see everything in a negative light. I disagree. It makes you see things for what they are. It makes you take off the fucking rose-tinted glasses and look around and see the world as it really is- cruel, harsh and unfair. It makes you see people in their true colours- stupid, shallow and self-absorbed. All that ridiculous optimism, all that carpe diem and life-is-what-you-make-of-it. Words, jsut empty words in an attempt to give meaning to an existence taht is both doomed and futile. — Tabitha Suzuma

A lamp does not flicker in a place where no wind blows; so it is with a yogi, who controls his mind, intellect and self, being absorbed in the spirit within him. — B.K.S. Iyengar

Man is originally characterized by his "search for meaning" rather than his "search for himself." The more he forgets himself - giving himself to a cause or another person - the more human he is. And the more he is immersed and absorbed in something or someone other than himself the more he really becomes himself. — Viktor E. Frankl

One of the things that confirmed Hyacinth's suspicion that America was an evil, lonely place was that people were islands unto themselves. And so when Avril drifted away, there was no friend or neighbor or pastor or coworker to reach out to and ask after her child. — Naomi Jackson

Meant to give a new impulse to the race - to rouse human creatures to new moods, to thrust them into places where they see new things. Men and women are being dragged out of their self-absorbed corners and stirred up and shaken. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

People are afraid to concentrate because they are afraid of losing themselves if they are too absorbed in another person, in an idea, in an event. The less strong their self, the greater the fear of losing themselves in the act of concentration on the non-self. — Erich Fromm

Defeat is real. It is also temporary. We have to understand both. Faced for what it is, absorbed and met without self-deception, defeat can offer wisdom and motivation. Begin even though you know that you will suffer failure and defeat along the way. — Eric Greitens

Measurements of people's minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life may be empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves. Unlike your experiencing self - which is absorbed in the moment - your remembering self is attempting to recognize not only the peaks of joy and valleys of misery but also how the story works out as a whole. — Atul Gawande

I may distance myself from God from time to time, wandering off in the ignorance of my self-absorbed preoccupations and attitudes
But God is never far off. Never distant.
Never remote.
He is close enough to hear the raw, unbridled "fuck" in my silent prayer of anguish.
Close enough to feel the groaning angst and tension in my gut that oft threatens to rend me to pieces.
Close enough to hear my heart slam itself in abandon against the walls of this temple of skin in holy desperation; clutching at the veil that dulls and distorts my vision.
Close enough to catch me as I stumble in my blind and weary state yet again and again and again.
Yes, He is close. She is never far off. God is my faithful friend and traveling companion, though I see Him not yet with these orbs of flesh. — Mac MacKenzie

I admire narcissism in Momus and others who "own" it and use it as a way to explore ideas/themselves and also as a form of humor. I don't think of myself as narcissistic, but I'm definitely incredibly self absorbed. I guess I wonder if seeing the world through the lens of yourself is necessarily less valid than other ways of thinking/seeing though. — Marie Calloway

Los Angeles was the most glamorous, tackiest, most elegant, seediest, most clever, dumbest, most beautiful, ugliest, forward-looking, retro-thinking, altruistic, self-absorbed, deal-savvy, politically ignorant, artistic-minded, criminal-loving, meaning-obsessed, money-grubbing, laid-back, frantic city on the planet. And any two slices of it, as different as Bel Air and Watts, were nevertheless uncannily alike in essence: rich with the same crazy hungers, hopes, and despairs. — Dean Koontz

