Quotes About Identity

Financially stable, mentally questionable.

— Motto of the Gotham City Riders, an upscale New York City motorcycle gang

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

— Agnes Repplier

How queer everything is today!  And yesterday things went on just as usual.  I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night?  Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning?  I almost think I can remember feeling a little different.  But if I’m not the same, the next question is, “Who in the world am I?”  Ah, that’s the great puzzle!

— Lewis Carroll

Knowing others is wisdom.  Knowing the self is enlightenment.

— Lao-tzu

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline: the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.

— Abraham J. Heschel

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.

— Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel

If you practice an art, be proud of it and make it proud of you. . . . It may break your heart, but it will fill your heart before it breaks it: it will make you a person in your own right.

— Maxwell Anderson

Every man has three characters—that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.

— Alphonse Karr

Conform and be dull.

— James Frank Dobie

Men are created different; they lose their social freedom and their individual autonomy in seeking to become like each other.

— David Riesman

Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority.

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.

— Archibald MacLeish

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.

— Henry David Thoreau

Everyone alters and is altered by everyone else.  We are all the time taking in portions of one another or else reacting against them, and by these involuntary acquisitions and repulsions modifying our natures.

— Gerald Brenan

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

— Mark Twain

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.

— Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt.

— Max Lerner

 “Know thyself” is a good saying, but not in all situations.  In many it is better to say “know others.”

— Menander

Character is much easier kept than recovered.

— Thomas Paine

The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained.

— John Stuart Mill

The Kingdom of God is within you.

— Luke 17:21

Prayer gives a man the opportunity of getting to know a gentleman he hardly ever meets.  I do not mean his maker, but himself.

— Dean William R. Inge

In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others.

— John Stuart Mill

People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself.  But the self is not something that one finds.  It is something that one creates.

— Thomas Szasz

If a man is not faithful to his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything.

— Claude McKay

One man’s way may be as good as another’s, but we all like our own best.

— Jane Austen

A man finds his identity by identifying.  A man’s identity is not best thought of as the way in which he is separated from his fellows but the way in which he is united with them.

— Robert Terwilliger

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

— Alan Watts

Character is made by what you stand for; reputation, by what you fall for.

— Robert Quillen

Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness.

— Yousuf Karsh

The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one’s work seriously and taking one’s self seriously.  The first is imperative and the second is disastrous.

— Margot Fonteyn

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Elegance is innate.  It has nothing to do with being well dressed.  Elegance is refusal.

— Diana Vreeland

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

— Eleanor Roosevelt

No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or “get rich” in business by being a conformist.

— J. Paul Getty

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

— Eric Hoffer

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.

— George Bernard Shaw

Don’t compromise yourself.  You’re all you’ve got.

— Janis Joplin

When you’ve got the personality, you don’t need the nudity.

— Mae West