Think About Yourself First Quotes & Sayings

I'm adorable, first off. My sense of humor is stellar - obvs."
"Obvs," she echoes dryly.
"I'm extraordinarily skilled in the art of conversation."
She nods. "When it's about yourself, of course."
"Of course." I pretend to think it over some more. "Oh, and I'm a mind reader. No lie. I always know what the other person is thinking."
"Yeah? What am I thinking right now?" Allie challenges.
"That you want me to shut up and fuck you again."
She shakes her head in dismay. "Goddamn it. That's actually what I was thinking."
I smirk at her and tap my forehead. "Told ya. Mind reader. — Elle Kennedy

I didn't think about being king," he said, his voice hoarse.
Eddis stared. "Your capacity to land yourself in a mess because you didn't think first, Eugenides, will never cease to amaze me. What do you mean you didn't think about being king? Is Attolia going to marry you and move into my library? — Megan Whalen Turner

This is the first truth to be learned in life: that you are always responsible, nobody else. With that comes great freedom, because with that all alternatives are open. If you think that somebody else is responsible then you are a slave; then nothing is open. Then you have to be what you are. If your life is a tragedy then it has to be a tragedy, because others are responsible; unless they change, nothing can be done about it. You don't have any freedom. And that is the reason why millions of people live in misery: they think others are creating their misery. Nobody is creating your misery, nobody can create it; and nobody can create your bliss either. It is a totally individual phenomenon. It is just your work upon yourself. And the most strange thing is: to create misery is difficult and to create bliss is easy, but people always choose the difficult thing, because the difficult thing always gives them an ego-trip. — Osho

Everything that you know about yourself comes from thinking back, and I think I saw religion as the first big betrayal of me. — George Carlin

The thing about old friends is not that they love you, but that they know you. They remember that disastrous New Year's Eve when you mixed White Russians and champagne, and how you wore that red maternity dress until everyone was sick of seeing the blaze of it in the office, and the uncomfortable couch in your first apartment and the smoky stove in your beach rental. They look at you and don't really think you look older because they've grown old along with you, and, like the faded paint in a beloved room, they're used to the look. And then one of them is gone, and you've lost a chunk of yourself. The stories of the terrorist attacks of 2001, the tsunami, the Japanese earthquake always used numbers, the deaths of thousands a measure of how great the disaster. Catastrophe is numerical. Loss is singular, one beloved at a time. — Anna Quindlen

I thought a lot about what I wanted to say," Ethan softly interrupted. "I wanted to be sure it would give you the strength and courage to win through today. I decided that all you need to know is all that anyone really needs to know - you are loved. I love you. Melanie loves you. We believe in you. Somewhere up there God's watching. He's surely watching you. If His eye watches a sparrow, you know He's watching the first of His children to reach across the stars and take the history of our small corner with His message out to every race of the universe. I think He must be on the edge of his throne watching and thinking, 'Finally! This moment has come.' He loves you, Leo. You can be sure of that. If all you know in life is that you are loved, you can press through anything. You can bear anything. Don't let them stop you. — Tom Deaderick

Every time you feel lost, confused, think about trees, remember how they grow. Remember that a tree with lots of branches and few roots will get toppled by the first strong wind, while the sap hardly moves in a tree with many roots and few branches. Roots and branches must grow in equal measure, you have to stand both inside of things and above them, because only then will you be able to offer shade and shelter, only then will you be able to cover yourself with leaves and fruit at the proper season.
And later on, when so many roads open up before you, you don't know which to take, don't pick one at random; sit down and wait. Breathe deeply, trustingly, the way you breathed on the day when you came into the world, don't let anything distract you, wait and wait some more. Stay still, be quiet, and listen to your heart. Then, when it speaks, get up and go where it takes you. — Susanna Tamaro

Her laughter sounded like music. "What, you don't hang out with missionaries in your downtime? When the rest of us go home and slip into sweatpants and T-shirts, you kick back in a polo shirt and khakis."
No one but Isaiah and Beth teased me. People ran from me. Yet this little nymph thoroughly enjoyed this game. "Keep it up, Echo. I'm all about foreplay."
She laughed so loudly, she slapped a hand over her mouth, yet the giggles escaped. "You are so full of yourself. You think because girls swoon over you and let you into their pants on the first try that I'll follow suit. Think again. Besides, I have your number now. Every time you try to look all dark and dangerous, I'll picture you wearing a pink striped polo, collar up, and a pair of pleated chinos." — Katie McGarry

Remember first that everything you think, say, and do is a reflection of what you've decided about yourself; a statement of Who You Are; an act of creation in your deciding who you want to be. — Neale Donald Walsch

