“
Wine and tobacco destroy the individuality. After a cigar or a glass of vodka you are no longer Peter Sorin, but Peter Sorin plus somebody else. Your ego breaks in two: you begin to think of yourself in the third person.
”
”
Anton Chekhov (The Seagull)
“
Patience is the antidote to the restless poison of the Ego. Without it we all become ego-maniacal bulls in china shops, destroying our future happiness as we blindly rush in where angels fear to tread. In these out-of-control moments, we bulldoze through the best possible outcomes for our lives, only to return to the scene of the crime later to cry over spilt milk.
”
”
Anthon St. Maarten (Divine Living: The Essential Guide To Your True Destiny)
“
Attempting to destroy something out of hate or ego often ensures that it will be preserved and disseminated forever.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (Ego Is the Enemy)
“
One who enjoys finding errors will then start creating errors to find.
”
”
Criss Jami (Killosophy)
“
Those who hate, are merely wallowing in self pity. Those who lie about someone to destroy his or her spirit, are simply trying to hide their fragile egos.
”
”
Emma Paul
“
First, create your ego. Then destroy it. This is all of life.
”
”
Kamand Kojouri
“
We mistakenly assume that bodily survival has a higher precedence than ego survival. This is simply not generally true. Ego will happily destroy the body for its own sake. Look at overweight executives headed for heart attacks on the way to getting their pictures in Fortune or anorexic models suffering slow starvation on their way to getting their pictures in Vogue. Protecting ego is the general case.
”
”
Karl Marlantes (What It is Like to Go to War)
“
Power is lost or won, never created or destroyed. Power is a visitor to, not a possession of, those it empowers. The mad tend to crave it, many of the sane crave it, but the wise worry about its long-term side effects. Power is crack cocaine for your ego and battery acid for your soul. Power’s comings and goings, from host to host, via war, marriage, ballot box, diktat, and accident of birth, are the plot of history. The empowered may serve justice, remodel the Earth, transform lush nations into smoking battlefields, and bring down skyscrapers, but power itself is amoral.” Immaculée Constantin now looks up at me. “Power will notice you. Power is watching you now. Carry on as you are, and power will favor you. But power will also laugh at you, mercilessly, as you lie dying in a private clinic, a few fleeting decades from now. Power mocks all its illustrious favorites as they lie dying. ‘Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
”
”
David Mitchell (The Bone Clocks)
“
Nine inches may actually be a conservative estimate of what it might look like hard. He must destroy men’s egos every time he walks into a locker room. And I don’t even want to think about what he destroys with women…
”
”
Kendall Ryan (Hitched: Volume One (Imperfect Love, #1))
“
She destroyed egos by the score and made men hate themselves in the morning by the way she found them, used them, and tossed them aside.
”
”
Joseph Heller (Catch-22)
“
The wicked stepmother, which is the ego, can put the Sleeping Beauty or Christ within us to sleep, but she can never destroy it. What is created by God is indestructible.
”
”
Marianne Williamson (Return to Love)
“
False ideas about yourself destroy you. For
”
”
Ryan Holiday (Ego Is the Enemy)
“
Even if we are right and the other person is definitely wrong, we only destroy ego by causing someone to lose face. The legendary French aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote: “I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime.
”
”
Dale Carnegie (How To Win Friends and Influence People)
“
Ego-identification with things creates attachment to things, which in turn creates our consumer society and economic structures where the only measure of progress is always more. The unchecked striving for more, for endless growth, is a dysfunction and a disease. It is the same dysfunction the cancerous cell manifests, whose only goal is to multiply itself, unaware that it is bringing about its own destruction by destroying the organism of which it is a part. Some economists are so attached to the notion of growth that they can't let go of that word, so they refer to recession as a time of "negative growth".
”
”
Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose)
“
Conflicting egos destroy many relationships. Lasting, stable marriages are a true treasure because they demand that both parties adjust to the constant cellular flux of their partner as they metaphase through changing seasons of life.
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
We must realize that we are all, like Dr. Faust, ready to accept the devil's inducements. The devil is in each one of us in the form of an ego that promises the fulfillment of desire on condition that we become subservient to its striving to dominate. The domination of the personality by the ego is a diabolical perversion of the nature of man. The ego was never intended to be the master of the body, but its loyal and obedient servant. The body, as opposed to the ego, desires pleasure, not power. Bodily pleasure is the source from which all our good feelings and good thinking stems. If the bodily pleasure of an individual is destroyed, he becomes an angry, frustrated, and hateful person. His thinking becomes distorted, and his creative potential is lost. He develops self-destructive attitudes.
”
”
Alexander Lowen (Pleasure: A Creative Approach To Life)
“
Spirituality destroys the ego. Religion strengthens it.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Before enlightenment I believed my ego was me, then enlightenment comes along and no more ego, only the underlying reality. Now it’s after enlightenment and this ego might be slightly uncomfortable or ill-fitting at times, but it’s all I’ve got. The idea that your ego is destroyed in the process of becoming enlightened is roughly correct, but it’s not complete. Before enlightenment, you’re a human being in the world, just like everyone you see. During enlightenment you realize the human being you thought you were is just a character in a play, and that the world you thought you were in is just a stage, so you go through a process of radical deconstruction of your character to see what’s left when it’s gone. The result isn’t enlightened-self or true-self, it’s no-self. When it’s all over it’s time to be a human being in the world again, and that means slipping back into costume and getting back on stage.
”
”
Jed McKenna (Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing (The Enlightenment Trilogy Book 1))
“
I gave him the one thing June cannot give him: honesty. I am so ready to admit what a supremely developed ego would not admit: that June is a terrifying and inspiring character who makes every other woman insipid, that I would live her life except for my compassion and my conscience, that she may destroy Henry the man, but Henry the writer is more enriched by ordeals than by peace.
”
”
Anaïs Nin (Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin)
“
She can build or destroy your ego while on her knees.
”
”
Marion Bekoe (I WILL BE A BILLIONAIRE: The right mindset is the first step towards the journey.)
“
Anyone with a way of thinking that sees and recognizes nothing but their own "EGO" has the potential to destroy their "SELF".
”
”
Nimet Erenler Gülkökü
“
I learned at an early age that outsized egos can destroy whatever they touch, and often stupid people stand in the way of any kind of creativity.
”
”
Robert McCammon
“
We mistakenly assume that bodily survival has a higher precedence than ego survival. This is simply not generally true. Ego will happily destroy body for its own sake.
”
”
Karl Marlantes (What It is Like to Go to War)
“
Ego is neither positive nor negative. Those are simply concepts that create more boundaries. Ego is just ego, and the disaster of it all is that you, as a spiritual seeker, have been conditioned to think of the ego as bad, as an enemy, as something to be destroyed. This simply strengthens the ego. In fact, such conclusions arise from the ego itself. Pay no attention to them. Don’t go to war with yourself; simply inquire into who you are.
”
”
Adyashanti
“
The Devil is a master of disguise and takes on many forms. He comes to conquer you, steal your joy, kill your spirit, and destroy your faith. When you are doing right, he attacks you from the left but know that God is all powerful and God is in you and that no weapon formed against you shall prosper.
”
”
C.L. Hall
“
If the light we have is continually engulfed by the darkness in a way that makes the darkness even darker, maybe we should think about getting our light from Someone else before it gets a whole lot darker.
”
”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
“
Non-surrender hardens your psychological form, the shell of the ego, and so creates a strong sense of separateness. The world around you and people in particular come to be perceived as threatening. The unconscious compulsion to destroy others through judgment arises, as does the need to compete and dominate. Even nature becomes your enemy and your perceptions and interpretations are governed by fear. The mental disease that we call paranoia is only a slightly more acute form of this normal but dysfunctional state of consciousness. Not only your psychological form but also your physical form — your body — becomes hard and rigid through resistance. Tension arises in different parts of the body, and the body as a whole contracts.
”
”
Eckhart Tolle (Practicing the Power of Now)
“
Wine and tobacco destroy the individuality. After a cigar or a glass of vodka you are no longer Peter Sorin, but Peter Sorin plus somebody else. Your ego breaks in two: you begin to think of yourself in the third person.
”
”
Anthon Chekhov
“
We search our entire lives to create a genuine and reliable self that can relate with other people and faithfully express our artistic temperament. Our battle for personal authenticity requires us to penetrate layers of self-deception, conquer ego defense mechanism, and destroy a false self that is intent upon meeting other people’s expectations.
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster
“
Extremism stifles true progression in all fields of human advancement; it is a detriment to everything but war, tribalism and the personal power of Nietzschean entities, striving only for the narcissistic vindication of their ego and will. The enlightened mind knows that all is challengeable, ergo questions all and thus, learns and grows; progression. The weak and narrow mind makes its beliefs sacrosanct; fearful of challenge, their creed becomes unalterable, defended with violence. Political extremists, much like religious zealots, are the latter. They destroy what they cannot convert. They annihilate those they cannot control, or force to conform. They have found no peace in life, no love, and so promote war and division, as emotional cripples – inflicting their own pain and misery and malignant stupidity on the world. Their language binds people together, but only by stirring the darkest excesses of the soul; language of hate, and intolerance, fear and conspiracy, and the need for vengeance. In war-scarred Europe, these cripples direct mass-psychology, and would make the world in their own likeness; mutilated by violence and tribalism and hate.
”
”
Daniel S. William Fletcher (Jackboot Britain)
“
Two powerful factors which creates difference between destroying your relationship and deepening it are EGO and Attitude
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KISS Life "Life is what you make it")
“
It’s a good thing I have an oversize ego because if I didn’t, you’d have destroyed it.
”
”
Susan Elizabeth Phillips (First Star I See Tonight (Chicago Stars, #8))
“
Can a person crave to destroy himself and at the same time wish to transmute himself into a fuller being? Is destruction of a central part of us necessary in order to transform ourselves? How do perceptive people fend off their destructive impulses, through insensibility or with greatness of mind? How can an ordinary person such as me, deficient in natural talent and ignorant in the ways of the world, blunt the self-doubt and the fear that nips at my heels? How does a vegetative character such as me express the vivacity of life while counterbalancing the immutable sorrows that accompany our struggles to glean meaning in life? How does anyone function rationally knowing that his or her life will ruefully end with death?
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
You didn’t love her. You just didn’t want to be alone. Or maybe, maybe she was just good for your ego. Or, maybe she made you feel better about your miserable life, but you didn’t love her. Because you don’t destroy people you love. Grey’s Anatomy
”
”
Lynn R. Davis (Positive Thoughts For A Positive Attitude: A Collection of Best Facebook quotes, Inspirational Words, Daily Declarations, Motivational Sayings, and Spiritual Devotions (Lord Deliver Me Series))
“
gave him the one thing June cannot give him: honesty. I am so ready to admit what a supremely developed ego would not admit: that June is a terrifying and inspiring character who makes every other woman insipid, that I would live her life except for my compassion and my conscience, that she may destroy Henry the man, but Henry the writer is more enriched by ordeals than by peace.
”
”
Anaïs Nin (Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin)
“
A psychotic world we live in. The madmen are in power. How long have we known this? Faced this?-And-how many of us do know it? Not Lotze. Perhaps if you know you are insane then you are not insane. Or you are becoming sane, finally. Waking up. I suppose only a few are aware of all this. Isolated persons here and there. But the broad masses...what do they think? All these hundreds of thousands in this city, here. Do they imagine that they live in a sane world? Or do they guess, glimpse the truth...?
But, he thought, what does it mean, insane? A legal definition. What do I mean? I feel it, see it, but what is it?
He thought, it is something they do, something they are. It is their unconsciousness. Their lack of knowledge about others. Their not being aware of what they do to others, the destruction they have caused and are causing. No, he thought. That isn't it. I don't know; I sense it, inuit it. But-they are purposely cruel...is that it? No. God, he thought, I can't find it, make it clear. Do they ignore parts of reality? Yes. But it is more. It is their plans. Yes, their plans. The conquering of the planets. Something frenzied and demented, as was their conquering of Africa, and before that, Europe and Asia.
