The foolish man conceives the idea of 'self.' The wise man…

I was born wise. Street-wise, people-wise, self-wise. This wisdom was my birthright.

— Sophia Loren

It is important that when pursing our own self-interest we should be 'wise selfish' and not 'foolish selfish'. Being foolish selfish means pursuing our…

— Anonymous

Again and again I find that my own inner counselor, my secret dreaming self, is not only wise and helpful but usually amusing as…

— Sheldon B. Kopp

The first Degree of Folly, is to conceit one's self wise; the second to profess it; the third to despise Counsel.

— Benjamin Franklin

It's difficult to believe in yourself because the idea of self is an artificial construction. You are, in fact, part of the glorious oneness…

— Russell Brand

Yes, we worship the idea of the "self-made man" - otherwise we'd go on strike against Bill Gates having all that money! We worship…

— James Hillman

Where do we end, and what is the self? You cut off your arm, you're still yourself. You cut off two of your arms,…

— Mike Cahill

The idea of self is dependent upon attraction, aversion and memory. Memory is simply a serial account of attractions and aversions that don't exist…

— Frederick Lenz

From the idea that the self is not given to us, I think there is only one practical consequence: we have to create ourselves…

— Michel Foucault

“He liked it, the idea of self-duplication. It was almost acquisitive, this thought.”

— Theodore Dreiser

“I saw clearly that the idea of the self—of distinction, of me, of an inner and outer—is just an illusion,” he said, “something created…

— Emily Esfahani Smith

I have always been interested in the idea of self-reinvention.

— Candice Millard

A woman of the world is anxious to exhibit her form and shape, whether walking, standing, sitting, or sleeping. Even when represented as a…

— Buddha

The sense of self is one of the obscurations that prevents us from seeing clearly, the idea that there is a self or that…

— Frederick Lenz

“Our ideas of self are fed to us by corporate game artists who wear us down with their generic mantras of compliance until we…

— Jeff Brown