9 Quotes Tagged: self-centeredness

These illustrations suggest four general maxims[...].
The first is: remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself.
The second is: don't over-estimate your own merits.
The third is: don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself.
And the fourth is: don't imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any special desire to persecute you.

If you want people to think well of you, do not speak well of yourself.

How can one ever do anything nobly Christian, living among people with such petty thoughts?

Each man is everything to himself, for with his death everything is dead for him. That is why each of us thinks he is everything to everyone. We must not judge nature by ourselves, but by its own standards.

It is a poore Center of a Mans Actions, Himselfe.

To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.

There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally.

And yet I am happy. Yes, happy. I swear. I swear that I am happy...What does it matter that I am a bit cheap, a bit foul, and that no one appreciates all the remarkable things about me — my fantasy, my erudition, my literary gift…I am happy that I can gaze at myself, for any man is absorbing — yes, really absorbing! ... I am happy — yes, happy!

How hungrily we read about ourselves!