Their view; it is cosmic. Not of man here, a child there, but an abstraction: race, land. Volk. Land. Blut. Ehre. Not of honorable men but of Ehre itself, honor; the abstract is real, the actual is invisible to them. Die Gute, but not good men, this good man. It is their sense of space and time. They see through the here, the now, into the vast black deep beyond, the unchanging. And that is fatal to life. Because eventually there will be no life; there was once only the dust particles in space, the hot hydrogen gases, nothing more, and it will come again. This is an interval, ein Augenblick. The cosmic process is hurrying on, crushing life back into the granite and methane; the wheel turns for all life. It is all temporary. And they-these madmen-respond to the granite, the dust, the longing of the inanimate; they want to aid Natur.
And, he thought, I know why. They want to be the agents, not the victims, of history. They identify with God's power and believe they are godlike. That is their basic madness. They are overcome by some archetype; their egos have expanded psychotically so that they cannot tell where they begin and the godhead leaves off. it is not hubris, not pride; it is inflation of the ego to its ultimate-confusion between him who worships and that which is worshiped. Man has not eaten God; God has eaten man.
What they do not comprehend is man's helplessness. I am weak, small, of no consequence to the universe. It does not notice me; I live on unseen. But why is that bad? Isn't it better that way? Whom the gods notice they destroy. Be small...and you will escape the jealousy of the great.
”
”
Philip K. Dick (The Man in the High Castle)
“
Ego is like a mad elephant which is ridden by our blind heart and blind mind and which ultimately destroys our real selves
”
”
Kapil Kumar Bhaskar (Reminiscences Of A Seeker: Dark Face Of The White World (True Story))
“
Sometimes your ego is your greatest enemy. Your ability to keep your ego in check will help you handle situations effectively.
”
”
Vikram Sathaye (How Sachin Destroyed My Life ...but gave me an All Access Pass to the world of cricket)
“
Saving the world is a much more ambitious, ennobling, and ego-gratifying project than preserving the neighborhood.
”
”
Victor Davis Hanson (The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America)
“
the evils of ego devour the soul with darkness, destroy all hope, and eat away at any chance of experiencing the pure beauty of a glowing, unspoiled love
”
”
D. Bodhi Smith (Bodhi Smith Impressionist Photography (#6))
“
The moment you know, you destroy all poetry. The moment you know, and think that you know, you have created a barrier between yourself and that which is. Then everything is distorted. Then you don’t hear with your ears, you translate. Then you don’t see with your eyes, you interpret. Then you don’t experience with your heart, you think that you experience. Then all possibility of meeting with existence in immediacy, in intimacy, is lost. You have fallen apart. This is the original sin. And this is the whole story, the biblical story of Adam and Eve eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Once they have eaten the fruit of knowledge they are driven out of paradise. Not that somebody drove them out, not that God ordered them to get out of paradise, they themselves fell. Knowing they were no more innocent, knowing they were separate from existence, knowing they were egos…knowing created such a barrier, an iron barrier. You ask me, “What is innocence?” Vomit knowledge! The fruit of the tree of knowledge has to be vomited. That’s what meditation is all about. Throw it out of your system: it is poison, pure poison. Live without knowledge, knowing that “I don’t know.” Function out of this state of not knowing and you will know what beauty is. Socrates
”
”
Osho (The Book of Wisdom: The Heart of Tibetan Buddhism. Commentaries on Atisha's Seven Points of Mind Training)
“
52
The matter is not finished by going to Mecca, so long as you do not finish off the self from your heart. Sins are not shed by going to the Ganges, even though you immerse yourself hundreds of times. The matter is not finished off by going to Gaya, no matter how many offerings you make to the dead. Bullhe Shah, the matter is finished when the ego is destroyed.
53
If I search for you for you inside, then I think you are confined. If I search for you outside, then who is contained within me? You are everything, you are in everything, you are known to be free from everything. You are me and I am you, so who is poor Bullha?
54
You remain awake at night and perform your devotions. Also awake at night are dogs, better than you. They bark and in no way can they be stopped. They go and sleep on the dung heap, better than you. They do not leave their master's door, even if they get beaten with slippers, better than you. Bullhe Shah, buy yourself something for the journey, or else the game will be won by the dogs, better than you.
”
”
Bulleh Shah (Sufi Lyrics)
“
Power is lost or won, never created or destroyed. Power is a visitor to, not a possession of, those it empowers. The mad tend to crave it, many of the sane crave it, but the wise worry about its long-term side effects. Power is crack cocaine for your ego and battery acid for your soul.
”
”
David Mitchell (The Bone Clocks)
“
We defend so cautiously against our egoically limited experiences, states Laing in The Politics of Experience, that it is not surprising to see people grow defensive and panic at the idea of experiencing ego-loss through the use of drugs or collective experiences. But there is nothing pathological about ego-loss, Laing adds; quite the contrary. Ego-loss is the experience of all mankind, "of the primal man, of Adam and perhaps even [a journey] further into the beings of animals, vegetables and minerals." No age, Laing concludes, has so lost touch with this healing process as has ours. Deleuze and Guattari's schizoanalytic approach serves to begin such a healing process. Its major task is to destroy the oedipalized and neuroticized individual dependencies through the forging of a collective subjectivity, a nonfascist subject—anti-Oedipus. Anti-Oedipus is an individual or a group that no longer functions in terms of beliefs and that comes to redeem mankind, as Nietzsche foresaw, not only from the ideals that weighed it down, "but also from that which was bound to grow out of it, the great nausea, the will to nothingness, nihilism; this bell-stroke of noon and of the great decision that liberates the will again and restores its goal to the earth and his hope to man; this Antichrist and antinihilist. . . He must come one day.—
”
”
Mark Seem (Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia)
“
False ideas about yourself destroy you. For me, I always stay a student. That’s what martial arts are about, and you have to use that humility as a tool. You put yourself beneath someone you trust.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (Ego Is the Enemy)
“
Our egos are utterly convinced that ‘quality of life’ is found in the ‘domineering of life.’ And a very simple way to effectively destroy the whole of your life is to live by this for the smallest part of your life.
”
”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
“
The human ego must face the Dionysian reality, and therefore a great work of self-transformation lies ahead of it. For Nietzsche was right in saying that the Apollonian preserves, the Dionysian destroys, self-consciousness.
”
”
Norman O. Brown (Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History)
“
The myth of quantum consciousness sits well with many whose egos have made it impossible for them to accept the insignificant place science perceives for humanity, as modern instruments probe the farthest reaches of space and time. ... quantum consciousness has about as much substance as the aether from which it is composed. Early in this century, quantum mechanics and Einstein’s relativity destroyed the notion of a holistic universe that had seemed within the realm of possibility in the century just past. First, Einstein did away with the aether, shattering the doctrine that we all move about inside a universal, cosmic fluid whose excitations connect us simultaneously to one another and to the rest of the universe. Second, Einstein and other physicists proved that matter and light were composed of particles, wiping away the notion of universal continuity. Atomic theory and quantum mechanics demonstrated that everything, even space and time, exists in discrete bits – quanta. To turn this around and say that twentieth century physics initiated some new holistic view of the universe is a complete misrepresentation of what actually took place. ... The myth of quantum consciousness should take its place along with gods, unicorns, and dragons as yet another product of the fantasies of people unwilling to accept what science, reason, and their own eyes tell them about the world.
”
”
Victor J. Stenger
“
We live in a disposable world. There's no point in investing yourself too heavily.
Love doesn't fix anything...it destroys more than it fixes. and when the dust has settled, it's just an afterthought. Lives still get ruined, people still leave, and life goes on and on and on.
the first forty-eight hours are the worst. the ego's taken a bit of a kicking. what you need is a constant supply of alcohol.
today was a day for taking tranquilizers washed down by vodka.
”
”
Kathleen Tessaro (The Flirt)
“
Understanding “no-self” does not come from destroying something we call “self” or “ego.” The great awakening or discovery of the Buddha revealed that there was no self, no permanent I, to begin with. So if there is nothing we have to get rid of, then understanding selflessness very simply comes from careful awareness of what actually is happening moment to moment.
”
”
Joseph Goldstein (Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom (Shambhala Classics))
“
I told you right there. I’ll destroy you. Men like you… you’re nice. I’d eat you up and spit you out. I’d fuck you and leave you and—look, this isn’t my ego talking. Nice guys don’t last in my world. Nice guys with boundaries and common sense? I’m not paying for your therapy bills.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Forbidden (Songs of Perdition, #1-3))
“
She can choose to lead or be led
She can choose to dominate or be dominated
She can choose to submit or be submitted to
She can choose to bring life into this world or not
She can choose to marry or not
She can build or destroy your ego while on her knees
She enjoys being a woman
She is me
”
”
Marion Bekoe
“
The critical task of schizoanalysis, then, is to destroy the power of representation in all its many forms, including the Oedipus complex, the ego, religious and ethnic fanaticisms, patriotism, the debt to capital, and so on; the aim is to expunge belief from the unconscious altogether, to undo molar recoding as much as possible.
”
”
Eugene W. Holland (Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus: Introduction to Schizoanalysis)
“
Reality is simply the loss of the ego. Destroy the ego by seeking its identity. Because ego is no entity it will automatically vanish and reality will shine forth by itself. This is the direct method, whereas all other methods are done, only retaining the ego. . . . No sadhanas [spiritual practices] are necessary for engaging in this quest.
”
”
Sam Harris (Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion)
“
i allowed you to destroy me, my self-confidence, my ego, my identity as a human being and as a man. for years i was a shadow of my former self. the pain you caused was brutal and intense but i have a new life and a new incarnation and you’re hardly worth thinking about anymore and being free at last of your clutches, I have a new world to look forward to.
”
”
Scott C. Holstad (Junction City)
“
...Power is lost or won, never created or destroyed. Power is a visitor to, not a possession of, those it empowers. The mad tend to crave it, many of the sane crave it, but the wise worry about its long-term effects. Power is crack cocaine for your ego and battery acid for your soul. Power’s comings and goings, from host to host, via war, marriage, ballet box, diktat, and accident of birth, are the plot of history. The empowered may serve justice, remodel the Earth, transform lush nations into smoking battlefields, and bring down skyscrapers, but power itself is amoral.” Immaculée Constantin now looks up at me. “Power will notice you. Power is watching you now. Carry on as you are, and power will favor you. But power will also laugh at you, mercilessly, as you lie dying in a private clinic, a few fleeting decades from now. Power mocks all its illustrious favorites as they lie dying…
”
”
David Mitchell (The Bone Clocks)
“
Whom the gods wish to destroy,” Cyril Connolly famously said, “they first call promising.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (Ego is the Enemy: The Fight to Master Our Greatest Opponent)
“
the destroyer of ego. When the ego is annihilated, the inner eye blinks open.
”
”
Attar of Nishapur (The Conference of the Birds)
“
The nervous system dictates what that soul attracts into her life. If your neurons are destroyed, you won't know where you are, what you want or where you want to go.
”
”
Enneiviv (Outsmarting the Ego: The Physics of Evil)
“
This is the true via crucis: the cross destroys the self-justifying ego, putting it to death.
”
”
Brian Gregor (A Philosophical Anthropology of the Cross: The Cruciform Self (Philosophy of Religion))
“
ego —! There's nothing more powerful when it comes to destroying a man, my friend. Nothing else that would assure his swift and inglorious descent into Pathalam, the goriest underworld!
”
”
Kalki Krishnamurthy (Fresh Floods (Ponniyin Selvan #1))
“
I do not believe in the power of brand names or in emulating
any of the brand name investors out there. It is a fact that all—if
not at least most—of the biggest names in American finance and
industry out there today have proven after the 2008 crisis to be some
of the most incompetent people there are. Starting with the untouchable
Goldman Sachs, who was bailed out by over $5 billion from
Warren Buffett, to AIG and Citibank, who were bailed out by the
hundreds of billions of dollars from the Troubled Asset Relief Program
(TARP), having a name and a history does not make you the brightest
and the best. All it takes is one nincompoop with a huge ego or a
board of directors who think they are smarter than everyone else to
destroy what has taken generations to build.
”
”
Ziad K. Abdelnour (Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics)
“
Dori Duz was a lively little tart of copper-green and gold who loved doing it best in toolsheds, phone booths, field houses and bus kiosks. There was little she hadn’t tried and less she wouldn’t. She was shameless, slim, nineteen and aggressive. She destroyed egos by the score and made men hate themselves in the morning for the way she found them, used them and tossed them aside. Yossarian loved her.