Reading, writing, listening to music, skipping rope, flying kites, taking long walks along the sea, hiking in the crisp mountain air, all serve a joint purpose: these self-initiated acts free us from the drudgery of life. These forms of physical and mental exercises release the mind to roam uninhibited, such collaborative types of mind and body actions take people away from their physical pains and emotional grievances. A reprieve from the crippling grind of sameness allows personal imagination to soar. Imagination, a form of dreaming, is inherently pleasant and restorative. It is within these moments of personal introspection stolen from the industry of surviving that humankind touches upon the absolute truth of life: that there must be something more to living then merely getting by; the fundamental human condition thirsts for a way to improve upon the vestment that shelters our self-absorbed lives. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Though they themselves might be as surprised as their parents and teachers to hear it said, adolescents
these poignantly thin- skinned and vulnerable, passionate and impulsive, starkly sexual and monstrously self-absorbed creatures
are, in fact, avid seekers of moral authenticity. They wish above all to achieve some realistic power over the real world in which they live while at the same time remaining true to their values and ideals. — Louise J. Kaplan

Some humans are so consumed with trying to control the outcomes of their own lives that they don't have any idea the part they play in the outcome of someone else's. — Kate McGahan

Then you have this other phenomena of the paranormal romance. It's all the benefits of being a vampire without the sacrifices. By the gods, Meyer's vampires walk around sparkling in the daylight and some are vegetarians. But this phenomenon is also tied to a lot of our communal fears. Fear of aging. Fear of fading youth. Fear of loneliness. But whereas the classic motifs are more concerned with confronting and overcoming our fears, the fears of the paranormal romance genre become twisted fantasies of denial. The idea of staying young, attractive and powerful for eternity feeds into the modern self-absorbed ethos. — Julie Ann Dawson

Which means we couldn't possibly turn a blind eye to the poor or declare "comfort and safety" our top priority. If we really believed, then we'd never be happy living healthy, affluent lives while ignoring the 25,000 people who will die of starvation that same day. Once we are believers, we can't begrudge our enemies or live a totally self-absorbed life. Believing in Jesus means transformation - how could it mean anything less? One who says, "I believe" and lives for herself doesn't believe at all. — Jen Hatmaker

When I had my daughter, my priorities shifted. Being in the world of fashion you have to be very self-absorbed and surrounded by people that are self-absorbed. — Carolyn Murphy

I would like to tell all dancers to forget themselves and the desire for self display. They must become completely absorbed in the dance. Even in a classical variation there should never be any thought of a dancer doing a variation
he should become identified with it. — Antony Tudor

Empowered Women 101: A confident and faithful woman that loves herself and knows what she is capable of creating will attract the right man that will want to be part of that plan. God won't bring her a man that she has to mold into what she wants him to be. A relationship is about two people helping one another grow, not just one. — Shannon L. Alder

I hate to sound self absorbed, but I'm just going to cast out this pearl of wisdom, if I could give the whole world cancer and kill them and be the last man on earth it would be a sign that god loves me especially. — Thom Yorke

You bastard." The words were out before she even had time to consider them, but after spoken she hardly regretted them.
"What did you say?" Prince Aldrik snarled.
"You, my prince ," she sneered in kind. "You are a self-centered, egotistical, self-absorbed, narrow-sighted, vain, self-important," she felt her anger finally reach its boiling point, "conceited bastard !" Vhalla cried out. — Elise Kova

If you study a great work of art, you'll probably find the artist was a kind of genius. And geniuses are different to you and me. So let's have no talk of temperamental, self-absorbed and petulant babies. Being a good artist is the toughest job you could pick, and you have to be a little nuts to take it on. I love them all. — Charles Saatchi

Living a self-absorbed life will always be at the cost of everyone else. — Timothy Keller

You are the person that I should have had out there ... right out in front for eveyone to see. To be able to say to the world; Look at who it is that I love! Look how wonderful she is. To be proud of who it is that I am with. That person was you. In my self-absorbed and selfish ways, I didn't celebrate or regard you in the way I should have. I will always have regrets about that and those are the types of thoughts and feelings that have haunted me as I have sat alone in my quiet. — John Britton

There are people so blind and self-absorbed in all matters that they always believe that, whatever they desire or think, they can impose their will on other people. Whatever bad reason they use to persuade others, these self-centered people are so caught up in the process that it seems to them all they have to do is to speak their wishes in a lofty and commanding tone of voice in order to convince everybody. — Madeleine De Souvre, Marquise De ...

