Self-Diminishment Quotes

Never praise your cider or your horse

One who has an inferiority complex can never be really humble, but can only have false modesty or false humility.

It is one of the triumphs of human wit ... to conquer by humility and submissiveness ... to make oneself small in order to appear great ... such ... are often the expedients of the neurotic.

To somehow shrink so that you might be more comfortable is a foreign language to me. It's a trait that I've never had. And that I hope I never, ever have.

I think it's important that when you're bringing something to the table that you're sure has value, that you don't diminish yourself just so that you can have an opportunity.

Self-pity is the worst poverty. When a person says, 'I am...' with pity, before he has said anything more he has diminished himself to half of what he is; and what is said further, diminishes him totally; nothing more of him is left afterwards.

And so, a prediction, and my heartfelt wish for you: as you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love. YOU will gradually be replaced by LOVE. If you have kids, that will be a huge moment in your process of self-diminishment. You really won't care what happens to YOU, as long as they benefit. That's one reason your parents are so proud and happy today. One of their fondest dreams has come true: you have accomplished something difficult and tangible that has enlarged you as a person and will make your life better, from here on in, forever.

To say less of yourself than is true is stupidity, not modesty. To pay yourself less than you are worth is cowardice and pusillanimity.

September 11th has produced only miniature heroes because our culture has freed itself from many of the old, dangerous, elitist fantasies of heroism... But in so doing, we have not only tamed and diminished heroes. We have risked taming and diminishing ourselves.

To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be.

My heartfelt wish for you: as you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love.

Most people, it seems, stretch the truth to make themselves seem more impressive. I, it seems, stretch the truth to make myself look worse.

It is astounding that man, the instigator, inventor and vehicle of all these developments, the originator of all judgements and decisions and the planner of the future, must make himself such a quantité negligeable.