Great Throughts Treasury

"The acceptance of women as authority figures or as role models is an important step I female education... It is this process of identification, respect, and then self-respect that promotes growth." -

"If the aim of the military action is an equivalent for the political object, that action will in general diminish as the political object diminishes. The more this object comes to the front, the more will this be so. This explains how, without self-contradiction, there can be wars of all degrees of importance and energy, from a war of extermination down to a mere state of armed observation." - Carl von Clausewitz, fully Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz, also Karl von Clausewitz

"It is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge." - Joseph Conrad, born Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski

"They believe their words. Everybody shows a respectful deference to certain sounds that he and his fellows can make. But about feelings people really know nothing. We talk with indignation or enthusiasm; we talk about oppression, cruelty, crime, devotion, self-sacrifice, virtue, and we know very little beyond the words." - Joseph Conrad, born Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski

"The very nearest approach to domestic happiness on earth is in the cultivation on both sides of absolute unselfishness. Never both be angry at once. Never talk at one another, either alone or in company. Never speak loud to one another unless the house is on fire. Let each; one strive to yield oftenest to the wishes of the other. Let self-denial be the daily aim and practice of each. Never find fault unless it is perfectly certain that a fault has been committed, and always speak lovingly. Never taunt with a past mistake. Neglect the whole world besides rather than one another. Never allow a request to be repeated. Never make a remark at the expense of each other, it is a meanness. Never part for a day without loving words to think of during absence. Never meet without a loving welcome. Never let the sun go down upon any anger or grievance. Never let any fault you have committed go by until you have frankly confessed it and asked forgiveness. Never forget the happy hours of early love. Never sigh over what might have been, but make the best of what is. Never forget that marriage is ordained of God, and that His blessing alone can make it what it should ever be. Never be contented till you know you are both walking in the narrow way. Never let your hopes stop short of the eternal home." -

"You do not need to be loved, not at the cost of yourself. The single relationship that is truly central and crucial in a life is the relationship to the self. Of all the people you will know in a lifetime, you are the only one you will never lose." - Jo Coudert

"When we abandon the thought of immortality we at least have cast out fear. We gain a certain dignity and self-respect. We regard our fellow travelers as companions in the pleasures and tribulations of life... We gain kinship with the world." - Clarence Darrow, fully Clarence Seward Darrow

"Laughter is an integral part of life, one that we could ill afford to lose. If I were asked what single quality every human being needs more than any other, I would answer, the ability to laugh at himself. When we see our own grotesqueries, how droll our ambitions are, how comical we are in almost all respects, we automatically become more sane, less self-centered, more humble, more wholesome. To laugh at ourselves we have to stand outside ourselves - and that is an immense benefit. Our puffed-up pride and touchy self-importance vanish; a clean and sweet humility begins to take possession of us. We are on the way to growing a soul." - Arthur Powell Davies

"Holding-in creates horrid poisons which wear us out before our time. There are more deaths caused by ingrown, suppurating self-control than the medical profession know of." - Robertson Davies

"An animal's first impulse is self-preservation." - Diogenes Laërtius, aka "Diogenes the Cynic"

"As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs to be supplied with good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task." - Diogenes Laërtius, aka "Diogenes the Cynic"

"Peace comes only from loving, from mutual self-sacrifice and self-forgetfulness. Few today have humility or wisdom enough to know the world's deep need of love. We are too much possessed by national and racial and cultural pride." - Horace William Baden Donegan

"There is but one virtue - the eternal sacrifice of self." -

"Serenity is complete self-abnegation and enormous understanding." - Eleanora Duse, aka Duse

"Rest is not quitting the busy career; rest is the fitting of self to its sphere." - John Sullivan Dwight

"Be the first to say what is self-evident, and you are immortal." - Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

"The sympathy of most people consists of a mixture of good-humor, curiosity, and self-importance." - Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

"Each self is a divine creation." - John Eccles, fully Sir John Carew Eccles

"Most of our censure of others is only oblique praise of self, uttered to show the wisdom and superiority of the speaker. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the ill-desert of falsehood." - Tyron Edwards

"Religion, in its purity, is not so much a pursuit as a temper; or rather it is a temper, leading to the pursuit of all that is high and holy. Its foundation is faith; its action, works; its tempter, holiness; its aim, obedience to God in improvement of self and benevolence to men." - Tyron Edwards

"Is it any weakness, pray, to be wrought on by exquisite music? to feel its wondrous harmonies searching the subtlest windings of your soul, the delicate fibres of life where no memory can penetrate, and binding together your whole being, past and present, in one ;unspeakable vibration; melting you in one moment with all the tenderness, all the love, that has been scattered through the toilsome years, concentrating in one emotion of heroic courage or resignation all the hard-learned lessons of self-renouncing sympathy, blending your present joy with past sorrow, and your present sorrow with all your past joy?" - George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

"Mighty is the force of motherhood! It transforms all things by its vital heat; it turns timidity into fierce courage, and dreadless defiance into tremulous submission; it turns thoughtlessness into foresight, and yet stills all anxiety into calm content; it makes selfishness become self-denial, and gives even to hard vanity the glance of admiring love." - George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

