Israel Zangwill Quotes

You specialize in something until one day you find it is specializing in you.

I never had time to dream about being anyone else.

You can run, run, run away from a lot of things in life, but you can't run away from yourself. And the key to happiness is to understand and accept who you are.

I have to live in the truth that this is who I am. That's what I need to focus on.

It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.

Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly.

It took me 30 years to figure out who I really am, as a person, and who I want to surround myself with. I was very much the kind of person who would just meld in with whatever group I was near.

I don't feel like I've hit my stride. So I wonder what the moment will be when I get to be who I want to be.

It's all about, no matter where you come from, that you can be who you want to be and achieve what you want to achieve. I want people to learn to love who they are. Because that's the hardest thing in life, being able to see yourself the way other people see you.

It has taken all of my 20s and most of my 30s to get to this point where I am very happy with who I am.

I now know that my dreams and my identity are only mutually exclusive if I don't try.

If the day ever comes when they know who They are, they may know better where they are.

Look long enough, out or in, and you’ll be glad you are who you are.

I am what I wanted and I want what I am.

Sometimes identity can be your salvation. It can be liberating to find your place in the world, but at some point, identity can hold you back.

My words are the garment of what I shall never be Like the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy.

I, who have been so many men in vain, want to be one man, myself alone. From out of a whirlwind the voice of God replied: I am not, either. I dreamed the world the way you dreamed your work, my Shakespeare: one of the forms of my dream was you, who, like me, are many and one.

Why could you not have left me as I was, in the sea of being?" "Because the world has need of your humility, your piety, your great teaching and your Machiavellian scheming.

To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe. You cannot hire a wise man or any other intellect to solve it for you. There's no writ of inquest or calling of witness to provide answers.

Once upon a time, I dreamed of becoming a great man. Later, a good man. Now, finally, I find it difficult enough and honor enough to be -- a man.

Life consists in learning to live on one's own, spontaneous, freewheeling: to do this one must recognize what is one's own-be familiar and at home with oneself. This means basically learning who one is, and learning what one has to offer to the contemporary world, and then learning how to make that offering valid.

I saw myself. . . in the time I watched, I saw strength and frailty, pride and vanity, courage and fear. Of wisdom, a little. Of folly much. Of intentions many good ones; but many more left undone. On this alas, I saw myself a man like any other. But this too I saw . . . Alike as men may seem, each is different as flakes of snow, no two the same.You told me you had no need to seek the Mirror, knowing you were Annlaw Clay-Shaper. Now I know who I am: myself and none other. I am Taran.

Know thyself' was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, 'Be thyself' shall be written.

In the story of Ugly Duckling, when did the Ugly Duckling stop feeling Ugly? When he realized that he was a Swan. Each of us has something Special, a swan of some sort, hidden inside somewhere. But until we recognize that it's there, what can we do but splash around, treading water? The Wise are Who They Are. They work with what they've got and do what they can do.

As they advanced (towards the fountain) one after another of Bastian's Fastastican gifts fell away from him. The strong, handsome, fearless hero became the small, fat, timid boy. (...) But then he jumped into the crystal-clear water... He drank till his thrist was quenched. And joy filled him from head to foot, the joy of living and the joy of being himself. He was new born. And the best part of it was that he was now the very person he wanted to be. If he had been free to choose, he would have chosen to be no one else.