An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life: A fight is going on inside me, he said to the boy. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too. The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather,Which wolf will win? The old Cherokee simply replied, The one you feed.
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Out of the closets and into the museums, libraries, architectural monuments, concert halls, bookstores, recording studios and film studios of the world. Everything belongs to the inspired and dedicated thief... Words, colors, light, sounds, stone, wood, bronze belong to the living artist. They belong to anyone who can use them. Loot the Louver! A bas l Originality, the sterile and assertive ego that imprisons us as it creates. Vive le sol -- pure, shameless, total. We are not responsible. Steal anything in sight.
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Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation. Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads on like a gray vegetation.
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The pursuit of beauty is much more dangerous nonsense than the pursuit of truth or goodness, because it affords a stronger temptation to the ego.
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People who are too concerned with how well they are doing will be less successful and feel less competent than those who focus on the task itself... Some psychologists call it a conflict between ego-orientation, or between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation... but in all cases, what counts is whether attention is turned away from the task at hand and focused on the self and its future rewards, or whether it is instead trained on the task itself. The latter attitude seems the more fruitful.
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One may understand the Cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.
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All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others.
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You now become easy victims of lust, anger, malice, envy and the rest of that evil brood; the atmosphere of the heart is polluted by the ego-fumes.
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Oh, great reviews are the worst. They mislead you more than the bad ones, because they only fuel your ego. Then you only want another one, like potato chips or something, and the best thing you get is fat and bloated. I'd rather just refuse, thanks.
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Modern man believes he is fruitful and productive when his ego is aggressively affirmed, when he is visibly active, and when his action produces obvious results.
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Egotism is usually subversive of sagacity.
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The creative artist seems to be almost the only kind of man that you could never meet on neutral ground. You can only meet him as an artist. He sees nothing objectively because his own ego is always in the foreground of every picture.
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It is difficult indeed to understand the ego in its depth and devious ways. It is an inert entity, that is to say, it cannot know itself not can it know others; It has no fear; it will not bend before others; it degrades man from the golden glory, which is his due, to the level of lowly dust.
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An actor is totally vulnerable. His total personality is exposed to critical judgment - his intellect, his bearing, his diction, his whole appearance. In short, his ego.
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'I refer to those who describe murders/riots/panics and other catastrophes perpetrated by humans, and who say to be 'acting like animals.' I refer specifically to comments regarding a recent ship hijacking where it was said that the terrorists acted like 'cowardly animals.' These terrorists and guerrilla acts are NOT animal in nature - they are HUMAN in nature. As one who sees the balance, beauty and meaning of the world in which nonhuman animals must face life-or-death situations everyday just to survive and perpetuate their species, I grossly resent and take offense at these statements! When was the last time we saw a gorilla hijack a plane? A pod of whales hijack an ocean liner? A group of nonhuman animals walk down the street and terrorize the neighborhood??? Human animals are the terrorists and guerrillas when they go into the nonhuman animals' homes to slaughter them for fur coats, hunting trophies, plumage and all the other atrocious reasons society gives for the gross lack of respect for life, and murder of our fellow creatures inhabiting this world. If and when man comes off his ego trip, maybe he'll see just how insignificant he is to the total scheme of beings on this planet in which ALL creatures share. Then, the saying will be turned around to 'They behaved like people.'' (Letter to Abigail Van Buren in the York Daily Record)
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Well, one of the problems about being psychoanalyzed is, as Nietzsche said, Be careful lest in casting out your devils that you cast out the best thing that's in you. So many people who are really in deep analysis look as though and act as though they have been filleted. There's no bone there, there's no stuff! How to get rid of ego as dictator and turn it into messenger and servant and scout, to be in your service, is the trick.
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The source of our actions resides in an unconscious propensity to regard ourselves as the center, the cause, and the conclusion of time. Our reflexes and our pride transform into a planet the parcel of flesh and consciousness we are.
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The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens to that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach
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I don't know that I ever wanted greatness, on its own. It seems rather like wanting to be an engineer, rather than wanting to design something--or wanting to be a writer, rather than wanting to write. It should be a by-product, not a thing in itself. Otherwise, it's just an ego trip.
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The Pumpkins love rock-and-roll, we absolutely love it, but we also think it's a flatulent, ego-serving kiddie playground. You can have your cake and eat it too.
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I made a commitment to this woman that I love, this family that I love and I realized this can be fixed and it's okay to part the ego, to abandon self and just stay true to my commitment and be a man of my word. Things are really good. Today we have hope, we have a shot,
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Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, lessens the friction of social contacts. It is only in lies, wholeheartedly and bravely told, that human nature attains through words and speech the forbearance, the nobility, the romance, the idealism, that -- being what it is -- it falls so short of in fact and in deed.
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The animal rights movement I belong to does not have the time or the inclination to criticize the work of others, it understands that working towards our abolitionist goals in incremental steps is the only way we will move ahead, and it has no use for labels - it is too busy taking action. The animal rights movement I belong to is united in support of our common goals rather than squabbling over attention or money, it has no room for ego or ivory tower activists with personal agendas - it understands the value of working together!
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Our own self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults.
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A key to my thinking has always been the almost fanatical belief that what I was engaged in was a literary art form. That belief was compounded out of ego and necessity, I guess, a combination of the two.
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To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention -- on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem, an idol, or the True God -- that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying.
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To survive there, you need the ambition of a Latin-American revolutionary, the ego of a grand opera tenor, and the physical stamina of a cow pony.
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Meditation... disolves the mind. It erases itself. Throws the ego out on its big brittle ass.
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Our ego is our silent partner--too often with a controlling interest.
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If someone is blessed as I am is not willing to clean out the barn, who will?
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