How can you be so optimistic about the whole damn world but not about yourself?"
"My magic, you mean."
"Your neck, Pen."
She drew her head back as if he'd just shouted. His words struck her that forcefully.
"My . . . ?"
"I adore your neck. And your eyes. Do you know how long it's been since I thought the word 'indigo'? Maybe when I read it in a poem, years ago. But that's the color you use to stare at me."
Heat shivered up her spine, along the tops of her breasts and across her cheeks. Never. Not ever had she imagined such a treasure. So shocked, she said the first thing that came into her head. Pure instinct.
"Yours are like a clear piece of glass with the sky behind it."
He grinned lazily. "Is that what you think? Well, feel free to continue. — Ellen Connor

It doesn't matter what others think. This is about YOU. Create a life that you genuinely love with your whole heart & start with yourself. — Brittany Burgunder

So, the first thing we should introspect - are we concerned about ourselves ? All the time do we think that we are suffering, we have this problem, that problem, or this should be done, that should be done. If the attention is on that, that all the time you are worried about yourself, then you cannot break, you cannot break through this shell of your being which is under the domination of your mental selfishness or self centeredness. — Nirmala Srivastava

Return to spirituality. Forget about religion. That statement is going to anger a lot of people. People will react to this entire book with anger ... unless they do not. Why do You say, forget religion? Because it is not good for you. Understand that in order for organized religion to succeed, it has to make people believe they need it. In order for people to put faith in something else, they must first lose faith in themselves. So the first task of organized religion is to make you lose faith in yourself. The second task is to make you see that it has the answers you do not. And the third and most important task is to make you accept its answers without question. If you question, you start to think! If you think, you start to go back to that Source Within. Religion can't have you do that, because you're liable to come up with an answer different from what it has contrived. So religion must make you doubt your Self; must make you doubt your own ability to think straight. — Neale Donald Walsch

Before you choose whom to love, take a look at yourself, choose your own word, think about how and reassess your time when you have given life to love, Know your ready or not and make sure you are not there to hurt making regrets on your door and paint the word I wish on your window. — Auliq Ice

I think making shorts is really about giving yourself the opportunity to learn what your strengths and weaknesses are. That's really important to know before getting to your first feature. In many ways you can't afford to make too many mistakes while on that feature. — Aurora Guerrero

When I first went into freelancing, I think there was a period of about eight months when nothing happened. Everything that I wrote crumbled up, and then it became a self-destructive thing - when you begin to doubt yourself, when doubt turns into - it's sort of like impotence. Once impotent, you're forever impotent. Because you're always worried about being impotent. — Rod Serling

I invite you to open your mind to new possibilities. Let's fake it till we make it. Let's create visions of an aspirational future. You don't have to quit your job. But think about what might change your trajectory by half a degree. It could be that when you come home every night your first words are "I'm home! How can I help?" Try doing that. You may have a shitty job. You don't like it. You do it for the money, even if the money isn't great. Try to look at your work in a different way. Find something about your life that's great. Follow that thread. Volunteer. Even if you're in the worst possible situation, there's hope. Challenge yourself. Set your own bar. Redefine your success metrics. Create opportunities for yourself. Reassess your situation. We are all marching together. We're headed toward something big, and it's going to be good. — Biz Stone

When you get that opportunity to be honest and open with somebody, for the first time, and share things about yourself that you haven't been able to share before, that you might be scared of or ashamed about, that's really exhilarating, and I think that's something that people will really identify with. — Marc Webb

Every time you state what you want or believe, you're the first to hear it. It's a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Don't put a ceiling on yourself — Oprah Winfrey

First day of your teaching you are to stand at your classroom door and let your students know how happy you are to see them. Stand, I say. Any playwright will tell you that when the actor sits down the play sits down. The best move of all is to establish yourself as a presence and to do it outside in the hallway. Outside, I say. That's your territory and when you're out there you'll be seen as a strong teacher, fearless, ready to face the swarm. That's what a class is, a swarm. And you're a warrior teacher. It's something people don't think about. Your territory is like your aura, it goes with you everywhere, in the hallways, on the stairs and, assuredly, in the classroom. — Frank McCourt

I ... There was a time when I stopped talking. Just like you. My reasons were a little bit different, but I think the feelings of being ashamed of myself and hating myself are the same. Here, it says to "like yourself." What does that mean? Good things- how are you supposed to find them? I only know things that I hate about myself. Because that's all I know, I hate myself. But even if you force yourself to find good things, it feels so empty. It doesn't work that way. People like your teacher just don't get it. I think when you hear someone say they like you, for the first time, then you can begin to like yourself. I think when someone accepts you, for the first time, you feel like you can forgive yourself a little. You can begin to face your fears with courage. — Natsuki Takaya

