Yoko Ono Quotes

Everything I've done has been personally fun, important, and meaningful to me.

I spent a lot of my 20s just trying to make other people happy, rather than trying to figure out if doing that made me happy.

If your job is not making a difference in this world, by all means, get out there and find something else ... You’ll find a sense of making a difference through your work if you simply look for it.

It is enough that I am of value to somebody today.

Scarcity of self value cannot be remedied by money, recognition, affection, attention or influence.

The measure of achievement is not winning awards. It's doing something that you appreciate, something you believe is worthwhile.

Happiness is knowin' you've done a good job, whether it's professional or for another person.

I would give more for the private esteem and love of one than for the public praise of ten thousand.

Never depend on the admiration of others for self-satisfaction. It is a fact of life that other people, even people who love you, will not necessarily agree with your ideas, understand you always, or share your enthusiasms.

I have been sitting around waiting for an opportunity to get to do something that matters for so long. Not just that matters in the world, which I think that season, in particular, had a very important meaning for a lot of people, but for me, as an actress.

There is no state of satisfaction, because to himself no man is a success.

What a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has or how he is regarded by others.

We must live by the light of our own self-satisfaction, through that secret vital busy inwardness which is even more remarkable than our reason.

I have always found that my view of success has been iconoclastic: success to me is not about money or status or fame, its about finding a livelihood that brings me joy and self-sufficiency and a sense of contributing to the world.

Disconnect your identity from what you produce, and that’s a hard thing for us because we think of our significance, worth and value based on what we do instead of who we are.

If you keep your perspective correct and understand that people are coming to you because your gift makes room for you in the world, then you do not need to wonder or worry about having to misplace your importance as a person.

If your joy is derived from what society thinks of you, you're always going to be disappointed.

The trouble with the sacred Individual is that he has no significance, except as he can acquire it from others, from the social whole.

I feel that I was a useful contributor to society, and that I couldn't be a contributor to society in any other way.

I don't need to get any validation by someone else who sits next to me in first class. If you think a seat in first class makes you a star, then you're not one.

I don't need to be famous. I'm not that ambitious. At this point, if I'm not sucked in, I'm never going to get sucked in. Being the so-called hot girl, I disconnect from that. It's not that deep.

In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others. . . .

I don't know that I ever wanted greatness, on its own. It seems rather like wanting to be an engineer, rather than wanting to design something--or wanting to be a writer, rather than wanting to write. It should be a by-product, not a thing in itself. Otherwise, it's just an ego trip.

Every time you worry that you could get trapped in some kind of work you don't care about, you're dealing with the problem of meaningfulness. I guarantee that in the back of your mind is the thought that somehow you have to make a contribution to something, be acknowledged, do something that matters-or you're just fooling around.

But more importantly, you are a gift, to all who know you, whether or not they realize it. If they don't, they are blind. You have a special place in this world. All you hvae to do is find it.