We've come a long way from the time when the crowning achievement in a woman's life was her youthful marriage. And many would agree that this represents progress for women. But when did the search for someone to marry become self-absorbed and pathetic? This absence of social sympathy for women's ambitions to marry is all the more striking because the social world has cared so deeply about virtually every other aspect of these privileged young women's inner and outer lives. ( ... ) The achievement of a good marriage is the one area of life where the most privileged, accomplished, and high achieving young women in society face a loss of support and sympathy for their ambitions and where the social expectations are for disappointment and failure, not success. — Barbara Dafoe Whitehead

As long as we live, our self-absorption and our insecurity will walk together, holding hands and swinging them back and forth like two little girls on their way to a pretend playground they can never find. Human nature dictates that most often we will be as insecure as we are self-absorbed. The best possible way to keep from getting sucked into the superficial narcissistic mentality that money, possessions, and sensuality can satisfy and secure us is to deliberately give ourselves to something much greater ... [Christ] showed us that giving, rather than getting, is the means to receiving ... to find yourself, your true self, you must lose yourself in something larger. — Beth Moore

At the point that it dawns on me that I am not God I have finally made room for God. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

When faced with difficulties, a humble, understanding, appreciative and selfless person finds it easy to win a friend. On the other hand, a temperamental, egoistic, condensing, self-absorbed, self-conceited and narrow-minded person who lacks the basic sense of humility easily loses friends when in distress. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

A person who is asleep is either lost in deep unconsciousness or absorbed in a dream. Metaphorically, this was how the Buddha must have seen both his previous self as well as everyone else he had known: they either were blind to the questions of existence or sought consolation from them in metaphysical or religious fantasies. — Stephen Batchelor

There's so many bigger things in the world. The art world is such a tiny little thing compared to wars and migration crises. It's weird to be self-absorbed in it. — Jim Shaw

Time is self absorbed, takes what it wants and doesn't return the favor. It is greedy, its pockets full of the lives of those left behind. It is a magician and a thief. — Leigh Hershkovich

You're just ... too high-maintenance. Too self-absorbed. And you talk too much - usually about things
that don't matter - and it drives me absolutely nuts. What it comes down to is - you're just not the
woman I need on my arm to get me where I want to go.
Okay, pal, don't sugarcoat it or anything. — Toni Blake

In another Christmas story, Dale Pearson, evil developer, self-absorbed woman hater, and seemingly unredeemable curmudgeon, might be visited in the night by a series of ghosts who, by showing him bleak visions of Christmas future, past, and present, would bring about in him a change to generosity, kindness, and a general warmth toward his fellow man. But this is not that kind of Christmas story, so here, in not too many pages, someone is going to dispatch the miserable son of a bitch with a shovel. That's the spirit of Christmas yet to come in these parts. Ho, ho, ho. — Christopher Moore

The main thing I've noticed, however, is how unreasonable, self-absorbed and permanently outraged caffeine has made me. — Caitlin Moran

Though there are many barriers to expressing unreserved love, no such impediments to a developing a loving and generous heart deter a spiritual warrior. He who is without love is bereft of richness of life. Compassion, empathy, kindness, tenderness, and patience are essential for love. Anger, frustration, jealously, greed, and hatred are the antonym to love. When we love other people with all our ferocity, we transcend the misuse, waste, pain, tragedy, death, anguish, erotic obsessions, unaccountable confusion, and self-absorbed personal ambitions that, if left unchecked, numb our earthly existence. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The quest for a contemplative life can actually be self-absorbed, focused on my quiet and me. If we love people and have the power to help, then we are going to be busy. Learning to pray doesn't offer us a less busy life, it offers us a less busy heart. In the midst of outer business we can develop an inner quiet. Because we are less hectic on the inside, we have a greater capacity to love ... and thus to be busy, which in turn drives us even more into a life of prayer. By spending time with our Father in prayer, we integrate our lives with his, with what he is doing in us. Our lives become more coherent. They feel calmer, more ordered, even in the midst of confusion and pressure. — Paul E. Miller

Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships, can only lead to violence and pain. — Daniel Keyes

She is so totally absorbed in a vocation - both a gift and a mastering passion - that she has no time to be absorbed with the self's worries about itself. And that is the moral of the story: You can pursue happiness by wearing a torn jersey. You can catch it by being good at something you love. — George Will

Little children never get frozen by their selfishness. Like the disciples, they come just as they are, totally self-absorbed. They seldom get it right. As parents or friends, we know all that. In fact, we are delighted (most of the time!) to find out what is on their little hearts. We don't scold them for being self-absorbed or fearful. That is just who they are. — Paul Miller

The Failure of Will theory is equally popular with people who are not depressed. Get out and take your mind off yourself, they say. You're too self-absorbed. This is just about the stupidest thing you can say to a depressed person, and it is said every day to depressed people all over this country. And if it isn't that, it's Shut up and take your Prozac. — Chase Twichell

Although people sometimes assume that the happy are self-absorbed and complacent, just the opposite is true. In general, happiness doesn't make people want to drink daiquiris on the beach; it makes them want to help rural villagers gain better access to clean water. — Gretchen Rubin

You see, programmers tend to be arrogant, self-absorbed introverts. We didn't get into this business because we like people. Most of us got into programming because we prefer to deeply focus on sterile minutia, juggle lots of concepts simultaneously, and in general prove to ourselves that we have brains the size of a planet, all while not having to interact with the messy complexities of other people. — Robert C. Martin

The true God gives so we can become joyful givers and not just self-absorbed receivers. — Miroslav Volf

An example I often use to illustrate the reality of vanity, is this: look at the peacock; it's beautiful if you look at it from the front. But if you look at it from behind, you discover the truth ... Whoever gives in to such self-absorbed vanity has huge misery hiding inside them. — Pope Francis

My dogs, the only creatures on the planet marked by my singular nurturing imprint, have all turned out to be rude and self-absorbed. In all likelihood, if they were children instead of dogs, I would have foisted more Charlie Sheens or Kardashians onto our crumbling culture. — Merrill Markoe

It's easy to be a bad ass, it's easy to act like a bad ass, easy to act like a tough guy, it's easy to be a diva, and it's easy to be self absorbed. The list goes on and on but to me, I always just find it more important to be nice and kind. — Dwayne Johnson

I am far from a perfect dad. And I always will be. But I'm a damn good dad, and my son will always feel bigger than anything life can throw at him. Why? Because I get it. I get the power a dad has in a child's life, and in a child's level of self-belief. I get that everything I ever do and ever say to my son will be absorbed, for good or for bad. — Dan Pearce

If anybody studying psychology wants a concrete example of what a narcissist looks like, I advise them to consider any man who cheats on his wife. These guys are the textbook me-firsters, the ones who think the rules don't apply to them, the ones who tell themselves as long as she doesn't know, there's no harm done. No woman needs to sleep with these guys. There are so many single self-absorbed narcissists who will fuck you poorly. — Julie Klausner

Finally, I applied to one of my roommates, more sagacious than the rest, for advice. Dave, I said. I'm broke and without prospects. I've blown my GI Bill on flying lessons. I can't hide out here in college much longer. What should I do?

Well, he said, at this crucial juncture you need to coldly appraise yourself. "I've only known you these few short years, but it strikes me you wouldn't be good for anything important; I'd have to say you're lazy, self-absorbed, glib and facetious, always ready to mock the suggestions of others, but never offering anything positive of your own. Intellectually shallow, no tap root anywhere, spiritually neutered, without feeling or compassion, unsteady of focus, lacking the fortitude for the long pull, with no fixed belief in anything."