Find your Element you may have to challenge your own beliefs about yourself. Whatever age you are, you've almost certainly developed an inner story about what you can do and what you can't do; what you're good at and what you're not good at. You may be right, of course. But for all the reasons we've discussed, you may be misleading yourself. Part of making sense of where you are now is to understand how you got here. So if you do doubt your aptitudes in certain areas, think about how these doubts were first formed. Are there other ways of developing them that you'd — Ken Robinson

Think for a moment about the work you've done over the last year. As subjective as it may seem, ask yourself: Which ones were the most effective? Chances are good that these pieces were so effective because they moved you first. The best works of art are the ones that don't set out to prove a point but that set out to tell a story, create a relationship; seek to put into words or pictures an unexplainable feeling. The best ideas must move you before they can move someone else. And so you must begin at your core. — Blaine Hogan

Hello, there should be more advice about dealing with depression when you're stupid and worthless, so here is a self help exercise.
Today's assignment is simple. Just go out and get on the bus.
It doesn't matter which bus. Whichever bus comes next. Get on, and just go. You could ride that bus to the very end, thank the driver, and then walk into the woods and just die. Just lay down right there and wait and wait until you were dead. Who is going to miss you?
Really, think about it. If you went out to the middle of nowhere and just sat down in a ditch and cried by yourself until you were dead, who would be the first person to wonder where you'd gone?
Call them up! Maybe they want to get ice cream? — Joey Comeau

If you want to understand who you are and where you stand in this maelstrom of churning values, you have first to understand how commodity values get created and produced and with what consequences - social, environmental, political and the like. If you think you can solve a serious environmental question like global warming without actually confronting the question of by whom and how the foundational value structure of our society is being determined, then you are kidding yourself. So Marx insists that we must understand what commodity values and the social necessities that determine them are all about. — David Harvey

The first thing that happens is the cleansing of the former character. I don't think a lot of actors talk about it, but there is usually a process where you essentially purge yourself of the character played prior to the movie. Then you want to think about what the character represents, and you write down all of the elements about this character and then take the time to find some synchronicity and start breathing the character. — Vin Diesel

I don't think a lot of actors talk about it, but there's usually a process where you essentially purge yourself of the character that you played prior to the movie. That's the first thing. You want to do it. — Vin Diesel

True Love, I know what it is. True love is something that we all don't get to find and it's sad to think about this, but I know what it is. True love is so strong that even when you are arguing/fighting with that person that you still feel emotionally connected (like your souls are one) and you happen to find yourself smiling in the middle of argument, because both have forgotten what they were arguing about in the first place. — Austin V. Songer

Strong self-esteem depends on two things. The first is what most of this book has been about: learning to think in healthy ways about yourself. The second key to self-esteem is the ability to make things happen, to see what you want and go for it: literally to create your own life. — Matthew McKay

I think no matter what you look like, the key is to first of all be happy with yourself. And then you know if you want to try to improve things that you don't like about yourself, then do it after your appreciate yourself. — Adele

There was a time I stopped talking, just like you. My reasons were a little bit different, but... I think the feelings of being ashamed of myself and hating myself... are the same. Here it says "to like yourself." What does that mean? Good things---how are you supposed to find them? I only know things that I hate about myself. Because that's all I know: I hate myself. Even if your force yourself to find good things... it feels so empty. It doesn't work that way. People like your teacher just don't get it.
I think... when you hear someone say they like you for the first time... then you can begin to like yourself. I think when someone accepts you for the first time... you feel like you can forgive yourself a little. You can begin to face your fears.

~Yuki — Natsuki Takaya

And this time as the lashes come, try to think about the pain, instead of against it, because there is not one single aspect of life, past, present, or future, that does not tear your reason from you, to think on it. So think about the pain. This pain after all has its limits. You can chart its passage through your body. It has a beginning, middle, end. Imagine if it had a color. The first cut of the lash is what, red? Red, spreading into a brilliant yellow. And this one again, red, red, no yellow, and then white, white, white, white ... Why have you incarcerated yourself in this palazzo of torture chambers, why do you not leave this place? Because you are a monster and this is a school for monsters, and if you leave here, then you will be completely, completely alone! Alone with this!
Don't weep in front of these strangers. Swallow it down. Don't weep in front of these strangers! Cry to heaven, cry to heaven, cry to heaven. — Anne Rice

I love telling stories. I think of myself as a storyteller, and I don't feel bound by being just a singer or an actress. First, I'm a storyteller, and history is stories - the most compelling stories. There is a lot you can find out about yourself through knowing about history. I have always been attracted to things that are old. I have just always found such things interesting and compelling. — Zooey Deschanel

