Robert Bly Quotes

If knowing yourself and being yourself were as easy to do as to talk about, there wouldn't be nearly so many people walking around in borrowed postures, spouting secondhand ideas, trying desperately to fit in rather than to stand out.

Once you get older, you get a little closer to yourself, intimate. I've always been very aware of that, more conscious of who I am, how I fit in the thing as opposed to trying to emulate someone else. Though, sometimes I try to emulate De Niro all the time, who is someone I could never be.

It takes a lot of rehearsing for a man to be himself.

Becoming yourself is really hard and confusing, and it's a process. It's often not cool to be the person who puts themselves out there.

I myself am still learning how to be me and that's OK. It can take a really long time to become the person you really want to be. Be who you are. It's the greatest gift we can give to ourselves, our community and our world.

Apparently God makes us all different. Some of us are happy to respond to His individual touch on our lives by remaining individuals, and others of us are intimidated or frightened into trying to become like each other so that we have company, so that we don't feel so lonely.

A child should be allowed to take as long as she needs for knowing everything about herself, which is the same as learning to be herself. Even twenty-five years if necessary, or even forever. And it wouldn't matter if doing things got delayed, because nothing is really important but being oneself.

The more you try to be like someone else, the more you find yourself standing in the way.

If I wasted my time trying to be like everybody else when I was 10 and 11, I wouldn't be me today. So if you are gonna be the future rockstars, the future somebody, whatever you wanna be then you're wasting your time trying to be somebody else, because you'll never get to you.

It's so important to raise people to grow up to be who they are and not be forced to be who they're not. What an awful thing to do to people - it's like being in prison.

I'm happy being myself, which I've never been before. I always hid in other people, or tried to find myself through the characters, or live out their lives, but I didn't have those things in mine.

I'm not interested in nostalgia; I'm interested in who I am.

When I first got into the league, I tried to fit in. Now I don't care.

Be yourself is about the worst advice you can give to some people.

When we are honest - that's my saying - if we are honest then we will reveal ourselves. But we do not have to make an effort to be individualistic, different from others.

People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.

We all want to be special, to stand out; there's nothing wrong with this. The irony is that every human being is special to start with, because we're unique to start with. But we then go through some sort of boot camp from the age of zero to about 18 where we learn everything we can about how not to be unique.

Now all of a sudden I'm so less interested in pretending to be a lot of other people, and much more interested in being me.

Yeah, it's nice to look up to people, but the more you try to be somebody else, the less you are of yourself.

Everyone kept telling me, Just be yourself. Be yourself. I kept thinking, there's got to be more to it than that!

Get to know the real you, rather than try to look like or dress like those around you.

Often we're recreating what we think we're supposed to be as human beings. What we've been told we're supposed to be, instead of who we authentically are. The key about the creation of full self-expression is to be authentically who you are, to project that.

I just realized the best way to live your life is to just be you, as cliche as it sounds. I grew up trying to please everyone.

Be stupid, be dumb, be funny, if that's who you are. Don't try to be someone that society wants you to be; that's stupid. So be yourself.