I shook his hand and thanked him. The acuity of his analysis made my path clear. My only hope lay in daily journalism. — Phil Garlington

To assume that I and I alone have all the answers is to eventually find myself entirely alone without any answers. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Facebook had to be the biggest playground for self-absorbed assholes that the world had ever seen. — Jana Deleon

The temptation to hide in his job, to allow all his thoughts and emotions to become absorbed in the details of his career was hard to resist. It felt like virtue and it was quite possible to be completely self-righteous about it. But it was, he knew, only cowardice in disguise. If you weren't willing to face your life - all your life, including the rough parts - then you weren't truly living. You were just making a living. He — Pamela Morsi

Patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all that we can - working, hoping, and exercising faith; bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!
Impatience, on the other hand, is a symptom of selfishness. It is a trait of the self-absorbed. It arises from the all too-prevalent condition called "center of the universe" syndrome, which leads people to believe that the world revolves around them and that all others are just supporting cast in the grand theater of mortality in which only they have the starring role. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Over and over these organizations tell America that family, above all, is what Christianity is about. Devotion to one's family is, indeed, a wonderful thing. Yet it is hardly something to brag about. For all except the most pathologically self-absorbed, love for one's parents, spouse, and children comes naturally. Jesus did not make it his business to affirm these ties; he didn't have to. Jews feel them, Buddhists feel them, Confucians and Zoroastrians and atheists feel them. Christianity is not about reinforcing such natural bonds and instinctive sentiments. Rather, Christianity is about challenging them and helping us to see all of humankind as our family. It seems clear that if Jesus had wanted to affirm the "traditional family" in the way that Pat Robertson claims, he would not have lived the way he did. — Bruce Bawer

In serving others, the church will save itself from becoming nothing more than a spiritualized 501c3 not-for-profit, self-centered corporation, organized for the benefit of donor tax exemption. Serving others will remind us of our identity and call us out from this self-absorbed, selfish world to be the people of God on a journey following his Son, Jesus. — Ronnie McBrayer

I think young adults get a bad rap for being self-absorbed and self-centered. My experience going around the United States and speaking in schools is that teenagers here are very interested in the fate of their peers around the world. — Patricia McCormick

We can become so insensitive to the Spirit's prodding that we become too idle, too self absorbed and too busy with too many things that in the eyes of God, are worthless. — William Branks

It is easy to slip into self-absorption, and it is equally fatal. When one becomes absorbed in himself, in his health, in his personal problems, or in the small details of daily living, he is, at the same time losing interest in other people; worse, he is losing his ties to life. From that it is an easy step to losing interest in the world and in life itself. That is the beginning of death. — Eleanor Roosevelt

Not speaking and speaking are both human ways of being in the world, and there are kinds and grades of each. There is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy; the sober silence that goes with a solemn animal face; the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul, whence emerge new thoughts; the alive silence of alert perception, ready to say, "This ... this ... "; the musical silence that accompanies absorbed activity; the silence of listening to another speak, catching the drift and helping him be clear; the noisy silence of resentment and self-recrimination, loud and subvocal speech but sullen to say it; baffled silence; the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos. — Paul Goodman

Many Christians still at bottom look upon God as one of the most selfish, self-absorbed Beings in the universe, far more selfish than they could think it right to be themselves, -intent only upon His own honor and glory, looking out continually that His own rights are never trampled on; and so absorbed in thoughts of Himself and of His own righteousness, as to have no love or pity to spare for the poor sinners who have offended Him. — Hannah Whitall Smith

People are self-absorbed. I think that the mass ability of communication now probably allows individuals to meet more self-absorbed individuals. It has certainly changed the way that people meet. — Nicholas Sparks

Unlike the rest of you, I cheerfully admit to my own utter selfishness. I am self-made, self-absorbed, self-serving, self-referential, even self-deprecating, in a charming sort of way. In short, I am all the selfs except selfless. Yet every so often I run across a force of nature that shakes my sublime self-centeredness to its very roots. Something that tears through the landscape like a tornado, leaving nothing but ruin and reexamination in its wake. — William Lashner

