Self-denial is painful for a moment, but very agreeable in the end.

Self-denial is painful for a moment, but very agreeable in the end.

God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself in so far read more

God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself in so far as you are a created being made and let God be God in you.

We have to look at our own inertia, insecurities, self-hate, fear that, in truth, we have nothing valuable to say. read more

We have to look at our own inertia, insecurities, self-hate, fear that, in truth, we have nothing valuable to say. When your writing blooms out of the back of this garbage compost, it is very stable. You are not running from anything. You can have a sense of artistic security. If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.

The ruin of the human heart is self-interest, which the American merchant calls self-service. We have become a self-service populace, read more

The ruin of the human heart is self-interest, which the American merchant calls self-service. We have become a self-service populace, and all our specious comforts --the automatic elevator, the escalator, the cafeteria --are depriving us of volition and moral and physical energy.

Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own person is its ultimate reward.

Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own person is its ultimate reward.

Self knowers always dwell in El Dorado; they drink from the fountain of youth, and at all times owners of read more

Self knowers always dwell in El Dorado; they drink from the fountain of youth, and at all times owners of all they wish to enjoy.

To preserve an unclouded capacity for the enjoyment of life is an unusual moral and psychological achievement. Contrary to popular read more

To preserve an unclouded capacity for the enjoyment of life is an unusual moral and psychological achievement. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the prerogative of mindlessness, but the exact opposite: It is the reward of self-esteem.

I have never been contained except I made the prison.

I have never been contained except I made the prison.

To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening. To see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is read more

To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening. To see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is the merest decency. But it is from the far more difficult achievement of seeing ourselves amongst others, as a local example of the forms human life has locally taken, a case among cases, a world among worlds, that the largeness of mind, without which objectivity is self-congratulation and tolerance a sham, comes.