"There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self."
Aldous Huxley, English critic & novelist (1894 - 1963)

"Man's main task is to give birth to himself."
Erich Fromm, US (German-born) psychologist (1900 - 1980)

"I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself."
Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592)

"The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You don't blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the President. You realize that you control your own destiny."
Albert Ellis

"Know thyself."
Thales (635 BC - 543 BC), (The Seven Sages) from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

"Never feel self-pity, the most destructive emotion there is. How awful to be caught up in the terrible squirrel cage of self."
Millicent Fenwick

"No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)

"When you re-read a classic you do not see in the book more than you did before. You see more in you than there was before."
Clifton Fadiman

"Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you're just a reflection of him?"
Calvin and Hobbes

"Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul."
Marcus Aurelius

"Your identity and your success go hand in hand. Many people sacrifice their identities by not doing what they really want to do. And that's why they're not successful."
Lila Swell

"What you are is a question only you can answer."
Lois McMaster Bujold, The Warrior's Apprentice, 1986

"Be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which and be pointed out by your finger."
Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

"A friend is a second self."
Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)

"The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself."
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

"There is nothing greater than touching the shore after crossing some great body of water knowing that I've done it with my own two arms and legs."
Diana Nyad

"Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it."
Tallulah Bankhead (1903 - 1968)

"Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives. Unfortunately most of us are completely unaware of this fact and we do not monitor our thoughts with the care needed so that we can create in our lives the results we say we want. Since the great majority of people do not feel worthy and deserving of abundant good fortune, radiant good health and total success in all areas of their lives that overriding thought pattern controls the results people get. The first order of business of anyone who wants to enjoy success in all areas of his her life is to take charge of the internal dialogue they have and only think, say and behave in a manner consistent with the results they truly desire."
Sidney Madwed

"In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it."
John Ruskin (1819 - 1900), Pre-Raphaelitism, 1850

"Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up."
Pearl Buck (1892 - 1973)