Playing with various approaches may be due to resistance to going within, to the fear of having to abandon the illusion of being something or somebody in particular.Of all the affections the love of oneself comes first. Light and love are impersonal.When you do not think yourself to be this or that, all conflict ceases. Any attempt to do something about your problems is bound to fail, for what is caused by desire can be undone only in freedom from desire. You cannot be rid of problems without abandoning illusions. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

I won't look it in the eye. As soon as I do, I get scared. You gotta walk the plank at some point, but at first you gotta put blinders on or you'll overthink things. I think it's dangerous, by the way, to do a lot of talks about your art, to do so much talking and so little making. You get the wrong idea about yourself. — Laurel Nakadate

"It's just literally being afraid. And you think, oh, [the alcohol] will ease the fear. And it doesn't." What was he afraid of? "Everything. It's just a general all-round arggghhh. It's fearfulness and anxiety." He added, "For that first week you lie to yourself, and tell yourself you can stop, and then your body kicks back and says, no, stop later. And then it took about three years, and finally you do stop." — Robin Williams

Have you ever been turned down by a girl who afterwards married and then been introduced to her husband? If so you'll understand how I felt when Clarence burst on me. You know the feeling. First of all, when you hear about the marriage, you say to yourself, "I wonder what he's like." Then you meet him, and think, "There must be some mistake. She can't have preferred this to me! — P.G. Wodehouse

I should've been better. But sometimes all you can really stand to do is think about yourself. Sometimes it's the only way to cope. The only way to make sense of something as colossal and and intimidating as the world is to make it about you. — Emma Mills

You can tell a million different stories about love. Especially when it's love with someone who's different."
You mean a monster?" Coleman said.
"Well, that's what you think at first. But it's like, um, Beauty and the Beast. When you find out that the monster is actually ... nice."
...
"But doesn't real love work the other way round?" Kiralee asked. "You start by thinking someone's fabulous, and by the end of the piece you realize he's a monster!"
"Or that you're the monster yourself," Oscar said. — Scott Westerfeld

You don't know what it's like to grow up with a mother who never said a positive thing in her life, not about her children or the world, who was always suspicious, always tearing you down and splitting your dreams straight down the seams. When my first pen pal, Tomoko, stopped writing me after three letters she was the one who laughed: You think someone's going to lose life writing to you? Of course I cried; I was eight and I had already planned that Tomoko and her family would adopt me. My mother of course saw clean into the marrow of those dreams, and laughed. I wouldn't write to you either, she said. She was that kind of mother: who makes you doubt yourself, who would wipe you out if you let her. But I'm not going to pretend either. For a long time I let her say what she wanted about me, and what was worse, for a long time I believed her. — Junot Diaz

If you think you cannot do it, you set yourself up to fail anyway. Maybe it will take one more try to do it, and that is what life is about. If you don't get it right on the first try, you try again. You keep doing it and doing it until you find success! — Benoit Lecomte

As we drove I remembered how I had told myself I would make Simon happy. I didn't feel the same person. For I now knew that I had been stuffing myself up with a silly fairy tale, that I could never mean to him what Rose had meant. I think I knew it first as I watched his face while he listened to her singing, and then more and more, as he talked about the whole wretched business - not angrily or bitterly, but quietly and without ever saying a word against Rose. But most of all I knew it because a change in myself. Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you more than suffering yourself can.
Long before we got back to the castle, with all my heart and for my own heart's ease as well as his, I would have given her back to him if I could. — Dodie Smith

Once a person has been poisoned by self-deception, he can't make decisions about himself as neatly as all that," Himiko said, elaborating her friend's terrific prophecy; " You won't get a divorce Bird. You'll justify yourself like crazy, and try to salvage your married life by confusing the real issues. A decision like divorce is beyond you now, Bird, the poison has gone to work. And you know how the story ends ? Not even your own wife will trust you absolutely, and one day you'll discover for yourself that your entire private life is in the shadow of deception and in the end you'll destroy yourself. Bird, the first signs of self-destruction have appeared already!"
" But that's a blind alley! Leave it to you to paint the most hopeless future you can think of. " Bird lunged at jocularity ... — Kenzaburo Oe

You can only pretend that you're already dead and thus free yourself up to focus on three things: 1) finding and killing the enemy, 2) communicating the situation and resulting actions to adjacent units and higher headquarters, and 3) triaging and treating your wounded. If you love your men, you naturally think about number three first, but if you do you're wrong. The grim logic of combat dictates that numbers one and two take precedence. — Donovan Campbell

