Famous Quotes & Sayings

Christopher Hitchens

Endless praise and adoration, limitless abnegation and abjection of self; a celestial North Korea.

Gary Snyder

The mercy of the West has been social revolution; the mercy of the East has been individual insight into the basic self/void.

Gary Snyder

A great poet does not express his or her self; he expresses all of our selves.

Gary Snyder

For several centuries Western civilization has had a drive for material accumulation, continual extensions of economic power, termed 'progress'...The longing for growth is not wrong. The nub of the problem is how to flip over, as in jujitsu, the magnificent growth energy of modern civilization into a nonacquisitive search for deeper knowledge of self and nature.

Gary Zukav

It is possible that scientists, poets, painters and writers are all members of the same family of people whose gift it is by nature to take those things which we call common-place and to 're-present' them to us - the world - in such ways that our self-imposed limitations are expanded.

Gary Zukav

We cannot control what emotions or circumstances we will experience next, but we can choose how we will respond to them.

Gary Zukav

Scarcity of self value cannot be remedied by money, recognition, affection, attention or influence.

Gary Becker

Along with others, I have tried to pry economists away from narrow assumptions about self interest. Behavior is driven by a much richer set of values and preferences.

Gao Xingjian

In the century that has just passed, many of the intellectual elite went mad. It was as if, with the death of God, everyone suddenly turned into a saviour who wanted either to annihilate the obsolete world order or to establish a utopia. Naturally, there were writers among those who went mad. The fact that they had knowledge did not exempt intellectuals: there is madness everywhere. When one loses control over one's self, the result is madness.

Fulton J. Sheen

The egocentric is always frustrated, simply because the condition of self-perfection is self-surrender. There must be a willingness to die to the lower part of self, before there can be a birth to the nobler.

Fulton J. Sheen

Most of us do not like to look inside ourselves for the same reason we don't like to open a letter that has bad news.

Fulton J. Sheen

Far better it is for you to say: "I am a sinner," than to say: "I have no need of religion." The empty can be filled, but the self-intoxicated have no room for God.

Fulton J. Sheen

Love is the key to the mystery. Love by its very nature is not selfish, but generous. It seeks not its own, but the good of others. The measure of love is not the pleasure it gives-that is the way the world judges it-but the joy and peace it can purchase for others.

George C. Scott

There is no question you get pumped up by the recognition. Then a self-loathing sets in when you realise you're enjoying it.

Christopher Hitchens

I can never quite decide whether the anti- Columbus movement is merely risible or faintly sinister....It is sinister, though, because it is an ignorant celebration of stasis and backwardness, with an unpleasant tinge of self-hatred.

Christopher Hitchens

That most risky and volatile of all things a self-pitying majority.

Christopher Hitchens

I have always found it quaint and rather touching that there is a movement [Libertarians] in the US that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough.

Christopher Golden

What amazes me is how far some people will go to justify their behavior to themselves, just to preserve that self-perception.

Christopher Darden

I suppose that one of the reasons I wrote "In Contempt" was because of the money. After the trial I came to realize that there were things that I needed to do if I was to protect myself and my family, so there were some selfish reasons for it.

Christopher Dawson

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

Christopher Dawson

The moment that the state came into conflict with the higher power, the moment that it set itself up as an end in itself, it became identified with Augustine's earthly city and lost all claims to a higher sanction than the law of force and self-interest. Without justice, what is a great kingdom but a great robbery, magnum latrocinium?

Christine O'Donnell

The Ryan White Care Act provides money for community-based counseling centers. While that may sound noble and compassionate, we know from experience that "AIDS education" becomes a platform for the homosexual community to recruit adolescents and lure teens into a self-destructive sexual lifestyle.

Christina Baldwin

In the midst of overwhelming noise and distraction, the voice of story is calling us to remember our true selves.

Christina Baker Kline

I know too much; I've seen people at their worst, at their most desperate and selfish, and this knowledge makes me wary. So I am learning to pretend, to smile, to nod, to display empathy I do not feel. I am learning to pass, to look like everyone else, even though I feel broken inside.

Christina Ricci

As long as we can tell stories about our ability to survive, the more we will hope, not self-destruct.

Christina Ricci

When I was younger, I did self-mutilate. I'd be upset, so I'd do it, & it would calm me down. It's a horrible way to feel better. But there are two parts of your brain - one that really wants to destroy the other. & sometimes the idea of self-destruction is very romantic. I got over that.

Christina Aguilera

Don't let anything morph you or push you around or have you be something you're not.

Chris Gardner

Others may question your credentials, your papers, your degrees. Others may look for all kinds of ways to diminish your worth. But what is inside you no one can take from you or tarnish. This is your worth, who you really are, your degree that can go with you wherever you go, that you bring with you the moment you come into a room, that can't be manipulated or shaken. Without that sense of self, no amount of paper, no pedigree, and no credentials can make you legit. No matter what, you have to feel legit inside first.

Germaine Greer

Gillard is as likeable as Rudd is charmless. She is self-deprecating; he is ludicrously vainglorious. She is a mistress of understatement; he is a ranter.

Germaine Greer

It [childbearing] was never intended to be as time-consuming and self-conscious a process as it is. One of the deepest evils in our society is tyrannical nurturance.

Gertrude Stein

I wish that I was where I am.

Gertrude Stein

It is inevitable when one has a great need of something one finds it. What you need you attract like a lover.

Gertrude Stein

Nothing could bother me more than the way a thing goes dead once it has been said.