Jonathan Ames Quotes

I wish someone could get rid of individuality so easily; one never gets rid of one's individuality completely. One gets rid of one's egotism, which is a very different matter.

Self-sacrifice? But it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed.

After all, what is your personal identity? It is what you really are, your real self. None of us is what he thinks he is, or what other people think he is, still less what his passport says he is. And it is fortunate for most of us that we are mistaken. We do not generally know what is good for us. That is because, in St. Bernard's language, our true personality has been concealed under the 'disguise' of a false self, the ego, whom we tend to worship in place of God.

I think I am one of those who can manage not to take on a completely different appearance under their own glance.

Too great a sense of identity makes a man feel he can do no wrong. And too little does the same.

We become forgetful of the ego when we think of the body as dedicated to the service of others - the body with which most complacently we identify the ego.

Are you your clothes? Are you your name? Are you your profession? Stop identifying with them. They come and go

I already have the weird experience of having a name for myself personally that's connected to someone that's in the public eye. So you have me, Zooey Deschanel, and then there's Zooey Deschanel's public persona.

It is difficult to divest one's self of vanity; because impossible to divest one's self of self-love.

I don't really do anything that isn't about writing, and I don't really know who I am if I'm not thinking about writing.

I know myself as mortal, but this raises the question: "What is I?" Am I an individual, or am I an evolving life stream composed of countless selves?

Don't get confused with what people say you are, with who you know you are.

My wife has lived with at least five different men since we were wed - and each of the five has been me.

So much must I live for others, that almost I am a stranger to myself.

In any influence, will, a self, the ego, the I AM is the greater force to be dealt with, but as numbers do influence, a knowledge of same certainly gives an individual a foresight into relationships.

I changed my name because it didn't fit with the way I saw myself.

A person likes to think of himself in a certain way, and when something happens that makes that no longer possible, you mourn the old self. The person you thought you were.

Perform anonymous service. Whenever we do good for others anonymously, our sense of intrinsic worth and self-respect increases. ... Selfless service has always been one of the most powerful methods of influence.

The name, his true name, was weaker and more flawed than he would have liked, and he hated himself for that, but there was also much to admire within it, and the more he thought about it, the more he was able to accept the true nature of his self. He was not the best person in the world, but neither was he the worst.

Every act of charity, every thought of sympathy, every action of help, every good deed, is taking so much of self-importance away from our little selves and making us think of ourselves as the lowest and the least, and, therefore, it is all good. Here we find that Jnâna, Bhakti, and Karma - all come to one point.

Just practice good, do good for others, without thinking of making yourself known so that you may gain reward. Really bring benefit to others, gaining nothing for yourself. This is the primary requisite for breaking free of attachments to the Self.

To live in prison is to live without mirrors. To live without mirrors is to live without the self.

But I am I now; and so many other millions are so irretrievably their own special variety of 'I' that I can hardly bear to think of it. I: how firm a letter; how reassuring the three strokes: one vertical, proud and assertive, and then the two short horizontal lines in quick, smug succession. The pen scratching on the paper…I…I…I…I…I…I.

Any man who does not see everything in terms of self, that is to say who wants to be something in respect of other men, to do good to them or simply give them something to do, is unhappy, disconsolate, and accursed.

So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do.