Josef Albers Quotes

I think my very best piece of advice is be yourself.

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.

I think the important thing is that I've never tried to be someone I'm not. People can read right through that.

Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

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

If there's one theme in all my work, it's about authenticity and self-expression. It's the idea that some things are, in some real sense, really you - or express what you and others aren't.

I have to be true to myself, and that's what I know for sure. I can't try to be anybody else.

I am who I am. I'm unique. I'm my own self.

For me, the best way to be as an artist is to be completely yourself, letting that vulnerability come through.

I want people to see just who I am.

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.

Everybody is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his *true* self and not from the self he thinks he *should* be.

Let's not imitate others.Let's find ourselves and be ourselves.

Just be yourself, there is no one better.

Fundamentally, you can never be someone else. You can only be less of who you are.

You've got to be who you are. You've got to be honest with people. If your views change on something, you've got to be willing to express it.

I have resolved on an enterprise that has no precedent and will have no imitator. I want to set before my fellow human beings a man in every way true to nature; and that man will be myself.

I didn't start to work until I realized what it was I had to offer. I stopped imitating performers I admired and started just being myself.

Life would be so much harder if I had to lie about who I was.

I realized that I had to be honest about where I was, where I was coming from, and what I was trying to do.

If I had to give one piece of advice to incoming college freshmen, I'd say always be true to yourself.

I may be no better, but at least I am different.

I think you have to be honest and not try to be somebody that you really aren't.

I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.

I want people to see an honesty within me. I'm not trying to be the next Sam Cooke or Otis Redding.