Quotes on Identity

“I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me--they, and the love and loyaty I give them, form my identity far more than any word or group ever could.”

“Sleep my little baby-ohSleep until you wakenWhen you wake you'll see the worldIf I'm not mistaken...Kiss a loverDance a measure,Find your nameAnd buried treasure...Face your lifeIts pain, Its pleasure,Leave no path untaken.”

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.[, 2005]”

“Droll thing life is -- that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself -- that comes too late -- a crop of inextinguishable regrets.”

“Be yourself. Don't worry about what other people are thinking of you, because they're probably feeling the same kind of scared, horrible feelings that everyone does.”

“The true definition of mental illness is when the majority of your time is spent in the past or future, but rarely living in the realism of NOW.”

“The trick. . .is to find the balance between the bright colors of humor and the serious issues of identity, self-loathing, and the possibility for intimacy and love when it seems no longer possible or, sadder yet, no longer necessary.”

“The more fucked up you are, the more I like you. As long as you've managed to hold onto your identity through all the shit, then it won't matter how twisted you are. I will love you more for it.”

“Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.”

“You must know that you are worth much to me whether you accomplish anything or not. Even if you are rejected in the world's eyes, you are valuable to me.”

“Life isn't always about finding yourself. More often than not, it's about discovering who God created you to be.”

“God is love, I said, but art's the possibility of forms, and shadows are the source of identity.”

“I don't know who I am right now. But I know who I'm not. And I like that.”

“There was a way in which my grandmother's true self was not these guests' business; no one's true self was the business of more than a very small number of family members or close friends.”

“It is not until you change your identity to match your life blueprint that you will understand why everything in the past never worked.”

“Each person you meetis an aspect of yourself,clamoring for love.”

“We are each what never leaves us, what we never seethe back ofis the self. But what loves usis at the back, as Eurydice wasescorting him outwithout his knowing.”

The greatest challenge in life is being yourself... in a world trying to make you like everyone else.

The greatest challenge in life is being yourself... in a world trying to make you like everyone else.

Worry more about what you want to do than what you want to be.

A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.

Don’t let others box you into their idea of what they think you should be. A confined identity is a miserable way to exist. Be you and live free.

Don’t let others box you into their idea of what they think you should be. A confined identity is a miserable way to exist. Be you and live free.

I feel free when I see no one and nobody knows who I am.

People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.

One of the great tragedies of colonialism was that the colonized started mimicking the colonizer.

A language is a carrier of people's memories and experiences, their link between space and time, their vision of the world.

How did we arrive at a situation where the majority of African children know more about European languages and history than about their own?

Education, far from giving people the confidence in their ability to shape their own lives, undermined their sense of identity and confidence.

If you know all the languages of the world and you don’t know your mother tongue, that is enslavement.

A tiger does not shout its tigritude, it acts.

One's own self-worth is tied to the worth of the community.

A people denied the right to their history is a people deprived of their humanity.

We can only be what we are, and what we are can only be understood in context.

The past is a place that is not there anymore. It is a shadow, an echo. It does not exist, except in the mind, in the heart.

It’s exhausting being a person, even more exhausting being a family. All the things you take for granted in yourself, the essential you, you become separate from.

What you must understand about me is that I am a deeply unhappy person.

I don't think of myself as an artist, but as a filmmaker.

I think a lot of people feel that they know me, but they really don’t.

The moment a person starts to become aware of himself and his surroundings, he becomes a person in his own right.

We are all the authors of our own stories, and the paths we choose will define us.

Sometimes you need to step outside, get some air, and remind yourself of who you are and who you want to be.

You are not defined by your past; you are prepared by it.

Your past does not define you; it is just a chapter in your story.

The most important thing about a man is not what he does, but what he believes.

You are not what happened to you. You are what you choose to become.

Embrace your uniqueness; it’s what sets you apart.

Your story is your own. Don't let anyone else write it for you.

The best stories are the ones that reflect the truth of who we are.

There is a tension between being human and being a person.