Self

In philosophy, the self is the idea of a unified being which is the source of an idiosyncratic consciousness.

Sourced

• “A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation’s relating itself to itself in the relation.”
  • Soren Kierkegaard. (1813-1855) "Sickness Unto Death"

• The Arch-flatterer, with whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man’s self.
  • Francis Bacon. ‘On Love’, Essays (1597-1625)

• The one self-knowledge worth having is to know one’s own mind.
  • Francis Herbert Bradley (1846–1924), British philosopher. Aphorisms, No. 8 (1930)

• Cogito, ergo sum.
• I think, therefore I am.
  • Descartes Discours de la Méthode, Discourse on the Method (1637)

• Identity is an illusion, a temporary state. Everyone is searching for it, but it’s only a brief reflection in a very shallow pool of time.
  • Olivia Dresher (b. 1945), American poet and publisher. ‘Aphorisms by Olivia Dresher’ on, Olivia Dresher.com

• Self-correction begins with self-knowledge.
  • Baltasar Gracián. In maxim 69, The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

• The best mirror is an old friend.
  • George Herbert Jacula Prudentum (1651) (17th Century English proverb)

• If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now - when?
  • Hillel, from Leo Rosten's Treasury of Jewish Quotations p. 459 (1972)

• Your identity changes with how you perceive reality.
  • Vithu Jeyaloganathan, as quoted in SACRED SPACE: Your Identity (July 11, 2009), The Times of India, SACRED SPACE: Who are you? (September 21, 2011).
  • Variant: “The identity of one changes with how one perceives reality.” As quoted in Between Dog and Wolf: Understanding the Connection and the Confusion (2012) by Jessica Addams and Andrew Miller, Dogwise Publishing

• I feel I am, but I think I am not.
  • Kedar Joshi, in Quotes by Kedar Joshi (Quotations - Superultramodern Science and Philosophy) (2007), SELF; also as quoted in Are We Three? (6 February 2012) by Raam Gokhale, Philosophy Pathways, Issue 169.

• Self: that invisible chain that snaps tight whenever we stray.
  • Yahia Lababidi (b. 1973), Egyptian-Lebanese essayist and poet. Signposts to Elsewhere (2008)

• Of course, "O'Blivion" was not the name I was born with. That's my television name. Soon, all of us will have special names — names designed to cause the cathode ray tube to resonate.
  • Professor Brian O'Blivion, in Videodrome, a 1983 film directed by David Cronenberg.

• To thine own self be true.
  • William Shakespeare Polonius, in Hamlet

• People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.
  • Thomas Szasz (b. 1920), Hungarian-American psychiatrist, writer and academic. The second Sin (1974)

• To love oneself is the begining of a life-long romance.
  • Oscar Wilde, 'Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young', (1894)

• Self-image is the beginning and ending of living, I think.
  • Henry Winkler (b.1945), American actor, producer and director. Stated in his appearance on, The One Show, BBC1 (UK) television talk show, 15th May 2009

See also

• Egotism