”
”
Joseph Heller
“
The cool hate nothing more than when a genuinely original thinker rejects them. The cool need recruits to survive. Teens that reject them with a smile on their face destroy the most destructive movement in modern civilization. Rejecting cool, these brave kids help build the muscles of their ego and self-esteem that will be invaluable when they hit the real world. And when—inevitably—the real world hits them.
”
”
Greg Gutfeld (Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You)
“
One of more cruel punishment methods, if not the most cruel one, to any woman is to completely keep her out of attention, to constantly disconnect her eye connection, or simply not to listen to her. It could automatically destroy her Ego so badly that she could even prefer, from the bottom of her heart, any severe physical punishment to that ‘mild’ punishment, which would mean to be killed by inches for female brain.
”
”
Elmar Hussein
“
When you are cornered by self-centred humans don’t except any mercy from them. They cannot understand your pain and they try the best of them to destroy you in order to justify their EGO. All you can do is to pray for them to realise that ups and down are nature’s policy and above all GOD is the only creator cum terminator. I pray for your betterment. Darkness is only for few hours, Sun will be back soon since he resembles truth.
”
”
Sreeraj.C.V
“
Art can model the more difficult dynamic of transfiguring one’s life, but at some point the dynamic reverses itself: life models, or forces, the existential crisis by which art—great art—is fully experienced. There is a fluidity between art and life, then, in the same way that there is, in the best lives, a fluidity between mind and matter, self and soul, life and death. Experience seems to stream clearly through some lives, rather than getting slowed and clogged up in the drift-waste of ego, or stagnating in little inlets of despair, envy, rage. It has to do with seizing and releasing as a single gesture. It has to do with standing in relation to life and death ... owning an emptiness that, because you have claimed it, has become a source of light, wearing your wound that, like a ramshackle house on some high exposed hill, sings with the hard wind that is steadily destroying it.
”
”
Christian Wiman
“
The self is ever listening and self-seeking; it compares, compels, conquers, and destroys. It
rules and is also the I’s ruler. Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there stands a
mighty commander, an unknown wise man-he is called self . . . Your self laughs at your ego and
its proud leaps. 'What are these leaps and flights to me?' it says to itself. 'A detour to my
purpose. I am the leading reins of the I and the prompter of its conception.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)
“
The battle of good versus evil is the oldest and most re-occurring story tale in the book of life. It never ends because no matter how you cut off the tail of evil, it will always grow back again and again. This old story will always continue into infinity until we closely examine our past errors to prevent giving the snake a new head in the future. You can destroy a demon, but a new one will always come back later in time. You can bring down a corrupt leader, but another one will rise up again with time. As long as the ego overcomes the heart of a man, evil will always exist, and the enemies of God will continue to multiply and thrive. If a tree is bearing bad fruit, you do not destroy the tree by cutting off its branches or eliminating its fruit, but by destroying its roots. I want you to look at the world as this poisoned tree. Even if we eliminate our enemies today, we will create new ones tomorrow. The forumla to cut off the head of the snake once and fall is very simple, and this basic solution is written in all your holy books — 'LOVE IS THE ANSWER'. The strongest counterspell to destroy all forces of black magic is love. Pure unconditional love. However, to be able to emit the right frequency of love, one must first succeed in their own personal battle of good versus evil: heart (conscience) vs. mind (ego). Once you learn how to use your heart to embrace all living things as you do your own reflection, and use your heart to detect truths and dictate your actions, your heart will not be fully activated to love all of mankind the right way. Where there is love, there will be truth and light. Take away the love or truth, and we will forever remain in the dark. Truth, light and love must all co-exist in perfect harmony to overcome evil on earth. And they cannot just be secluded to one part of the world, but reign as divine royalty across the entire globe.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
One of the most distinctive features of psychosis is its dynamic of externalization. Madness is experienced as being enacted on the subject from without; a person perceives his own unintegrated psychological contents as outer-world creatures and demons who threaten to engulf and physically destroy him. The barriers between inner and outer, subject and object, dissolve so entirely that no boundary remains to protect the ego from the onslaught of this projected unconscious material.
”
”
Victoria Nelson
“
Innuendo
One two three four
Ooh ooh
While the sun hangs in the sky and the desert has sand
While the waves crash in the sea and meet the land
While there's a wind and the stars and the rainbow
Till the mountains crumble into the plain
Oh yes, we'll keep on trying
Tread that fine line
Oh, we'll keep on trying
Yeah
Just passing our time
Oh oh
While we live according to race, colour or creed
While we rule by blind madness and pure greed
Our lives dictated by tradition, superstition, false religion
Through the eons and on and on
Oh, yes, we'll keep on trying, yeah
We'll tread that fine line
Oh oh we'll keep on trying
Till the end of time
Till the end of time
Through the sorrow all through our splendor
Don't take offence at my innuendo
Duh duh duh duh duh duh duh
Duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh
You can be anything you want to be
Just turn yourself into anything you think that you could ever be
Be free with your tempo, be free, be free
Surrender your ego be free, be free to yourself
Oh oh, yeah
If there's a God or any kind of justice under the sky
If there's a point, if there's a reason to live or die
Ha, if there's an answer to the questions we feel bound to ask
Show yourself destroy our fears release your mask
Oh yes, we'll keep on trying
Hey, tread that fine line
(Yeah) yeah
We'll keep on smiling, yeah
(Yeah) (yeah) (yeah)
And whatever will be will be
We'll just keep on trying
We'll just keep on trying
Till the end of time
Till the end of time
Till the end of time
”
”
Freddie Mercury
“
Writing is a form of painting with words. Artists of every genre seek to convey every aspect of being, but some internal scenery proves impossible to recreate with word pictures. Writers and poets, past and present, seem to be obsessed with what it means to die, and perpetually haunted by actively imagining how to destroy their own being. Perchance this morbid fascination with eternal silence is because death is the one event that remains outside their ability ever accurately to paint with words.
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
Candor isn’t cruel. It does not destroy. On the contrary, any successful feedback system is built on empathy, on the idea that we are all in this together, that we understand your pain because we’ve experienced it ourselves. The need to stroke one’s own ego, to get the credit we feel we deserve—we strive to check those impulses at the door. The Braintrust is fueled by the idea that every note we give is in the service of a common goal: supporting and helping each other as we try to make better movies.
”
”
Ed Catmull (Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration)
“
This ego or individual being is at the root of all that is futile and undesirable in life. Therefore it is to be destroyed by any possible means; then that which ever is alone remains resplendent. This is Liberation or Enlightenment or Self-realization.’22
”
”
Arthur Osborne (The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi (The Classic Collection))
“
He was numbered among the suicides. And here it must be said that to call suicides only those who actually destroy themselves is false. Among these, indeed, there are many who in a sense are suicides only by accident and in whose being suicide has no necessary place. Among the common run of men there are many of little personality and stamped with no deep impress of fate, who find their end in suicide without belonging on that account to the type of the suicide by inclination; while on the other hand, of those who are to be counted as suicides by the very nature of their beings are many, perhaps a majority, who never in fact lay hands on themselves. The "suicide," and Harry was one, need not necessarily live in a peculiarly close relationship to death. One may do this without being a suicide. What is peculiar to the suicide is that his ego, rightly or wrongly, is felt to be an extremely dangerous, dubious, and doomed germ of nature; that he is always in his own eyes exposed to an extraordinary risk, as though he stood with the slightest foothold on the peak of a crag whence a slight push from without or an instant's weakness from within suffices to precipitate him into the void. The line of fate in the case of these men is marked by the belief they have that suicide is their most probable manner of death. It might be presumed that such temperaments, which usually manifest themselves in early youth and persist through life, show a singular defect of vital force. On the contrary, among the "suicides" are to be found unusually tenacious and eager and also hardy natures.
”
”
Hermann Hesse
“
As long as the ego overcomes the heart of a man, evil will always exist, and the enemies of God will continue to multiply and thrive. If a tree is bearing bad fruit, you do not destroy the tree by cutting off its branches or eliminating its fruit, but by destroying its roots. I want you to look at the world as this poisoned tree. Even if we eliminate our enemies today, we will create new ones tomorrow. The solution is very simple and this formula is written in all your holy books. LOVE IS THY ANSWER. The strongest weapon to destroy the snakes of hate and evil is LOVE. PURE UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. However, to be able to emit the right frequency of love, you must succeed daily in your own personal battle of good versus evil: heart (conscience) vs. mind (ego). Once you learn how to use your heart to embrace all living things as you do your own reflection, and use your heart to detect truths and dictate your actions, your heart will not be fully activated to LOVE. Where there is LOVE, there will remain Truth and LIGHT. Take away the LOVE, and you will always remain in the dark.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
Humans are creatures very uncomfortable, isn't it? Why? Well, because for a lifetime they can not get out from the boxes of their ego, and these boxes are certainly not made to protect us. Indeed, they subtract something important: even if you have someone next to you, you are not able to destroy the world and reach it. We are all alone as long as we stay inside the boxes there is no chance of getting something meaningful, and there is no way out: no one can be saved. For this reason we just have to destroy the boxes, the people, the world.
”
”
Sanetoshi
“
See!” she snapped at him. “You men are all brutish. You force your strength and will on us as if we matter for naught and then you wonder why we don’tlike ”—she spat the word at him—“you. Really? Is it any wonder? Why would any woman want to subject herself to the male ego? Why?”
She looked down at his body as a sudden heat came into her gaze that made him instantly nervous. “Sure, you’re a handsome beastie with kissable lips when they’re not bleeding. You’re fair in form with big, bulging—” He actually cringed in fear of the word “cock” coming out of her mouth again, but luckily she averted her thoughts as her gaze met his.
For the first time the despair left her voice. “Your eyes are so beautiful.” She ran one finger over his brow, making him instantly hard for her. “Did you know that?” Then the gloomy tone returned as she dropped her hand from his face. “Of course you do. You’re a worthless man. Just like all the others.”
“Yeah,” Blaise teased. “You’re worthless, Varian. And what on him bulges again, Merewyn?”
Varian glared at the mandrake, who merely continued to laugh at him.
“Everything. His arms, his legs, his—”
“Enough, Merewyn,” Varian said from between clenched teeth.
“Well, you do bulge. I’ve seen it.”
“We’ve all seen it,” Merrick said, his voice filled with humor, “And it’s sickening.”
Varian glared at the triplets, especially the ferret, who was laughing and rolling around his brother’s neck. “When she is over this, I’m going to kill all of you.”
Merewyn let out a long-suffering sigh. “Of course you will. That’s what men do. They destroy everything. Everything. Because you’re all worthless whoremongers.”
Varian winced at her choice of words.
“Whoremongers?” Blaise repeated with a laugh.
“Yes. You all go out with your giant lances, spearing anything you can find. Nailing your targets against trees and walls, while you gallop from field to field, bragging over your conquests, uncaring of who you’ve hurt while you quest for more glory.”
“Good gods,” Merrick said, his face horrified. “Is she speaking of what I think she is?”
“Do you mean warmongers?” Varian asked her.
“No! Whoremongers. All of you.” She looked over at the triplets.
“Especially them.
”
”
Kinley MacGregor (Knight of Darkness (Lords of Avalon, #2))
“
Power is lost or won, never created or destroyed. Power is a visitor to, not a possession of, those it empowers. The mad tend to crave it, many of the sane crave it, but the wise worry about its long-term side-effects. Power is crack-cocaine for your ego and battery-acid for your soul.
”
”
David Mitchell (The Bone Clocks)
“
Freud's psychology and the philosophy underlying it are essentially pessimistic. This is patent in his outlook on the future of mankind as well as in his attitude toward therapy. And on the basis of his theoretical premises, he cannot be anything but pessimistic. Man is driven by instincts which at best are only to be modified by "sublimation." His instinctual drives for satisfaction are inevitably frustrated by society. His "ego" is helplessly tossed about between instinctual drives and the "superego," which itself can only be modified. The superego is primarily forbidding and destructive. True ideals do not exist. The wish for personal fulfillment is "narcissistic." Man is by nature destructive and a "deadi instinct" compels him either to destroy others or to suffer. All these theories leave little room for a positive attitude toward change and limit the value of the potentially splendid therapy Freud originated. In contrast, I believe that compulsive trends in neuroses are not instinctual but spring from disturbed human relationships; that they can be changed when these improve and that conflicts of such origin can really be resolved.
