Self-detachment Quotes

I didn't feel like I was in my own body; my body was just a lonely, temporary container I happened to be borrowing.

For the artist to attach himself to his work, or identify himself with it, is suicidal.

The victorious Christian neither exalts nor downgrades himself. His interests have shifted from self to Christ. What he is or is not no longer concerns him. He believes that he has been crucified with Christ and he is not willing either to praise or deprecate such a man.

It is a fair trade and an equal exchange: to the extent that you depart from things, thus far, no more and no less, God enters into you with all that is his, as far as you have stripped yourself of yourself in all things. It is here that you should begin, whatever the cost, for it is here that you will find true peace, and nowhere else.

I really have no interest in myself.

And never have I felt so deeply at one and the same time so detached from myself and so present in the world.

Appalling is the soul of a man! Better might one be pushed off into the material spaces beyond the uttermost orbit of our sun, than once feel himself fairly afloat in himself.

She is no longer I, she is too long ago, she is only she.

The point isn't to deny our Egos, but to extricate ourselves from our exclusive preoccupation with them.

When one confesses to an act, one ceases to be an actor in it and becomes its witness, becomes a man that observes and narrates it and no longer the man that performed it.

Peace ... was contingent upon a certain disposition of the soul, a disposition to receive the gift that only detachment from self made possible.

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.

When we surrender to God, we let go of our attachment to how things happen on the outside, and we become more concerned with what happens on the inside.

The people who receive the most approval in life are the ones who care the least about it--so technically, if you want the approval of others, you need to stop caring about it.

Getting into the character is difficult and letting go of your life and the things that kind of define you, whatever it is in life that's your daily routine because you sort of find yourself in this other life and that's difficult and the other end is difficult.

I don't want to get so lost in thinking about me and talking about me all the time in interviews. It's so nice to unwind and just look at other things and get out of yourself. It's hard to detach myself from myself without neglecting myself. You know what I mean? I don't want to get in to the habit of thinking about my career because when it comes down to it, it's not really that important. I could die tomorrow and the world would go on.

I still give my friends relationship advice, of course, and I'm not bad at it. 'Anyone's crisis but mine' is my motto.

Doing an accent removes you from yourself and reminds you, every instant, that you're playing a part.

I've never watched any of the shows I've done.

I'd go from film to film and almost detach from one world and jump in another. I was living as these people and not having a self. I didn't know who I was. And things just get really dark.

I can find no words for what I feel. My consciousness is withdrawn into itself; I hear my heart beating, and my life passing. It seems to me that I have become a statue on the banks of the river of time, that I am the spectator of some mystery, and shall issue from it old, or no longer capable of age.

Whether it is successful or not is not the exercise for me. It is not up to me. It is out of my hands now. I am not going to in two years have hindsight and say I made a big mistake.