Quotes about Identity

To be of no Church is dangerous.

Seek out that particular mental attitude which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, "This is the real me," and when you have found that attitude, follow it.

We had as lief not be, as not be ourselves.

To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying "Amen" to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive.

Do not wish to be anything but what you are.

Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can?

It isn't until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are-not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within-that you can begin to take control.

We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinion, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins.

Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.

Languages are the pedigree of nations.

You and I are what we are, and will be what we will be. As for being poisoned by a book, there is no such thing as that... The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame. That is all.

Besides, who is to say that the feelings he writes in his diary are his true feelings? Who is to say that at each moment while the pen moves he is truly himself? At one moment he might truly be himself, at another he might simply be making things up. How can one know for sure? Why should he even want to know for sure?