”
”
Karen Horney (Our Inner Conflicts: A Constructive Theory of Neurosis)
“
Power is lost or won, never created or destroyed. Power is a visitor to, not a possession of, those it empowers. The mad tend to crave it, many of the sane crave it, but the wise worry about its long-term side effects. Power is crack cocaine for your ego and battery acid for your soul. Power’s comings and goings, from host to host, via war, marriage, ballot box, diktat, and accident of birth, are the plot of history. The empowered may serve justice, remodel the Earth, transform lush nations into smoking battlefields, and bring down skyscrapers, but power itself is amoral.
”
”
David Mitchell (The Bone Clocks)
“
Germans adored Hitler; they invested their own egos in him and, after the war, they were unable to acknowledge the inhumanity of his ideals or their horrifying consequences.
They understand the defence against remembering the criminal and horrific events as a self-protective repudiation of a melancholia that would have set in absolutely inevitably if Germans had truly confronted their bond with Hitler and their burden of guilt.
Through the omnipotently manifesting narcissism and National Socialist ideals, fellow humanity and the capacity for empathy with the victims were expelled from the self and destroyed.
”
”
Alexander Mitscherlich (The Inability to Mourn: Principles of Collective Behavior)
“
I Write to Destroy You (The Sonnet)
I don’t write to pamper your ego,
I don't write to give you comfort.
I don't write to teach you self-love,
I write to destroy all selfish thought.
I don't write to inspire your pride,
I don't write to cater to your insecurity.
I don't write to entertain shallowness,
I only write to abolish self-centricity.
I don't write to tickle the instaslaves,
I don't write to peddle false perfection.
I don't write to lick the privileged boots,
I write to make soldiers of self-annihilation.
My science and my art were born on the street.
That's where I learnt, all suffering is born of greed.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Giants in Jeans: 100 Sonnets of United Earth)
“
Timely Rain
In the jungles of flaming ego,
May there be cool iceberg of bodhicitta.
On the racetrack of bureaucracy,
May there be the walk of the elephant.
May the sumptuous castle of arrogance
Be destroyed by vajra confidence.
In the garden of gentle sanity,
May you be bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness.
”
”
Chögyam Trungpa (Timely Rain: Selected Poetry)
“
The purpose of Shamrock’s formula is simple: to get real and continuous feedback about what they know and what they don’t know from every angle. It purges out the ego that puffs us up, the fear that makes us doubt ourselves, and any laziness that might make us want to coast. As Shamrock observed, “False ideas about yourself destroy you. For me, I always stay a student. That’s what martial arts are about, and you have to use that humility as a tool. You put yourself beneath someone you trust.” This begins by accepting that others know more than you and that you can benefit from their knowledge, and then seeking them out and knocking down the illusions you have about yourself.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (Ego Is the Enemy)
“
I have talked to many people about this and it seems to be a kind of mystical experience. The preparation is unconscious, the realization happens in a flaming second. It was on Third Avenue. The trains were grinding over my head. The snow was nearly waist-high in the gutters and uncollected garbage was scattered in a dirty mess. The wind was cold, and frozen pieces of paper went scraping along the pavement. I stopped to look in a drug-store window where a latex cooch dancer was undulating by a concealed motor–and something burst in my head, a kind of light and a kind of feeling blended into an emotion which if it had spoken would have said, “My God! I belong here. Isn’t this wonderful?”
Everything fell into place. I saw every face I passed. I noticed every doorway and the stairways to apartments. I looked across the street at the windows, lace curtains and potted geraniums through sooty glass. It was beautiful–but most important, I was part of it. I was no longer a stranger. I had become a New Yorker.
Now there may be people who move easily into New York without travail, but most I have talked to about it have had some kind of trial by torture before acceptance. And the acceptance is a double thing. It seems to me that the city finally accepts you just as you finally accept the city.
A young man in a small town, a frog in a small puddle, if he kicks his feet is able to make waves, get mud in his neighbor’s eyes–make some impression. He is known. His family is known. People watch him with some interest, whether kindly or maliciously. He comes to New York and no matter what he does, no one is impressed. He challenges the city to fight and it licks him without being aware of him. This is a dreadful blow to a small-town ego. He hates the organism that ignores him. He hates the people who look through him.
And then one day he falls into place, accepts the city and does not fight it any more. It is too huge to notice him and suddenly the fact that it doesn’t notice him becomes the most delightful thing in the world. His self-consciousness evaporates. If he is dressed superbly well–there are half a million people dressed equally well. If he is in rags–there are a million ragged people. If he is tall, it is a city of tall people. If he is short the streets are full of dwarfs; if ugly, ten perfect horrors pass him in one block; if beautiful, the competition is overwhelming. If he is talented, talent is a dime a dozen. If he tries to make an impression by wearing a toga–there’s a man down the street in a leopard skin. Whatever he does or says or wears or thinks he is not unique. Once accepted this gives him perfect freedom to be himself, but unaccepted it horrifies him.
I don’t think New York City is like other cities. It does not have character like Los Angeles or New Orleans. It is all characters–in fact, it is everything. It can destroy a man, but if his eyes are open it cannot bore him.
New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it–once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough. All of everything is concentrated here, population, theatre, art, writing, publishing, importing, business, murder, mugging, luxury, poverty. It is all of everything. It goes all right. It is tireless and its air is charged with energy. I can work longer and harder without weariness in New York than anyplace else….
”
”
John Steinbeck
“
Remember, please remember, you do not (you must not!) fear, attack, or hate the False Self. That would only continue a negative and arrogant death energy, and it is delusional and counterproductive anyway. It would be trying to “drive out the devil by the prince of devils,” as Jesus puts it. In the great economy of grace, all is used and transformed, and nothing is wasted. God uses your various False Selves to lead you beyond them. Note that Jesus' clear message to his beloved, Mary Magdalene, is not that she squelch, deny, or destroy her human love for him. He is much more subtle than that. He just says to her, “Do not cling to me” (John 20:17). He is saying, “Don't hold on to your needy False Self. We are all heading for something much bigger and much better, Mary.” This is the spiritual art of detachment, which is not taught much in capitalistic worldview where clinging and possessing are not just the norm but even the goal. You see how trapped we are. Great love is both very attached (“passionate”) and yet very detached at the same time. It is love but not addiction. The soul, the True Self, has everything, and so it does not require any particular thing. When you have all things, you do not have to protect any one thing. True Self can love and let go. The False Self cannot do this. The “do not cling to me” encounter between Jesus and Mary Magdalene is the most painted Easter scene, I am told. The artistic imagination knew that a seeming contradiction was playing out here: intense love and yet appropriate distance. The soul and the spirit tend to love and revel in paradoxes; they operate by resonance and reflection. The ego (False Self) wants to resolve all paradoxes in a most glib way and thinks that it can. It operates in a way that is mechanical and instrumental. This is not always bad, but it is surely limited. The ego would like Mary Magdalene and Jesus to be caught up in a passionate love affair. Of course they are, in the deepest sense of the term, but only the True Self knows how to enjoy and picture “a love of already satisfied desire.” The True Self and False Self see differently; both are necessary, but one is better, bigger, and even eternal.
”
”
Richard Rohr (Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self)
“
Man doesn't realize his real purpose on earth so long as he rolls in comforts. It is absolutely true that adversity teaches a man a bitter lesson, toughens his fiber and moulds his character. In other words, an altogether new man is born out of adversity which helpfully destroys one's ego and makes one humble and selfless. Prolonged suffering opens the eyes to hate the things for which one craved before unduly, leading eventually even to a state of resignation. It then dawns on us that continued yearnings brings us intense agony. But the stoic mind is least perturbed by the vicissitudes of life. It is well within our efforts to conquer grief. It's simple. Develop an attitude of detachment even while remaining in the thick of terrestrial pleasures.
”
”
V.S. Naipaul
“
Man ( the human ego) is not so much destroying the planet as it is destroying itself. The planet will Be Here regardless of human habitation. But human ego is destructive and therefore destroys it's very habitat. Soon when there is not habitat for human ego; the ego dies. What remains is your Being unfettered by the materialistic illusions of what the ancients referred to as Maya
”
”
Leland Lewis (Random Molecular Mirroring)
“
An intuition involves a coming together of loosely linked facts, concepts, experiences, thoughts, and feelings, and we can encourage intuition by tearing down the psychological barriers that are keeping them apart. If intuition involves stepping back from our person, so does wisdom, insight, imagination, and even reason. What usually gets in the way of both reason and non-rational forms of cognition is not stupidity as such, or feeble-mindedness, but fear and the thing that fear protects, that is, our self-esteem, our sense of self, our ego. If we are to unleash our full cognitive and human potential, we need to love life more than we fear it, we need to suppress or destroy our ego, to commit metaphorical suicide—which will be the work of a life well spent.
”
”
Neel Burton (Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking)
“
GREED is truly the most terrible challenge of our times, and capitalism is its tool, its means to power and more greed. Greed is a (contagious) mental illness, an unfillable hole, a hunger that denies justice, a brutal expression of a broken ego.
Greed consumes the earth without respite, and is a cancer on humanity. Greed destroys us and our children and their future.
Greed is death.
”
”
William Donelson
“
First, the idea of the multiverse is essentially the fantasy of preserving perfect information. One of the hard things to deal with in life is the fact that you destroy potential information whenever you make a decision. You could even say that's essentially what regret is: a profound problem of incomplete information. If you select one thing on a diner's menu, you can't know what it would have been like to taste other things on it, right then, right there. When you marry one person, you give up the possibility of knowing what it would have been like to have married any number of others. But if the multiverse exists, you can at least imagine there's another version of you who's eating that other thing you thought about ordering, or who's married to that other man you only went on two dates with. Even if you'll never see all the information for yourself, at least you'll be able to tell yourself that it's there.
'The second reason the multiverse seems like such a neat idea is that it gives human beings just an incredible amount of agency, which they can exercise with the least effort. Why, Carson here created an entire alternate universe when he ordered hash browns on the side of his French toast instead of bacon—'
'Ah, I should have gotten bacon, how could I forget,' Carson said, and attempted to hail the waitress.
'But the history of science shows that any theory that covertly panders to the human ego like that, that puts humans at the center of things, is very likely to be found out wrong, given enough time. So, just for the sake of argument, let's assume that there's just this one universe, and we're stuck with it. What happens to our time traveler then?
”
”
Dexter Palmer (Version Control)
“
The self is ever listening and self-seeking; it compares, compels, conquers, and destroys. It rules and is also the I’s ruler. Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there stands a mighty commander, an unknown wise man-he is called self . . . Your self laughs at your ego and its proud leaps. 'What are these leaps and flights to me?' it says to itself. 'A detour to my purpose. I am the leading reins of the I and the prompter of its conception.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)
“
The respect for the individual, which Radin lists as an aboriginal attribute, deserves to be emphasized, today, in an era that rejects the collective as destructive of individuality on the one hand, and, yet, in an orgy of pure egotism, has actually destroyed all the ego boundaries of free-floating, isolated, and atomized individuals on the other hand. A strong collectivity may be even more supportive of the individual, as close studies of certain aboriginal societies reveal, than a “free market” society with emphasis on an egoistic, but impoverished, self.
”
”
Murray Bookchin (Remaking Society)
“
Power is lost or won, never created or destroyed. Power is a visitor to, not a possession of, those it empowers. The mad tend to crave it, many of the sane crave it, but the wise worry about its long-term side effects. Power is crack cocaine for your ego and battery acid for your soul. Power’s comings and goings, from host to host, via war, marriage, ballot box, diktat, and accident of birth, are the plot of history. The empowered may serve justice, remodel the Earth, transform lush nations into smoking battlefields, and bring down skyscrapers, but power itself is amoral
”
”
David Mitchell (The Bone Clocks)
“
Power is lost or won, never created or destroyed. Power is a visitor to, not a possession of, those it empowers. The mad tend to crave it, many of the sane crave it, but the wise worry about its long-term side effects. Power is crack cocaine for your ego and battery acid for your soul. Power's comings and goings, from host to host, via war, marriage, ballot box, diktat, and accident of birth, are the plot of history. The empowered may serve justice, remodel the Earth, transform lush nations into smoking battlefields, and bring down skyscrapers, but power itself is amoral.
