Being myself

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ~e.e. cummings, 1955

He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away. ~Raymond Hull

All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself. ~Ralph Ellison, "Battle Royal"


Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. ~Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, 1905


Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. ~Judy Garland


A man who is "of sound mind" is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key. ~Paul Valéry, Mauvaises pensées et autres, 1942

The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune. ~Boris Pasternak

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. ~e.e. cummings

Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess, and to gain applause which he cannot keep. ~Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, 1750


How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone. ~Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel

I think of life itself now as a wonderful play that I've written for myself, and so my purpose is to have the utmost fun playing my part. ~Shirley MacLaine

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself. ~Harvey Fierstein


Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not. ~Henri Frederic Amiel

No man can climb out beyond the limitations of his own character. ~John Morley

There is just one life for each of us: our own. ~Euripides

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth. ~Benjamin Disraeli


If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. ~Johann von Goethe


Wherever you go, go with all your heart. ~Confucius