Yeah, well there's your first problem. You don't get it. You can't even see what you did. You're going to sit here today and you're going to convince yourself that you were right and I was unreasonable and you won't even think about what you just tried to make me into. But hey ... It's not my problem, now. You think what you want. I'm gone."
He sighed and reached for my suitcase. "Will you at least let me help you down the stairs?"
"Fuck off." I'd rather break my neck than let him give me a second of assistance.
"Topher, come on!" Now he sounded annoyed and seriously, fuck him, he didn't get to be pissy over this. I turned around and gave him a withering look.
"Be sure you clear the lube out of the bedside table before you bang your wife in that room. It's a dead giveaway. — Amelia C. Gormley

Go first to your highest thought about yourself. Imagine the you that you would be if you lived that thought every day. Imagine what you would think, do, and say, and how you would respond to what others would do and say ... Do you see any difference between that projection and what you think, do, and say now? — Neale Donald Walsch

When we first started out I had a really big issue and a lot of my loved ones had a really big issue with the fact that I was totally in pain up there and there was a time when I tried to hurt myself off stage, but I got over that. Like, you should never want to hurt yourself. You should love yourself. Sometimes you have to kind of die inside in order to rise from your own ashes and believe in yourself and love yourself and become a new person and I think that that is going to be a lot of what the next record is about, not to plug it or anything. Like, it's going to talk about dying and coming back to become what you totally want to become. We are all becoming what we want to become. — Gerard Way

One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself. Then you can come to an intelligent decision for yourself. If you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you will be walking west when you think you're going east, and you will be walking east when you think you're going west. — Malcolm X

First and foremost, you do not have to live up to or emulate the lives of any of your predecessors. But at the very least, you should know about them. You will have your own life, interests, and ideas of what you want or do not want in life. Do what you enjoy doing. Be honest with yourself and others. Don't think of satisfying anyone: your elders, peers, government, religion, or children who will come after you. Develop meaningful ideals, and become conscious of others, their existence, and their lives. — Yuri Kochiyama

Structure 19. You worried about structure when you came up with your story! If you did, I'm sorry. You missed some of the most joyous moments in writing. Character and story come first. Before anything. Certainly before all that Act One, Two, and Three crapola. When you're teasing out your story, make lots of notes. Think out loud. Talk to a tape recorder. Make more notes. Fill up oceans of 3x5 cards. Write on yellow legal pads. Write on white legal pads. Scribble on napkins or beer coasters. Write down cool stuff for characters to do that may never find its way into the movie. Make notes and more notes and more notes, but do not trouble yourself with structure. Screw structure. Have fun. Structure is for later. For now, just let your incredibly creative mind run free. Make notes about character and plot and story and funny moments and locations you'd like to visit. Tape record dialogue for your — William M. Akers

Q: How do you take off your suit of armor? How do you open yourself? A: It is not a question of how you do it. There is no ritual or ceremony or formula for opening. The first obstacle is the question itself: "How?" If you don't question yourself, don't watch yourself, then you just do it. We do not consider how we are going to vomit; we just vomit. There is no time to think about it; it just happens. If we are very tense, then we will have tremendous pain and will not really be able to vomit properly. We will try to swallow it back, try to struggle with our illness. We have to learn to relax when we are sick. — Chogyam Trungpa

I have often thought, during these conferences, about the comment that Maurice Maignan, one of the first companions of Ozanam, made after a retreat: "One thought strikes me. All the means of sanctification which the preacher proposes and develops require a strong soul...I will not profit from exercises designed for strong souls. O my God, show me the exercises designed for feeble souls. Would the saints have forgotten or disdained them? Yet even if the saints did not think of these poor souls, who are nevertheless most numerous, You, Lord, my mercy, have not abandoned them. You Yourself, Good Master, have burdened Yourself with them. I know that better than anyone. I am one of those souls, and I bless You for having revealed to the weak and the little ones what You do not always accord to the valiant and the strong. — Jean C.J. D'Elbee

It is true when you are by yourself and you think about life, it is always sad. All that excitement and so on has a way of suddenly leaving you, and it's as though, in the silence, somebody called your name, and you heard your name for the first time. — Katherine Mansfield

I think my mother taught me what not to do. She put us first, always, sometimes to the detriment of herself. She encouraged me not to do that. She'd say being a good mother isn't all about sacrificing; it's really investing and putting yourself higher on your priority list. — Michelle Obama

I mean, what can you say about how you write your books? What I mean is, first you've got to think of something, and then when you've thought of it you've got to force yourself to sit down and write it. That's all." ~ Mrs. Oliver — Agatha Christie