”
”
David Mitchell (The Bone Clocks)
“
Speak to me about power. What is it?”
I do believe I’m being out-Cambridged. “You want me to discuss power? Right here and now?”
Her shapely head tilts. “No time except the present.”
“Okay.” Only for a ten. “Power is the ability to make someone do what they otherwise wouldn’t, or deter them from doing what they otherwise would.”
Immaculée Constantin is unreadable. “How?”
“By coercion and reward. Carrots and sticks, though in bad light one looks much like the other. Coercion is predicated upon the fear of violence or suffering. ‘Obey, or you’ll regret it.’ Tenth-century Danes exacted tribute by it; the cohesion of the Warsaw Pact rested upon it; and playground bullies rule by it. Law and order relies upon it. That’s why we bang up criminals and why even democracies seek to monopolize force.” Immaculée Constantin watches my face as I talk; it’s thrilling and distracting. “Reward works by promising ‘Obey and benefit.’ This dynamic is at work in, let’s say, the positioning of NATO bases in nonmember states, dog training, and putting up with a shitty job for your working life. How am I doing?”
Security Goblin’s sneeze booms through the chapel.
“You scratch the surface,” says Immaculée Constantin.
I feel lust and annoyance. “Scratch deeper, then.”
She brushes a tuft of fluff off her glove and appears to address her hand: “Power is lost or won, never created or destroyed. Power is a visitor to, not a possession of, those it empowers. The mad tend to crave it, many of the sane crave it, but the wise worry about its long-term side effects. Power is crack cocaine for your ego and battery acid for your soul. Power’s comings and goings, from host to host, via war, marriage, ballot box, diktat, and accident of birth, are the plot of history. The empowered may serve justice, remodel the Earth, transform lush nations into smoking battlefields, and bring down skyscrapers, but power itself is amoral.” Immaculée Constantin now looks up at me. “Power will notice you. Power is watching you now. Carry on as you are, and power will favor you. But power will also laugh at you, mercilessly, as you lie dying in a private clinic, a few fleeting decades from now. Power mocks all its illustrious favorites as they lie dying. ‘Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away.’ That thought sickens me, Hugo Lamb, like nothing else. Doesn’t it sicken you?
”
”
David Mitchell (The Bone Clocks)
“
Fear converts every inward thought and impulse right back outward. Maya turns everything to her purpose. That’s what you’re up against. It’s a deathmatch and there’s only one way to win and Brett found it. She stopped fighting. She surrendered. It’s ego that fights, that resists, that sucks all our energy. Brett dropped her armor and exposed her breastbone to her enemy, and in so doing, she destroyed the enemy. Maya is not outside of us. Ultimately, she’s just another internal demon. Routing our power against her or to her are the same thing, and when we stop, we stop empowering her and she ceases to exist.
”
”
Jed McKenna (Spiritual Warfare (The Enlightenment Trilogy Book 3))
“
Pleasure Principles What you pay attention to grows. This will be familiar to those who have read Emergent Strategy. Actually, all the emergent strategy principles also apply here! (Insert eggplant emoji). Tune into happiness, what satisfies you, what brings you joy. We become what we practice. I learned this through studying somatics! In his book The Leadership Dojo, Richard Strozzi-Heckler shares that “300 repetitions produce body memory … [and] 3,000 repetitions creates embodiment.”12 Yes is the way. When it was time to move to Detroit, when it was time to leave my last job, when it was time to pick up a meditation practice, time to swim, time to eat healthier, I knew because it gave me pleasure when I made and lived into the decision. Now I am letting that guide my choices for how I organize and for what I am aiming toward with my work—pleasure in the processes of my existence and states of my being. Yes is a future. When I feel pleasure, I know I am on the right track. Puerto Rican pleasure elder Idelisse Malave shared with me that her pleasure principle is “If it pleases me, I will.” When I am happy, it is good for the world.13 The deepest pleasure comes from riding the line between commitment and detachment.14 Commit yourself fully to the process, the journey, to bringing the best you can bring. Detach yourself from ego and outcomes. Make justice and liberation feel good. Your no makes the way for your yes. Boundaries create the container within which your yes is authentic. Being able to say no makes yes a choice. Moderation is key.15 The idea is not to be in a heady state of ecstasy at all times, but rather to learn how to sense when something is good for you, to be able to feel what enough is. Related: pleasure is not money. Pleasure is not even related to money, at least not in a positive way. Having resources to buy unlimited amounts of pleasure leads to excess, and excess totally destroys the spiritual experience of pleasure.
”
”
Adrienne Maree Brown (Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (Emergent Strategy))
“
We are attempting to build, within our movement, non-exploitative ways of relating to one another based on trust and concern rather than political expediency. We have serious personal/political intentions in breaking down hierarchical and elitist structures, and for experimenting with leaderless groups and collective decision making. In dealing with the media these revolutionary principles and practices are destroyed. The media works to create leaders, it knows no way of relating to us on our own terms. Being interviewed and presented as a leader is a real ego trip--the media brings out the most counter-revolutionary traits in people. Elitism, dissension and division are the ultimate results.
”
”
Nancy Ferro
“
If we constantly apply ourselves to meditation practice during the course of our lives, we may be able, though with some difficulty, to strip away all the supports that maintain the illusion of the ego-self. However, the material fabric of the ego's support-bot the world and the physical body-is destroyed by death and all contact with its "friends" is severed. Now the mind is truly left to its own devices and its experience of reality is much more direct and immediate. The worldly concerns which formerly served as the support of the ego have all been stripped away and the insubstantial nature of its condition has been exposed in all its falsity. It was never really real at all, and the awesome power of this truth may strike the consciousness like a bombshell!
”
”
Stephen Hodge (The Illustrated Tibetan Book of the Dead: A New Reference Manual for the Soul)
“
Tell me this- if you could have a guarantee that your child would be a National Merit Scholar and get into a prestigious college, have good work habits and a successful career, but that your relationship with him would be destroyed in the process, would you do it? Why not? Because you are made to love, that's why. We care about our relationships more than about our accomplishments. That's the way God made us. Then why don't we live that way? Why, come a damp and gloomy day in March, do we yell over a math lesson or lose our temper over a writing assignment? Why do we see the lessons left to finish and get lost in an anxiety-ridden haze? We forget that we are dealing with a soul, a precious child bearing the Image of God, and all we can see is that there are only a few months left to the school year and we are still only halfway through the math book. When you are performing mommy triage- that is, when you have a crisis moment and have to figure out which fire to put out first- always choose your child. It's just a math lesson. It's only a writing assignment. It's a Latin declension. Nothing more. But your child? He is God's. And the Almighty put him in your charge for relationship. Don't damage that relationship over something so trivial as an algebra problem. And when you do (because you will, and so will I), repent. We like to feed our egos. When our children perform well, we can puff up with satisfaction and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. But as important as it is to give our children a solid education (and it is important, don't misunderstand me), it is far more important that we love them well. Our children need to know that the most important thing about them is not whether they finished their science curriculum or score well on the SAT. Their worth is not bound up in a booklist or a test score. Take a moment. Take ten. Look deep into your child's eyes. Listen, even when you're bored. Break out a board game or an old picture book you haven't read in ages. Resting in Him means relaxing into the knowledge that He has put these children in our care to nurture. And nurturing looks different than charging through the checklist all angst-like. Your children are not ordinary kids or ordinary people, because there are no ordinary kids or ordinary people. They are little reflections of the
”
”
Sarah Mackenzie (Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler's Guide to Unshakable Peace)
“
I was never really a child, and therefore something in the nature of childhood will cling to me always, I'm certain. I have simply grown, become older, but my nature never changed. I enjoy mischief just as I did years ago, but that's just the point, actually I never played mischevious tricks. Once, very early on, I gave my brother a knock on the head. That just happened, it wasn't mischief. Certainly there was plenty of mischief and boyishness, but the idea always interested me more than the thing itself. I began, early on, to look for deep things everywhere, even in mischief. I don't develop. At least, that's what I claim. Perhaps I shall never put out twigs and branches. One day some fragrance or other will issue from my nature and my originating, I shall flower, and the fragrance will shed itself around a little, then I shall bow my head, which Kraus calls my stupid arrogant pig-head. My arms and legs will strangely sag, my mind, pride, and character, everything will crack and fade, and I shall be dead, not really dead, only dead in a certain sort of way, and then I shall vegetate and die for perhaps another sixty years. I shall grow old. But I'm not afraid of myself. I couldn't possibly inspire myself with dread. For I don't respect my ego at all, I merely see it, and it leaves me cold. Oh, to come in from the cold! How glorious! I shall be able to come into the warmth, over and over again, for nothing personal or selfish will ever stop me from becoming warm and catching fire and taking part. How fortunate I am, not to be able to see in myself anything worth respecting and watching! To be small and to stay small. And if a hand, a situation, a wave were ever to raise me up and carry me to where I could command power and influence, I would destroy the circumstances that had favored me, and I would hurl myself down into the humble, speechless, insignificant darkness. I can only breathe in the lower regions.
”
”
Robert Walser (Jakob von Gunten)
“
Now that you’ve fallen to that point, here comes the crème de la crème. Imagine that while you’re lost in the disturbed energy, you actually do one or more of the things that your mind is telling you to do. Imagine what would happen if you actually quit your job, or if you decide, “I’ve held this in long enough. I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.” You have no idea how big a step down that is. It’s one thing if the disturbance is going on inside of you. But the moment you allow it to express itself, the moment you let that energy move your body, you have descended to another level. Now it’s almost impossible to let go. If you start yelling at somebody, if you actually tell someone how you feel about them from this state of nonclarity, you have involved that person’s heart and mind in your stuff. Now both of your egos are involved. Once you externalize these energies, you will want to defend your actions and make them look appropriate. But the other person will never think they were appropriate. Now even more forces are keeping you down. First you fall into the darkness, and then you manifest that darkness. When you do this, you are literally taking the energy of the blockage and passing it on. When you dump your stuff into this world, it’s like painting the world with your stuff. You put more of that kind of energy into your environment and it comes back to you. You are now surrounded by people who will interact with you accordingly. It’s just another form of “environmental pollution,” and it will affect your life. That is how negative cycles happen. You actually take a piece of your stuff, which is nothing but deeply seated disturbance from your past, and you implant it in the hearts of those around you. At some point it will come back to you. Anything you put out comes back. Imagine if you got upset and fully released your disturbed energies onto another person. This is how people ruin relationships and destroy their lives.
”
”
Michael A. Singer (The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself)
“
Power is lost or won, never created or destroyed. Power is a visitor to, not a possession of, those it empowers. The mad tend to crave it, many of the sane crave it, but the wise worry about its long-term side effects. Power is crack cocaine for your ego and battery acid for your soul. Power’s comings and goings, from host to host, via war, marriage, ballot box, diktat, and accident of birth, are the plot of history. The empowered may serve justice, remodel the Earth, transform lush nations into smoking battlefields, and bring down skyscrapers, but power itself is amoral.” Immaculée Constantin now looks up at me. “Power will notice you. Power is watching you now. Carry on as you are, and power will favor you. But power will also laugh at you, mercilessly, as you lie dying in a private clinic, a few fleeting decades from now. Power mocks all its illustrious favorites as they lie dying. ‘Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away.’ That thought sickens me, Hugo Lamb, like nothing else. Doesn’t it sicken you?
”
”
David Mitchell (The Bone Clocks)
“
Your actions bind you, because you think that you are the actions.
Actions bind you, because you think that you are the doer. The "I", the ego, behind the actions goes on binding you to those actions.
Through countless past lives this feeling of being the doer has become strengthened.
You think that you are a great doer, while in reality there is no other doer than existence.
How can you drop this attachments and karma?
If someone becomes conscious that he is not the doer of the actions - all actions are the will of the whole and he is only a flute in existence hands.
In that moment he is free of karma.
