Quotes about Identity

Undine was fiercely independent and yet passionately imitative. She wanted to surprise every one by her dash and originality, but she could not help modelling herself on the last person she met, and the confusion of ideals thus produced caused her much perturbation when she had to choose between two courses.

Here was no retrospective pretense of an opulent past, such as the other Invaders were given to parading before the bland but undeceived subject race. The Spraggs had been plain people and had not yet learned to be ashamed of it.

Mrs. Fairford smiled. "I've sometimes thought," she mused, "that Mr. Popple must be the only gentleman I know; at least he's the only man who has ever told me he was a gentleman—and Mr. Popple never fails to mention it.

Marry—but whom, in the name of light and freedom? The daughters of his own race sold themselves to the Invaders; the daughters of the Invaders bought their husbands as they bought an opera-box. It ought all to have been transacted on the Stock Exchange.

To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

Shame is the deep sense that you are unacceptable because of something you did, something done to you, or something associated with you. You feel exposed and humiliated. Or, to strengthen the language, You are disgraced because you acted less than human, you were treated as if you were less than human, or you were associated with something less than human, and there are witnesses.

What is most important is that you look away from yourself to the true God. No matter who you are or where you are from, you will be able to know him and worship him. And when you worship him, it means you are accepted into his presence.

What is shame? God identifies it. God experienced it. You are not alone.

A lingering sense that something was very wrong with him. That sense is called shame.

If you feel ugly you will experience shame. The two are bound together.

Shame can be removed, and you can still be you. Despite your feeling that your destiny and shame's destiny are identical—that if shame no longer exists, you won't either—the reality is that you will be more you without shame.

When you have to manage the world, please everyone, earn more than you did last year, and work off five pounds, you will be driven. If not, you run the risk of being un-American or even un-Christian because our economy and churches rely on such people. Even when paralyzed by circumstances, a stressed person is a driven person.