The mastery of nature is vainly believed to be an adequate substitute for self mastery.
It is certain that, because the negligent do not struggle against self, they never achieve peace of soul or do so tardily, and never possess any virtue in its fullness, while the energetic and industrious make notable advances on both fronts.
I have always loved and avidly read the novels of Jack London, Jules Verne and Ernest Hemingway. The characters depicted in their books, who are brave and resourceful people embarking on exciting adventures, definitely shaped my inner self and nourished my love for the outdoors.
Of course, with the increasing number of aeroplanes one gains increased opportunities for shooting down one's enemies, but at the same time, the possibility of being shot down one's self increases.
It is wisest to be impartial. If you have health, but are attached to it, you will always be afraid of losing it. And if you fear that loss, but become ill, you will suffer. Why not remain forever joyful in the Self?
Now, learning how to make a movie is something you can figure out in about an afternoon. The physics of it, the marks, the lights, etc. What's hard to do is to suspend your own feelings of self consciousness. The natural actors can do that; they can become part of a characterization and learn how to maintain it.
It's normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self's agenda.
The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim's sympathies.
It's hard to live in a blind and aimless - or dishonest, rather - narrative when somebody in your family is going farther toward - or at least think they are and say they are - their true self.
Some people have an identity. I have an alibi. I have a shadow self.
I got to a point where I referred to myself as Dolores of the Cranberries instead of myself because I alienated my real self from what I became so much.
All my work is not personal - I've been trying to get away from that into the true self underneath all the tastes and things we think make up a self.
I wish my 15-year-old self had known about my allure to the opposite sex!
All relationships change the brain - but most important are the intimate bonds that foster or fail us, altering the delicate circuits that shape memories, emotions and that ultimate souvenir, the self.
When a young non-white male is stopped and searched at the whim of a police officer, his idea of personal space, privacy and self esteem are shattered, to say nothing of his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment protections. The damage goes deep quickly and stays. Stop & frisk, as well as a tactic, is also an incitement.
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.
We need to make friends with ourselves. We are stuck with our self all day, so let's be kinder, gentler, more amusing company. Let's take our own hand and say, 'There, there, sister. You're doing a good job. I'm proud of how you're handling all this craziness down here. Don't give up. Carry on, warrior.'
I think that I have self esteem issues, really. If you really analyse it... People who really like me I have no interest in. The unattainable is always that I want to attain.
'Empire of Self' is a loving portrait of a very difficult man. Jay Parini, himself a gifted novelist, poet and biographer, has gone very deep into the 'black energy' of Gore Vidal's relentless narcissism and megalomania. Parini envisions an epic battle between Vidal's angelic and demonic sides, yet there's very little of the angel in Vidal.
The intelligence of the lower forms of animal life, like a great deal of human intelligence, does not involve a self.
