... throughout the ages down to modern times, conditions of imprisonment, what with overcrowding, idleness, and all their attendan...t evils, have been such that not only the person but also to a deplorable extent the personality has been "confined or restrained." The problem of the betterment of our physical prison conditions goes hand in hand ... with the problem of re-creating and releasing personality "deep-dungeoned in self," of giving scope to the forces that tend upward, of counteracting and rendering harmless the already dominant tendencies toward evil.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I was the one who was working to destroy the one thing to which I was committed, that is, my relationship with Gilberte; I was doi...ng so by creating, little by little and through the prolonged separation from my friend, not her indifference, but my own. It was toward a long and cruel suicide of the self within myself which loved Gilberte that I continuously set myself ...LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Gauguin too has his limitations. We have only to compare him with a universal artist like Rembrandt to see how limited was the ran...ge of his intelligence. Gauguin was capable of creating universal symbols, but selectively, discreetly. Rembrandt was himself a universal spirit, and this spirit informs everything that he painted, so that a biblical legend, a carcass of an ox, a naked woman, his own self-portrait--all stand as symbols of an all-embracing sympathy. Perhaps only Shakespeare, in another art, has that kind of universal intelligence. But Gauguin, on his more limited frontage, reaches the same heights.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Whoever undertakes to create soon finds himself engaged in creating himself. Self-transformation and the transformation of others ...have constituted the radical interest of our century, whether in painting, psychiatry, or political action.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am looking over Self Control again, & my opinion is confirmed of its being an excellently-meant, elegantly-written... Work, without anything of Nature or Probability in it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discr...iminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The tricks that work on others count ...for nothing in that very well-lit back alley where one keeps assignations with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the s...prings of wonder. The communication by the glance is in the greatest part not subject to the control of the will. It is the bodily symbol of identity with nature. We look into the eyes to know if this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but make a faithful confession what inhabitant is there.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
So all that is said of the wise man by Stoic or Oriental or modern essayist, describes to each reader his own idea, describes his ...unattained but attainable self.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crow...n, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods loved him because men hated him.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »