64 Quotes About Sense-of-self

One of the greatest tragedies in life is to lose your own sense of self and accept the version of you that is expected by everyone else.

What happens when I walkTo the extent of "I"And then keep walking?Who am I then?

Standing at the edge of my fearsAnd contemplating themIs a healthy exercise.The extent of the boundaries Of who I believe myself to be.What is in question as I stand Safely at the border of myselfAnd think of leapingOr continuing on?What happens when I walkTo the extent of "I"And then keep walking?Who am I then?

I don’t know how to be any version of me, much less a new and improved me.

She couldn’t explain it except with the word: there. She was there. Present in herself. She wasn’t always, so it was worth remarking upon.

Our minds have this strange ability to make associations using ourselves as a reference point. They create our identities based on our relation to people and things. They aim for control because ownership falsely promises us an elevated sense of self. But this is exactly the opposite of love. When we fall in love, we disidentify and get lost for a little while in a song, a beautiful painting, and most of all, we get lost in our lover. And through their love, we find our true infinite selves.

To study the self is to forget the self. Maybe if you sat enough zazen, your sense of being a solid, singular self would dissolve and you could forget about it. What a relief. You could just hang out happily as part of an open-ended quantum array.

O, wad some Power the giftie gie usTo see oursels as others see us!It wad frae monie a blunder free us,An' foolish notion.

Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self.