"Happiness is not in strength, or wealth, or power, or all three. It lies in ourselves, in true freedom, in the conquest of every ignoble fear, in perfect self-government, in a power of contentment and peace, and the even flow of life, even in poverty, exile, disease, and the very valley of the shadow of death." -

"The first business of a philosopher is to part with self-conceit." -

"What is the first business of philosophy? To part with self-conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn what he thinks that he already knows." -

"I have never heard anyone who I considered a good teacher claim that he or she is a good teacher - in the way that one might claim to be a good writer or surgeon or athlete. Self-doubt seems very much a part of the job of teaching: one can never be sure how well it is going." -

"Every job is a self-portrait of the person who did it. Autograph your work with excellence." - Charles de Saint-Évremond, fully Charles Marguetel de Saint-Denis, seigneur de Évremond

"Many a friendship, long, loyal, and self-sacrificing, rested at first on no thicker a foundation than a kind word." -

"The most distinctive mark of a cultured mind is the ability to take another's point of view; to put one's self in another's place, and see life and its problems from a point of view different from one's own. To be willing to test a new idea; to be able to live on the edge of difference in all matters intellectually; to examine without heat the burning question of the day; to have imaginative sympathy, openness and flexibility of mind, steadiness and poise of feeling, cool calmness of judgment, is to have culture." - A. H. R. Fairchild, fully Arthur Henry Rolph Fairchild

"At sixteen I was stupid, confused, insecure and indecisive. At twenty-five I was wise, self-confident, prepossessing and assertive. At forty-five I am stupid, confused, insecure and indecisive. Who would have supposed that maturity is only a short break in adolescence?" - Jules Feiffer, fully Jules Ralph Feiffer

"It is this unquiet self-love that renders us so sensitive. The sick man, who sleeps ill, thinks the night long. We exaggerate, from cowardice, all the evils which we encounter; they are great, but our sensibility increases them. The true way to bear them is to yield ourselves up with confidence to God." - François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

"What thing is more difficult? A man to know hym self." - John Florio

"It is pleasant to be transferred from an office where one is afraid of a sergeant-major into an office where one can intimidate generals, and perhaps this is why History is so attractive to the more timid among us. We can recover self-confidence by snubbing the dead." - E. M. Forster, fully Edward Morgan Forster

"At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one's lost self." - Brendan Francis Behan

"It has always seemed to me that ruthlessness and arrogant self-confidence constitute the indispensable condition for what, when it succeeds, strike us as greatness. And I also believe that one ought to differentiate between greatness of achievement and greatest of personality." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"Love is union with somebody, or something, outside oneself, under the condition of retaining the separateness and integrity of one's own self." -

"Since modern man experiences himself both as the seller and as the commodity to be sold on the market, his self-esteem depends on conditions beyond his control. If he is "successful," he is valuable; if he is not "he is worthless."" -

"Your self image is your pattern! Every thought has an activity visualized. Every activity belongs to a pattern. You identify with your pattern of thought. Your pattern leads your life." - J. G. Gallimore, fully Jerry G. Gallimore

"Good government is no substitute for self-government." -

"The highest form of freedom carries with it the greatest measure of discipline and humility. Unbridled license is a sign of vulgarity, injurious alike to self and one's neighbors." -

"The history of the world is full of men who rose to leadership, by sheer force of self-confidence, bravery and tenacity." -

"In the business world, everyone is always working at legitimate cross purposes, governed by self interest." -

"What we call love is the desire to awaken and to keep awake in another's body, heart and mind, the responsibility of flattering, in our place, the self of which we are not very sure." - Paul Géraldy, pen name of Paul Lefevre

"The strongest single factor in prosperity consciousness is self-esteem: believing you can do it, believing you deserve it, believing you will get it" - Jerry Gillies

"It is delightful to transport one’s self into the spirit of the past, to see how a wise man has thought before us, and to what a glorious height we have at last reached." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Self knowledge is best learned, not by contemplation, but action. Strive to do your duty and you will soon discover of what stuff you are made." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"The mere observing of a thing is no use whatsoever. Observing turns into beholding, beholding to thinking, thinking into establishing connections, so that one may say that every attentive glance we cast on the world is an act of theorizing. However, this ought to be done consciously, with self-criticism, with freedom, and, to use a daring word, with irony." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Which is the best government? That which teaches self-government." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Happiness, she loves to see men at work. She loves sweat, weariness, self sacrifice. She will be found not is palaces but lurking in cornfields and factories; and hovering over littered desks; she crowns the unconscious head of the busy child." -

"Happiness is a rebound from hard work. One of the follies of man is to assume that he can enjoy mere emotion. As well try to eat beauty. Happiness must be tricked. She loves to see men work. She loves sweat, weariness, self-sacrifice. She will not be found in the palaces, but lurking in cornfields and factories, and hovering over littered desks. She crowns the unconscious head of the busy child." -