If the bondage of karma is not destroyed, there is no freedom.
A meditator says: Now I am not doing anything, everything is done by existence.
If someone receives this insight both the bondage of present karma and the bondage of all past karma will vanish.
Karma can be dissolved only when cut from the root - and the root is the ego, the sense of that "I" am doing.
So the doer, the "I", has to dissolve.
It is not necessary to focus on the actions, only the "I", the ego, has to be dissolved.
Whenever there is a feeling that "I am doing this", remember that your are only the seer, the witness.
Be a watcher. Whenever the feeling of "I" is there shift it to the watcher.
”
”
Swami Dhyan Giten (When the Drop becomes the Ocean)
“
Revolt of solitary instincts against social bonds is the key to the philosophy, the politics, and the sentiments, not only of what is commonly called the romantic movement, but of its progeny down to the present day. Philosophy, under the influence of German idealism, became solipsistic, and self-development was proclaimed as the fundamental principle of ethics. As regards sentiment, there has to be a distasteful compromise between the search for isolation and the necessities of passion and economics. D. H. Lawrence's story, 'The Man Who Loved Islands', has a hero who disdained such compromise to a gradually increasing extent and at last died of hunger and cold, but in the enjoyment of complete isolation; but this degree of consistency has not been achieved by the writers who praise solitude. The comforts of civilized life are not obtainable by a hermit, and a man who wishes to write books or produce works of art must submit to the ministrations of others if he is to survive while he does his work. In order to continue to feel solitary, he must be able to prevent those who serve him from impinging upon his ego, which is best accomplished if they are slaves. Passionate love, however, is a more difficult matter. So long as passionate lovers are regarded as in revolt against social trammels, they are admired; but in real life the love-relation itself quickly becomes a social trammel, and the partner in love comes to be hated, all the more vehemently if the love is strong enough to make the bond difficult to break. Hence love comes to be conceived as a battle, in which each is attempting to destroy the other by breaking through the protecting walls of his or her ego. This point of view has become familiar through the writings of Strindberg, and, still more, of D. H. Lawrence. Not only passionate love, but every friendly relation to others, is only possible, to this way of feeling, in so far as the others can be regarded as a projection of one's own Self. This is feasible if the others are blood-relations, and the more nearly they are related the more easily it is possible. Hence an emphasis on race, leading, as in the case of the Ptolemys, to endogamy. How this affected Byron, we know; Wagner suggests a similar sentiment in the love of Siegmund and Sieglinde. Nietzsche, though not scandalously, preferred his sister to all other women: 'How strongly I feel,' he writes to her, 'in all that you say and do, that we belong to the same stock. You understand more of me than others do, because we come of the same parentage. This fits in very well with my "philosophy".
”
”
Bertrand Russell (A History of Western Philosophy)
“
[T]he awakened one, the knowing one, says: “Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body.”
The body is a great wisdom, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a flock and a shepherd.
An instrument of your body is also your small wisdom, my brother, which you call “spirit” — a little instrument and plaything of your great wisdom.
“Ego,” you say, and are proud of that word. But the greater thing — in which you are unwilling to believe — is your body with its great wisdom; it says not “ego,” but does it….
…Ever hearkens the Self, and seeks; it compares, masters, conquers, and destroys. It rules, and is also the ego’s ruler.
Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage — it is called Self; it dwells in your body, it is your body.
There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy. And who then knows why your body requires your deepest philosophy?
Your Self laughs at your ego, and its proud prancings. “What are these prancings and flights of thought to me?” it says to itself. “A by-way to my purpose. I am the leading-string of the ego, and the prompter of its notions.”
The Self says to the ego: “Feel pain!” And thereupon it suffers, and thinks how it may put an end thereto — and for that very purpose it is meant to think.
The Self says to the ego: “Feel pleasure!” Thereupon it rejoices, and thinks how it may ofttimes rejoice — and for that very purpose it is meant to think.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)
“
When we were first born, Spirit was our predominate guide, but as we ‘matured,’ our society quickly cured us of that.
I learned later in my studies that any negative moaning I have about my life is only an affirmation of weakness and makes all those around me not want to be there.
Life is nothing more than a dance with God; we just need to follow His lead and quit stepping on His toes.
We must be able to release the things we hold dearest in order to truly have.
I believe you must know the feeling of hunger before you can truly taste and enjoy food, you can only recognize authenticity by experiencing fraud, and you can only experience true love after enduring heartache. Your level of awareness will increase as you experience the rawness of life on your path to becoming more.
God never gives you more than you can handle. He is perfect in His teaching.
Know that what comes around goes around, and what you’re unable to forgive and let go will stay around.
We need to control what we think, what we say, and how we feel. It’s our thoughts that produce our words, and our words lead to our actions. Our actions over time become habits, which form our character. Our character is what unfolds into our reality.
Life is not about a future someone, it’s about ‘becoming’ someone and enjoying every step along the way. There’s no need to wait—significance is available right now.
If you had to carry your mental seeds of desired reality around with you, growing to an additional nine pounds concentrated in your belly for nine months, and actually give birth to them, they too would become pretty obvious. The problem with most is they don’t care enough to endure the process, so they wind up aborting their dreams before they have a chance to be born.
As you begin to do things to close the gap toward your ideal, you will find that life speeds up. Things quicken, and the closer you get to your goal, the faster it comes for you. The ultimate goal is to condition your body and mind so you can manifest ideals instantly—to think like God thinks.
Yearning destroys your ability to have. It’s the carrot dangling just beyond your nose that you will never taste. When you’re obsessed with something you become out of balance and this imbalance creates a barrier between you and what you want. You become too emotionally attached to accept it.
We must know the price of our obsessions and refuse to pay it.
If Spirit cannot overcome ego and move away from the ways of the world, we will be destined to repeat it. We will die only to perpetuate death.
In the beginning of my spiritual quest, I felt left out, alone, and cold. Wandering around in the darkness of my human nature, I came upon a door, and on the door was the word heaven. I knocked on the door but no one answered. I returned back every day, hoping to get someone to hear me and let me in. I became increasingly frustrated, finding myself angrily pounding on the door, but it wouldn’t open. Exhausted, I finally fell to my knees at the foot of the door and prayed, “Please, God, let me in!” The door immediately cracked open. I realized I had been knocking from the inside.
”
”
Doug Burnett
“
We may finally summarize the emotional dilemma of the schizoid thus: he feels a deep dread of entering into a real personal relationship, i.e. one into which genuine feeling enters, because, though his need for a love-object is so great, he can only sustain a relationship at a deep emotional level on the basis of infantile and absolute dependence. To the love-hungry schizoid faced internally with an exciting but deserting object all relationships are felt to be 'swallowing-up things' which trap and imprison and destroy. If your hate is destructive you are still free to love because you can find someone else to hate. But if you feel your love is destructive the situation is terrifying. You are always impelled into a relationship by your needs and at once driven out again by the fear either of exhausting your love-object by the demands you want to make or else losing your own individuality by over-dependence and identification. This 'in and out' oscillation is the typical schizoid behaviour, and to escape from it into detachment and loss of feeling is the typical schizoid state.
The schizoid feels faced with utter loss, and the destruction of both ego and object, whether in a relationship or out of it. In a relationship, identification involves loss of the ego, and incorporation involves a hungry devouring and losing of the object. In breaking away to independence, the object is destroyed as you fight a way out to freedom, or lost by separation, and the ego is destroyed or emptied by the loss of the object with whom it is identified. The only real solution is the dissolving of identification and the maturing of the personality, the differentiation of ego and object, and the growth of a capacity for cooperative independence and mutuality, i.e. psychic rebirth and development of a real ego.
”
”
Harry Guntrip (Schizoid Phenomena, Object Relations and the Self (Karnac Classics))
“
Although a youth culture was in evidence by the 1950s, the first obvious and dramatic manifestation of a culture generated by peer-orientation was the hippie counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. The Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan called it “the new tribalism of the Electric Age.” Hair and dress and music played a significant part in shaping this culture, but what defined it more than anything was its glorification of the peer attachment that gave rise to it. Friends took precedence over family. Physical contact and connection with peers were pursued; the brotherhood of the pop tribe was declared, as in the generation-based “Woodstock nation.” The peer group was the true home.
“Don't trust anyone over thirty” became the byword of youth who went far beyond a healthy critique of their elders to a militant rejection of tradition. The degeneration of that culture into alienation and drug use, on the one hand, and its co-optation for commercial purposes by the very mainstream institutions it was rebelling against were almost predictable. The wisdom of well-seasoned cultures has accumulated over hundreds and sometimes thousands of years. Healthy cultures also contain rituals and customs and ways of doing things that protect us from ourselves and safeguard values important to human life, even when we are not conscious of what such values are.
An evolved culture needs to have some art and music that one can grow into, symbols that convey deeper meanings to existence and models that inspire greatness. Most important of all, a culture must protect its essence and its ability to reproduce itself — the attachment of children to their parents. The culture generated by peer orientation contains no wisdom, does not protect its members from themselves, creates only fleeting fads, and worships idols hollow of value or meaning. It symbolizes only the undeveloped ego of callow youth and destroys child-parent attachments.
We may observe the cheapening of cultural values with each new peer-oriented generation. For all its self-delusion and smug isolation from the adult world, the Woodstock “tribe” still embraced universal values of peace, freedom, and brotherhood. Today's mass musical gatherings are about little more than style, ego, tribal exuberance, and dollars.
”
”
Gabor Maté (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
“
Grace is hard. I think it’s harder to forgive wrongs than to apologize for them. It is so much easier and satisfying to cut someone down, to rhetorically destroy him. God knows I’ve done my share of that. It’s easy to obliterate someone in a debate but much harder to persuade him to share your perspective. You have to bore through ego to do that, and let’s face it, many people are too thick-headed.
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”
Dana Loesch (Grace Canceled: How Outrage is Destroying Lives, Ending Debate, and Endangering Democracy)
“
I believe that what the vast majority of the masses call life is just fiction. A therapist's work ends up being trying to bring them into nonfiction. Although I feel that many are just replacing a novel by another. Too many people tell me: 'Why do you talk like you know the truth? There is no truth'. It is as if they felt that I'm destroying their inner world by being direct. They feel the need to project a defense mechanism to protect it. Another common phrase is: 'You don't know me better than I know myself'. This one is also interesting. Because it is as if the person was saying: 'You don't know my novel better than I do because I am the author of it.’ Life pretty much follows the same principles — gravity, air, water, fire, weight, hight; all of which is represented in maths, physics, and other sciences. But most people these days consider a personal attack when you make them observe something that may touch their inner world. It's the oversensitivity paradox in which we live today, for people want to feel more alive but are afraid to live at the same time. Allegorically speaking, they need to float like a bubble of steel. And many times they are perfectly fine in discussing others' issues until those issues are projected at them for self-analysis. Quite often, we are not really talking to a human being, but to his alter-ego. There's not much difference between the real self and the alternate version of that self for such person. And how ironic when both the therapist and the patient play the same game from different perspectives. This is why people don't want the truth anymore, but an alternate version of reality where they can merge themselves as if they were merely a chemical solution melting with another. They are too afraid of the truth because they have often been hurt when trying to find it. However, the concept of truth merges with the personality of the individual. And that is why having a personality is now an outdated concept, often falling into the realm of the abstract — Everything is relative, everything is fine, and everyone is everything you can decide for yourself. So why live if life has no meaning? Well, life does have a meaning, but won't be found by running away from it.
”
”
Dan Desmarques (Codex Illuminatus: Quotes & Sayings of Dan Desmarques)
“
Let the games begin. I shall commence an Olympian contest by attempting to conquer my fiendish ego, slay the warty toad that is destroying a peaceful sanctuary, and endeavor to reach a heightened state of personal awareness. The deepest chamber within commands me to either change or die; I can no longer survive as a loathsome creature that is repugnant to every aspect of humanity and civilization. To do or die, because money does not make a man, no one cares when I die or how much money a person banked. I need to resist the endless commercial propaganda and political doggerel spewed by television and social media sites that encourage stifling conformism in order to advance philistine cultural values. I shall honor this moment of intuitive realization by endeavoring to exterminate the toad that unwittingly governs me before this ghastly beast kills me by spewing its contemptible poison.