Birthday parties and events will be thrown for the child to elicit admiration and attention from others. However, the child will be punished, berated and humiliated in the middle of the party in front of an audience if they behave against the expectations of the self-absorbed mother. The party only serves to generate additional narcissistic supply for the mother, not a pleasurable event for the child. Events are scheduled, changed, and cancelled in order to exert and announce control over the child. They make it very apparent to the child that the mother can both give pleasure and take pleasure away by these means. — J.B. Snow

Consider what a child misses during the 15, 000 hours (from birth to age seventeen) he spends in front of the TV screen. He is not working in the garage with his father, or in the garden with his mother. He is not doing homework, or reading, or collecting stamps. He is not cleaning his room, washing the supper dishes, or cutting the lawn. He is not listening to a discussion about community politics among his parents and their friends. He is not playing baseball or going fishing, or painting pictures. Exactly what does television offer that is so valuable it can replace these activities that transform an impulsive, self-absorbed child into a critically thinking adult? — Paul Copperman

I don't have an ego that makes me believe the world revolves around me. I am not self-absorbed. — Rush Limbaugh

The more I focused on my need to get better the worse I actually got - the more neurotic and self-conscious and self-absorbed I became. — Tullian Tchividjian

I am talking about self absorbtion. If you think about it, the human race is pretty self absorbed. Racism might be the symptoms of a greater disease, What I mean is, as a human, I am flawed in that it is difficult for me to consider others before myself. It feels like I have a fight against this force, this current within me that more often than not wants to avoid serious issues and wants to please myself, buy things for myself, feed myself, entertain myself, and all that. All I am saying is that if we , as a species could fix our self absorption, we could end a lot of pain in the world. — Donald Miller

My joy need not be destroyed by a self-absorbed colonel, a terminally ignorant administrator, the incessant cell phone chatter of a self-important suit on the airplane, or losing sight in one eye. My joy is destroyed by believing that they can affect my joy, thereby making it so. — Natalie Sudman

There was a tradition of soap-box public speaking in Sator Square. "Speaking" was stretching a point to cover the ranters, haranguers and occasional self-absorbed mumblers that spaced themselves at intervals amongst the crowds. And, traditionally, people said whatever was on their minds and at the top of their voices. The Patrician, it was said, looked kindly on the custom. He did. And very closely, too. He probably had someone make notes. — Terry Pratchett

To forget the past so easily seems scarcely loyal to oneself. I am so selfishly absorbed in my present self that I have grown not to care a damn about that ever increasing collection of past selves- those dear, dead gentlemen who one after the other have tenanted the temple of this flesh and handed on the torch of my life and personal identity before creeping away silently and modestly to rest. — W.N.P. Barbellion

Shatter the glass. In our society that is so self-absorbed, begin to look less at yourself and more at each other. Learn more about the face of your neighbor and less about your own. — Sargent Shriver

People that have been consistently hurt by others in life will only see the one time you hurt them and be blinded to all the good your heart has to offer. They look no further than what they want to see. Unfortunately, most of them remain a victim throughout their life. — Shannon L. Alder

In a way, both the U.S. media and those wacky rioters in the Afghan-Pakistani hinterlands are very similar, two highly parochial and monumentally self-absorbed tribes living in isolation from the rest of the world and prone to fanatical irrational indestructible beliefs - not least the notion that you can flush a 950-page book down one of Al Gore's eco-crazed federally mandated low-flush toilets, a claim no editorial bigfoot thought to test for himself in Newsweek's executive washroom. — Mark Steyn

Relax; the world's not watching that closely. It's too busy contemplating itself in the mirror. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Loving yourself ... does not mean being self-absorbed or narcissistic, or disregarding others. Rather it means welcoming yourself as the most honored guest in your own heart, a guest worthy of respect, a lovable companion — Margot Anand