The deadliest foe to virtue would be complete self-knowledge.

Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived. It is a pity that this is still the only knowledge of their wives at which some men seem to arrive.

Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.

It is good to know what a man is, and also what the world takes him for. But you do not understand him until you have learnt how he understands himself.

The one self-knowledge worth having is to know one's own mind.

The force of the blow depends on the resistance. It is sometimes better not to struggle against temptation. Either fly or yield at once.

There are persons who, when they cease to shock us, cease to interest us.

Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart's blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink.

One said of suicide, As long as one has brains one should not blow them out. And another answered, But when one has ceased to have them, too often one cannot.

Eclecticism - every truth is so true that any truth must be false.

The world is the best of all possible worlds, and everything in it is a necessary evil.

It is by a wise economy of nature that those who suffer without change, and whom no one can help, become uninteresting. Yet so it may happen that those who need sympathy the most often attract it the least.

Another occupation might have been better.

There are those who so dislike the nude that they find something indecent in the naked truth.

The mood in which my book was conceived and executed, was in fact to some extent a passing one.

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. And that is not happiness.

The deadliest foe to virtue would be complete self-knowledge.

The man who has ceased to fear has ceased to care.

True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall he would be willing to repeat.

We say that a girl with her doll anticipates the mother. It is more true, perhaps, that most mothers are still but children with playthings.

The hunter for aphorisms on human nature has to fish in muddy water, and he is even condemned to find much of his own mind.

The painter... does not fit the paints to the world. He most certainly does not fit the world to himself. He fits himself to the paint. The self is the servant who bears the paintbox and its inherited contents.

Love is a mutual self-giving which ends in self-recovery.

I would rather take the role and work and make my own money and self respect than to have sex with someone who has a lot of money.

Lying is the most simple form of self-defence.

Sexual self-restraint is only a preliminary stage in the ego's evolution.

The intelligence of the lower forms of animal life, like a great deal of human intelligence, does not involve a self.

If you improve a teacher's self-esteem, confidence, communication skills or stress levels, you improve that teacher's overall effectiveness across the curriculum.

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.

I think we all have blocks between us and the best version of ourselves, whether it's shyness, insecurity, anxiety, whether it's a physical block, and the story of a person overcoming that block to their best self. It's truly inspiring because I think all of us are engaged in that every day.

Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self?

Self-justification is a treacherous servant.

To be able to throw one's self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman's smile - that is happiness.

Oh, God, I struggle with low self-esteem all the time! I think everyone does. I have so much wrong with me, it's unbelievable!

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

No doubt Western civilization has in the past been full of wars and revolutions, and the national elements in our culture, even when they were ignored, always provided an unconscious driving force of passion and aggressive self-assertion.

Housework is work directly opposed to the possibility of human self-actualization.

Having a sense of purpose is having a sense of self. A course to plot is a destination to hope for.

But I tend to think of the expressive part of me as rather tedious - never curious or responsive, but blind and self-serving.

And partly, the worst thing you could do in my family was need something from someone. So physical strength represented an avenue of self-sufficiency to me.

I think it is important to maintain a sense of self and confidence, not letting either falter for the sake of a particular part or project, no matter how great it might be.

The mind's first step to self-awareness must be through the body.

Self-esteem is the greatest sickness known to man or woman because it's conditional.

But, sir, they have written me down upon the history of the country as worthy of expulsion, and in no unkindness I must tell them that for all future time my self-respect requires that I shall pass them as strangers.

If we can but tear the blindfold of self-deception from our eyes and loosen the gag of self-denial from our voices, we can restore our country to greatness.

Self-love seems so often unrequited.

Having a baby dragged me, kicking and screaming, from the world of self-absorption.