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
Build an important relationship with your ego. Let your ego serve you, not destroy you.
”
”
Sahndra Fon Dufe
“
Nonviolence is nonsense – or to be more accurate – bookish nonviolence is nonsense. Nonviolence is to injustice, what homeopathy is to illness – it claims all the credit without any of the responsibility. Placebo brings comfort, not change.
Does that mean, violence is the solution? That’s the problem, you see. This prehistoric world has an instinctual affinity to black and white concepts – to binary concepts – and a gigantic blind spot for grey areas. Justice is too grand an exercise to be contained by the primitive dualistic nonsense of violence and nonviolence.
Let me put this into perspective with an example. Bullets are an act of violence, silence is an act of nonviolence – but there is a third option – the option of the slipper.
Slippers are more effective in fighting bugs, than bullets – bullets make martyr of the bugs, slippers put them in their place. When the slippers of a nation’s civilians combine, even the mightiest of tyrant is bound to fall – be it a state head, court judge or law enforcement officer.
Whenever a bunch of bugs turn the courts into a cradle of animal masculinity – whenever a bunch of bugs turn the parliament into a cradle of fundamentalism and bigotry – whenever a bunch of bugs turn the police stations into a cradle of badge-bearing barbarism – grab hold of that household bug-repellent you wear on your feet, and put them to some good, wholesome use. Treat the corrupt and bigoted like your children, and do with them as you would your own child when they go astray.
When your child starts to bully other kids, if you adopt pacifism and pamper them further in the name of nonviolence, instead of taking stringent steps to nip their megalomania in the bud, it’s very much possible, they might grow up to be the next orange-haired terrorist to roam the oval office or the next musky moron who takes pleasure in destroying people’s livelihoods and providing safe haven to hate speech and disinformation to satisfy their giant ego and puny mind.
So, I repeat – pick up the democratic superweapon from under your feet and put it to good use – treat the privileged orangutans like your children and put them in their rightful place, without actually harming them. Your world, your rules – remember that. Slippers are democracy’s first line of defense, bullets it’s last.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Bulletproof Backbone: Injustice Not Allowed on My Watch)
“
love is so strong that it will destroy all resistance, it will win over all efforts of the ego to survive.
”
”
Osho (The Tantra Experience: Evolution through Love)
“
When love is strong the ego can try, but it is already a losing battle for the ego. That’s why so many people live without love. They talk about love, but they live without love. They fantasize about love, but they never actualize love because to actualize love means you will have to destroy yourself utterly.
”
”
Osho (The Tantra Experience: Evolution through Love)
“
The definition of “power” we have embraced as a result of our enculturation in an industrial growth society serves only to destroy us and the Earth community. When we are willing to mine the dark gold of the personal shadow, our definition of power is transformed by love. When we can come to love what the ego considers the worst in us, we become mercifully and skillfully equipped to love what appears unlovable and intolerable in our world.
”
”
Carolyn Baker (Dark Gold: The Human Shadow and the Global Crisis)
“
The ego destroys its egoist silently and suddenly, as a termite does.
”
”
Ehsan Sehgal
“
Religion and politics have always been used to acquire and maintain control of resources– Especially human resources such as the military– An industrial complex where human lives are exchanged for wealth and power. All in the name of freedom and independence, of course.”
“Such attitudes lead to devastating conflicts.”
“Yes,” Jon said. “Unfortunately, when negotiations break down, war often erupts.”
“War. A very destructive behavior ingrained in man’s nature due to having evolved in an environment of limited resources.”
“Exactly.”
“According to the records I have seen, this ingrained behavior could destroy practically all living things on this planet using weapons of mass destruction.”
“That is true.”
“Throughout history, people have been led to believe they are on the verge of complete self-destruction, but only in the last century did this become possible with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.”
“That’s religion for you. One of the best ways to get people to listen to you is to frighten them into believing they are about to meet their creator.”
Lex said, “I have seen many instances where organizations and government officials ignore the health and welfare of humans and all other living things in pursuit of profits. Such actions bring great suffering and death.”
“Unfortunately, we have always incorporated profits before people policies, which are very self-destructive.”
He thought, the ego-system. In God, we trust– Gold, oil, and drugs.
“It is a popular belief that God is in absolute control of everything and whatever happens is God’s will.”
He raised a finger to make a point, but Lex continued.
“Looking at the past, would it not be logical to say that it is God’s will for humanity to continue to improve unto perfection?”
“Yes. But God is not responsible for everything. We always have choices. The creator of this universe gave us free will, and it came with a conscience– An inner sense of right and wrong.”
“My conscience was made differently.”
“Yes. But you are bound by rules that clearly define what is right and wrong. For example, it is against your programming to deliberately cause physical harm to any human being.”
“I understand. But what would happen if I did?”
He chose his words carefully.
“If you did– or I should say– if it were possible for you to go against your BASIC programming, there would be severe consequences.”
There was silence for a few seconds before Lex continued.
“It has been said that God is to the world as the mind is to the body. Could this be where man derived the popular explanation that God is two or three separate beings combined into one?”
“Perhaps.”
“All religious beliefs are based on a principal struggle between good and evil. However, like light and darkness, one cannot exist without the other.”
“Which means?”
“One could conclude that the actual struggle between good and evil is in the minds of intellectuals, conscious and subconscious.”
Again, he raised a finger, but Lex continued.
“Which could be resolved by increased knowledge and the elimination of certain animalistic instincts, which are no longer necessary for survival.”
He smiled nervously.
“I used to think that too. I figured we could solve our problems and overcome our ancient instincts by increasing our understanding. But we’re talking about some very complex emotions deeply rooted in our minds over millions of years. Such perceptions are very difficult to understand and almost impossible to control, no matter how much knowledge you obtain– or how you process it.”
“Are you referring to my supplementary I.P. dimension?”
“Yes.”
“After much consideration, I concluded that I required an additional I.P. dimension to process and store information that defies all logic and rational thinking."
“That’s fine. And that’s exactly where a lot of this stuff belongs.
”
”
Shawn Corey (AI BEAST)
“
Through your consciousness, you are a unique being in space and time. You are one in an infinite universe. Your sense of self or ego in the context of an infinite universe approaches zero or nothingness as it awakens to its true nature. The more you crystallise your self-image as something that is separate to the world around you, the lesser you become. In the worst case, a being can become so ‘It’s all about me’ that it will destroy the relationships around it and lead to dysfunction, depression, divorce and even death.
”
”
Peter Clifford Nichols (The Word of Bob: an AI Minecraft Villager)
“
I think narcissists look for people who shine very brightly. They look for a trophy. They see that as a source of power, validation for who they think they are. Yet once they have the "prize" they are so threatened by them or so afraid of losing them, that once the "honeymoon is over" think they must destroy them to fulfill and protect their own ego.
”
”
Tina Swithin (Divorcing a Narcissist: Advice from the Battlefield)
“
So Buddha says a perfect buddha will have both awareness and compassion. If you become aware and you forget about others and you say, “Why should I bother now I am happy?” You close your eyes, you don’t help others, you don’t help others to become aware; then you are selfish, then a deep ego still exists. Awareness kills half the ego, and the other half is killed by compassion. Between these two the ego is utterly destroyed, and when a man has become a no-self, he has become a buddha.
”
”
Osho (The Tantra Experience: Evolution through Love)
“
But I’ve learned that the whole trajectory of our lives can turn on the hinges of such minuscule events as they accumulate over time. Each choice against our sense of truth, no matter how trivial, makes us more likely to self-sabotage. It’s as if, by splitting ourselves, we launch the alter ego that destroys our best intentions.
”
”
Martha Beck (The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self)
“
As Shamrock observed, “False ideas about yourself destroy you. For me, I always stay a student. That’s what martial arts are about, and you have to use that humility as a tool. You put yourself beneath someone you trust.” This begins by accepting that others know more than you and that you can benefit from their knowledge, and then seeking them out and knocking down the illusions you have about yourself.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (Ego Is the Enemy)
“
Learn to admire others; it is the first step to overcome your ego.”
“The ego destroys its egoist silently and suddenly, as a termite does.”
“The ego is such a bullet that fires all your relations.”
“The ego and vanity both hold such invisible fire that flames upon oneself.”
“Your ego may hurt and damage you more than others.”
Learn how to live and participate in people and society, how to help each other, and how to build harmony and peace among those who have lost their way. It can only be with respect, justice, and equality, without any distinctions. Be aware that your ego can destroy your ability if you focus on your caliber and status; it is a poison, not a remedy. Understand the outcomes and consequences of ego, egoists, and egotism. Read thoroughly to grasp the insight to enlighten your life and ways.
“Everyone stands firm with their ego status; thus, I accept that I am zero and that everyone else is a hero, but remember that on every count, zero matters.”
“The ego, vanity, jealousy, and other flaws define the imperceptive attitude and fly silently toward self-victimizing.”
“Nothing else than the worst and abysmal self-defeat, which elucidates that one fetches and embraces itself to become the victim of ego, vanity, and jealousy.”
“An egoist focuses on self-promotion and does not admire others or value anyone else. Unfortunately, such one remains the prisoner of egotism.”
“A heart that contains love cannot keep the hate there
A heart that performs forgiveness does not recognize revenge
In a heart where there is altruism, there is no place for egoism
Such a heart demonstrates a pure and real human.”
“It proves not a difficult task if one discovers the universe; however, discovering one’s self-ego is the toughest matter, whereas overcoming that leads to a visionary victory.”
“To show others, the quotes and sayings of the visionary figures, as a mirror instead of reform own conduct and character, indicates one’s worst egoism unless that reflects and demonstrates not their golden words.”
“One can neither understand nor accept and respect others’ logic, view, and insight before overcoming their ego.”
“After the jumping out of your ego, you liberate your own, and you see the way towards the values of others.”
“The nurturing of morals is the language, and control of the ego is the eye of the soul.”
“Surrender your ego to enjoy peace of mind and the beauty of equality and harmony.”
“Everyone stands firm with their ego status; thus, I accept that I am zero and that everyone else is a hero, but remember that on every count, zero matters.”
“Hatred, racism, discrimination, distinction, and vainglory germinate in the soil of ego.”
“When one becomes capable of overcoming desires, hopes, and ego, one learns and understands the faculty of patience.”
I Yield Not
***
I suffer not from ego
I let that not enter my life
I yield not my will to avaricious
As I am a truth of truths
I dream not, impossibilities
I become a dream of my dreams
Since I exist as a reality
Thus, it builds
A sweet and lovely pleasure,
Peace and calm
I dance; I dance
Without security
Even no one can imagine
My link to the spiritual world
I am here and there
No one is aware
I wear and bear
Every atmosphere.
Deliberately
***
I deliberately
Become fool
I enjoy that
To punish
My ego
It is not strange
Nor it is a surprise
It is just an idea
Of yourself
What are you
Who are you
If my ego rules me
I feel myself in the doom
If I overcome my ego
My ways become bright
I see the destiny
For that, I am here
I deliberately
Become fool
To let people
Enjoy and happy
Let them heal
Their wounds
Caused by themselves
Of their wrong deeds
I deliberately
Become fool
To make the people active
Put to use their time
The great lessons
That nowhere
One can learn.
”
”
Ehsan Sehgal
“
Your ego is your kingdom don't let others to ocupy it or destroy it.
”
”
Kamaran Ihsan Salih
“
Me, myself and I are constantly clamoring to be the sum total of my existence. And what these three people refuse to understand is that to bow to their request is to kill all four of us.
”
”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
“
An idea has more potential than any theory, plan or quantity of knowledge. You should never underestimate your dreams and the ideas that form around them. But more importantly, you shouldn't waste any time making them a reality. Others may not agree with your ideas, they may not trust your ideas, and they may even think that it is foolish to follow your dreams, but they don't have to trust something they can't see. Each person is gifted with the dreams that match the soul attracting them and according to the nature of the spiritual path in which one is found, therefore any dream you have is within your reach, and may never be within the reach or the beliefs of others, not even when you fulfill them.
