Sunday, November 17, 2019 – Self-Regard
All of nationalism can be understood as a kind of collective narcissism. ~ Geoff Mulgan
Twitter is the marriage of full-tilt narcissism and full-tilt voyeurism that has finally collided in 140 words. ~ Adam Goldberg
Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity. ~ Frank Leahy
Stupidity combined with arrogance and a huge ego will get you a long way. ~ Chris Lowe
Point me out the happy man and I will point you out egotism or selfishness or evil – or else an absolute ignorance. ~ Graham Greene
He’s satisfied with himself. If you have a soul you can’t be satisfied. ~ Graham Greene
It always seemed strange to me that the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second. ~ John Steinbeck
Hate is the complement of fear and narcissists like being feared. It imbues them with an intoxicating sensation of omnipotence. ~ Sam Vaknin
Imagining that you are deep and complex, but others are simple, is one of the primary signs of malignant selfishness. ~ Stefan Molyneux
We can’t all be stars because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as I go by. ~ Sebastian Horsley, Dandy in the Underworld: An Unauthorized Autobiography
I don’t care what you think unless it is about me. ~ Kurt Cobain
Part of me suspects that I’m a loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty. ~ John Lennon
People hate me because I am a multifaceted, talented, wealthy, internationally famous genius. ~ Jerry Lewis
Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy – the joy of being Salvador Dalí – and I ask myself in rapture: What wonderful things this Salvador Dalí is going to accomplish today? ~ Salvador Dalí
When I look at myself, I am so beautiful I scream with joy! ~ Maria Montez
If I only had a little humility, I would be perfect. ~ Ted Turner
Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top TV Star to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius… and a very stable genius at that! ~ Donald J. Trump, January 6, 2018
The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you. ~ Eckhart Tolle
The greater the artist, the greater the doubt – perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize. ~ Robert Hughes
When science discovers the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to find they are not it. ~ Bernard Baily
One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. ~ G. K. Chesterton
Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called “Ego.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Let’s face it; God has a big ego problem. Why do we always have to worship him? ~ Bill Maher
I like the moment when I break a man’s ego. ~ Bobby Fischer
The nice thing about egotists is that they don’t talk about other people. ~ Lucille S. Harper
The prime purpose of eloquence is to keep other people from talking. ~ Louis Vermeil
Egotist: a person more interested in himself than in me. ~ Ambrose Bierce
Ego is to the true self what a flashlight is to a spotlight. ~ John Bradshaw
Intolerance itself is a form of egoism, and to condemn egoism intolerantly is to share it. ~ George Santayana
It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help. ~ Judith Martin
History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. ~ Sir Winston Churchill
Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same. ~ George Bernard Shaw
I stand by all the misstatements that I’ve made. ~ Dan Quayle
Opinions scattered indiscriminately about leave the mark of egotism. ~ William Strunk, Strunk & White: The Elements of Style
Wear your learning like your watch, in a private pocket; and do not pull it out, and strike it, merely to show that you have one. ~ Lord Chesterfield
Basically, I think you need two things to get by in this world: a sense of humor and the ability to laugh when your ego is destroyed. ~ Arlo Guthrie
If you’re working out in front of a mirror and watching your muscles grow, your ego has reached a point where it is now eating itself. That’s why I believe there should be a psychiatrist at every health club, so that when they see you doing this, they will take you away for a little chat. ~ Lewis Black
There’s no ego when you’re a ukulele player. ~ Jake Shimabukuro
An actress must never lose her ego – without it she has no talent. ~ Tom Lehrer
The main condition for the achievement of love is the overcoming of one’s narcissism. The narcissistic orientation is one in which one experiences as real only that which exists within oneself, while the phenomena in the outside world have no reality in themselves, but are experienced only from the viewpoint of their being useful or dangerous to one. The opposite pole to narcissism is objectivity; it is the faculty to see other people and things as they are, objectively, and to be able to separate this objective picture from a picture which is formed by one’s desires and fears. ~ Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving
Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have, so to speak, pawned a part of their narcissism. ~ Sigmund Freud
Central to the Buddha’s teaching is the doctrine of anatman: “not-self.” This does not deny that the notion of an “I” works in the everyday world. In fact, we need a solid, stable ego to function in society. However, “I” is not real in an ultimate sense. It is a “name”: a fictional construct that bears no correspondence to what is really the case. Because of this disjunction all kinds of problems ensue. Once our minds have constructed the notion of “I,” it becomes our central reference point. We attach to it and identify with it totally. We attempt to advance what appears to be its interests, to defend it against real or apparent threats and menaces. And we look for ego-affirmation at every turn: confirmation that we exist and are valued. The Gordian Knot of preoccupations arising from all this absorbs us exclusively, at times to the point of obsession. This is, however, a narrow and constricted way of being. Though we cannot see it when caught in the convolutions of ego, there is something in us that is larger and deeper: a wholly other way of being. ~ John Snelling, Elements of Buddhism
The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, and that one is prepared in the end, to be defeated, and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one’s love upon other human individuals. ~ George Orwell
A current pejorative adjective is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adjective is often applied to those “liberals” who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the highest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meanings of words, is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to consume. ~ Gore Vidal, Point to Point Navigation
I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. ~ Henry David Thoreau
Just Above Sunset 