For my purposes, I believe what Kierkegaard said, that you have to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling before you can get on with anyone else’s program.
~ Jim Harrison / Paris Review
Ethan Hawke on Getting What You Want
People think getting what you want will make you happy, but a sense of self, purpose and love don’t come from the outside.
~ Ethan Hawke / Guardian
George Carlin on Answers
“The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.”
~
Zeno on Self-Mastery
“Man conquers the world by conquering himself.”
~ Zeno of Citium
Marina Hyde on Problems
What a reminder that it’s really not about how you do externally. Unless you take care of your shit, it’s still there inside, gnawing you to bits, and it never goes away.
~ Marina Hyde / Guardian, 13 July, 2019
Michael Lewis on Achievement
What is the greatest achievement of your life so far?
Finding a path through life that doesn’t violate my inner sense of self…
~ Michael Lewis / Financial Times, December 15, 2017
Margaret Drabble on the Self
“We can choose to go against our nature, but only very slightly.”
~ Margaret Drabble
Aristotle on Desires
“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.”
~ Aristotle
Haruki Murakami on the Self
“No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves. That’s all.”
~ Haruki Murakami / Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Carl Jung on Personality
“Everything good is costly, and the development of the personality is one of the most costly of all things.”
~ Carl Jung
Buddha on Self-Mastery
“You are your only master. Who else could it be? Discipline yourself and discover your master.”
~ Buddha
William Shakespeare on Self-Harm
“Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves.”
~ William Shakespeare
Lucian Freud on Fate and Free Will
“There is no such thing as free will. People just have to do what they have to do.”
~ Lucian Freud