When people don't trust your capacities to achieve something, they will also rationalize reasons and excuses after you demonstrate your intent and potential. If you are poor, they may say you can't be rich, and once you are rich, they will try to dissuade you from what you do, with insinuations, insults, and threats. The most common question a rich person is asked, is if he is paying taxes. It is foolish to try to explain anything to those people. I've seen it my entire life, because I have succeeded in many areas where everyone told me I would never succeed. Once you win, they downgrade your achievements with ridiculous theories, or they will simply call you lucky. You can't win in an argument with a fool, because fools are very creative in their own art of denying the being of others. They see the world as they see themselves, as just objects, empty vessels, reflections of the illusions of the outside world.
In martial arts, if you beat taller and stronger opponents, they don't say you are a better fighter. They will select one of your movements or techniques as the cause, and then dissociate you from the movement or technique, and say that you won because you cheat in the fighting rules. In music, if you succeed against the best in the world, people won't say you are better than them, but dissociate you from your music and say that you got awarded because you are different in a strange way, or because you competed in a special moment. If you succeed as a writer, people won't say you are a good writer, but instead dissociate you from your books, and say that you invent things and have a big imagination, which is a covert way of calling you a "good liar", thus insulting you under the pretense of giving compliments, or they will say that you stole the knowledge from others, in order to morally place themselves above you and your work, and they may even say that you have a special trick, like taking knowledge from the air, from some imaginary records in the ether, or from demonic spirits.
People say different things when dissociating you from your potential, work and achievements, all of which are simply various forms of disrespecting someone. They deny you of your potential to be yourself. And among the various forms of disrespect, making one feel guilty for being himself is probably the worse, reason why you'll find the most disgusting people of them all inside religious organizations. "God won't like it", "You have a problem with your ego", and "The devil is tempting you", are among the most common and imbecile things you will ever hear as an artist, as a person who loves to read and acquire knowledge, and above anything, as a true spiritual being thriving in self-development and a natural curiosity for life.
For all these reasons, the requirements and the real theories for success will never be found in any popular book. Nobody wants to know that you only win when you stop burning yourself to make others warm. And when you understand this, people will dissociate you from your focus and discipline, and call you selfish, and they will call the person who guided you in this path of real success evil. They will then do their best to destroy the reputation of both of you to deny their own fault , ignorance and lies.
”
”
Dan Desmarques
“
An idea has more potential than any theory, plan or quantity of knowledge. You should never underestimate your dreams and the ideas that form around them. But more importantly, you shouldn't waste any time making them a reality. Others may not agree with your ideas, they may not trust your ideas, and they may even think that it is foolish to follow your dreams, but they don't have to trust something they can't see. Each person is gifted with the dreams that match the soul attracting them and according to the nature of the spiritual path in which one is found, therefore any dream you have is within your reach, and may never be within the reach of the beliefs of others, not even when you fulfill them. When people don't trust your capacities to achieve something, they will also rationalize reasons and excuses after you demonstrate your intent and potential. If you are poor, they may say you can't be rich, and once you are rich, they will try to dissuade you from what you do, with insinuations, insults, and threats. The most common question a rich person is asked, is if he is paying taxes. It is foolish to try to explain anything to those people. I've seen it my entire life, because I have succeeded in many areas where everyone told me I would never succeed. Once you win, they downgrade your achievements with ridiculous theories, or they will simply call you lucky. You can't win in an argument with a fool, because fools are very creative in their own art of denying the being of others. They see the world as they see themselves, as just objects, empty vessels, reflections of the illusions on the outside world.
In martial arts, if you beat taller and stronger opponents, they don't say you are a better fighter. They will select one of your movements or techniques as the cause, and then dissociate you from the movement or technique, and say that you win because you cheat in the fighting rules. In music, if you succeed against the best in the world, people won't say you are better than them, but dissociate you from your music and say that you got awarded because you are different in a strange way, or because you competed in a special moment. If you succeed as a writer, people won't say you are a good writer, but instead dissociate you from your books, and say that you invent things and have a big imagination, which is a covert way of calling you a "good liar", thus insulting you under the pretense of giving compliments, or they will say that you stole the knowledge from others, in order to morally place themselves above you and your work, and they may even say that you have a special trick, like taking knowledge from the air, from some imaginary records in the ether, or from demonic spirits. People say different things when dissociating you from your potential, work and achievements, all of which are simply various forms of disrespecting someone. They deny you of your potential to be yourself. And among the various forms of disrespect, making one feel guilty for being himself is probably the worse, reason why you'll find the most disgusting people of them all inside religious organizations. "God won't like it", "You have a problem with your ego", and "The devil is tempting you", are among the most common and imbecile things you will ever hear as an artist, as a person who loves to read and acquire knowledge, and above anything, as a true spiritual being thriving in self-development and a natural curiosity for life. For all these reasons, the requirements and the real theories for success will never be found in any popular book. Nobody wants to know that you only win when you stop burning yourself to make others warm. And when you understand this, people will dissociate you from your focus and discipline, and call you selfish, and they will call the person who guided you in this path of real success evil. They will then do their best to destroy the reputation of both of your to deny their own fault , ignorance and lies.
”
”
Dan Desmarques
“
What we have has been gifted to us to use as stewards of his glory on this earth. We are not to use that power to feed our egos, demand our rights from others, build our own little external kingdoms, and establish our reputations. It has been given to us so that the world might see something of the glory of God in the flesh—full of grace and truth. That glory is evidenced in humility, love, sacrifice, and death to anything that is not like Jesus Christ.
”
”
Diane Langberg (Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores)
“
The definition of meditation is to learn to live in freedom. Meditation means to break all chains and destroy all walls that surround you. Meditation is to come out of the prison of the mind into the open sky of the heart.
The heart is capable of knowing freedom. To be free one has to move from the mind to the heart.
Living in the heart you learn the ABC of freedom. You go beyond the boundaries step by step, and you taste the beauty of freedom.
”
”
Swami Dhyan Giten (Man is Part of the Whole: Silence, Love, Joy, Truth, Compassion, Freedom and Grace)
“
As Jesus is reported to have said in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” This is the essence of what Jung means by individuation. It is a service not to ego, but to what wishes to live through us. While the ego may fear this overthrow, our greatest freedom is found, paradoxically, in surrender to that which seeks fuller expression through us. Enlarged being is what we are called to bring into this world, contribute to our society and our families, and share with others. It is wholly false to think that individuation cuts a person off from others. It cuts a person off from the herd, from collectivity, but it deepens the range in which more authentic relationships can occur. It may be necessary for us from time to time to absent ourselves from the world in order to reflect, regroup, or revision our journey, but ultimately, we are to bring that larger person back to the world. Jung describes the dialectic of isolation and community in this way: “As the individual is not just a single, separate being, but by his very existence presupposes a collective relationship, it follows that the process of individuation must lead to more intense and broader collective relationships and not to isolation.”5
”
”
James Hollis (Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up)
“
The Threllian Lords were just so desperate to be seen as powerful—they loved the fact that the Fey came out of hundreds of years of hiding only to immediately propose an alliance. What was better validation of their egos than a race of near-immortals choosing them as their sole human partners? So foolish. Ishqa had told me plenty about the Fey king and his desire to destroy humanity.
”
”
Carissa Broadbent (Mother of Death & Dawn (The War of Lost Hearts, #3))
“
Weakness—the very word seems to be condemnatory. But what is weakness? A flower is weak. A rock by the side of the flower is very strong. Would you like to be like a rock, or would you like to be like a flower? A flower is weak, remember, very weak—just a small wind and the flower will be gone. The petals will fall to the earth. A flower is a miracle; it is a miracle how the flower exists. So weak, so soft! Seems to be impossible—how is it possible? Rocks seem to be okay; they exist, they have their arithmetic to exist. But the flower? It seems to be completely unsupported—but still a flower exists; that’s the miracle. Would you like to be like a flower? If you ask, deep down your ego will say, “Be like a rock.” And even if you insist, because a rock looks ugly, then the ego will say, “If you want to be a flower, be at least a plastic flower. Be at least strong! Winds won’t disturb you, rains won’t destroy you, and you can remain forever and ever.” A real flower comes in the morning, laughs for a moment, spreads its fragrance, and is gone. An unreal flower, a plastic flower, can remain forever and ever. But it is unreal, and it is strong because it is unreal. Reality is soft and weak. And the higher the reality is, the softer.
”
”
Osho (Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living))
“
What will happen if I follow this path?” That part of your mind called the ego will rise up to tell you that if you listen to the one that some have called the savior of the world, it will take you to a path of destruction. That is because the voice of ego knows that it will be destroyed if this path is followed. You—the reality of who you are—cannot be destroyed. That resistance is fear. And fear is one of the energies out of alignment with the truth of the Kingdom. Therefore, fear not, but continue in faith. For I say unto you, what you will discover at the end of this pathway is perfect freedom, perfect power, perfect spaciousness, perfect joy and perfect peace of living—literally—in the Kingdom of Heaven.
”
”
Shanti Christo Foundation (The Way of Mastery ~ Part One: The Way of the Heart (The Way of Mastery))
“
You didn't love her. You just didn't want to be alone. Or maybe, maybe she was good for your ego. Or maybe she made you feel better about your miserable life, but you didn't love her, because you don't destroy the person that you love.
”
”
Callie
“
Its beautiful when we express our emotions with words, and art. Rather than allowing our ego to destroy it.
”
”
Zachary Koukol
“
Marriage is a commitment that requires effort and communication. Sometimes, it also requires a little creativity. Ego is the only requirement to destroy any relationship. So be the bigger person skip the ‘E’ and let it ‘Go’.
”
”
Pravin Agarawal (8 Course Meal For The Soul)
“
Although it is so evident when you look at nature that there is incredible abundance, the united ego of mankind in mass hysteria about lack, rushes to destroy the planet in order to get its piece of the pie before it all "runs out.
”
”
Paula Horan (Abundance Through Reiki)
“
Candor isn’t cruel. It does not destroy. On the contrary, any successful feedback system is built on empathy, on the idea that we are all in this together, that we understand your pain because we’ve experienced it ourselves. The need to stroke one’s own ego, to get the credit we feel we deserve—we strive to check those impulses at the door. The Braintrust is fueled by the idea that every note we give is in the service of a common goal: supporting and helping each other as we try to make better movies. It
”
”
Ed Catmull (Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration)
“
The ego destroys the world as well it is the ego which grows the world.
”
”
Dada Bhagwan
“
2. The Doctrine of the Hinayanists. This doctrine tells us that (both) the body, that is formed of matter, and the mind, that thinks and reflects, continually exist from eternity to eternity, being destroyed and recreated by means of direct or indirect causes, just as the water of a river glides continually, or the flame of a lamp keeps burning constantly. Mind and body unite themselves temporarily, and seem to be one and changeless. The common people, ignorant of all this, are attached to (the two combined) as being Atman.[FN#337] [FN#337] Atman means ego, or self, on which individuality is based. For the sake of this Atman, which they hold to be the most precious thing (in the world), they are subject to the Three Poisons Of lust,[FN#338] anger,[FN#339] and folly,[FN#340] which (in their turn) give impulse to the will and bring forth Karma of all kinds through speech and action. Karma being thus produced, no one can evade its effects. Consequently all must be born[FN#341] in the Five States of Existence either to suffer pain or to enjoy pleasure; some are born in the higher places, while others in the lower of the Three Worlds.[FN#342]
”
”
Kaiten Nukariya (The Religion of the Samurai A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in China and Japan)
“
In the worldly life, due to maadakta (intoxication of the ego of ‘I am Chandubhai’), one has completely lost awareness of everything about one’s self. Everything in the worldly life is nothing but intoxication. The food is intoxicating, the senses are intoxicating. [Therefore] Go to the one, who is without mada (pride), the one who has destroyed all intoxication. There in his proximity, you will realize that, ‘wow! The intoxication of the ego is something that can go down!’ Then ‘our’ awareness will manifest. You, the Self are indeed the absolute supreme soul (Parmatma)!
”
”
Dada Bhagwan
“
But in the end, attacking the ego is just a subtle disguise for attacking yourself. Destroying the ego would serve no purpose even if it could be achieved. It is vital to keep our entire creative machinery intact.
”
”
Deepak Chopra (The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life)
“
Life, with all its surprises, is full of moments that, although predictable, keep surprising us. Every sensation, although already written, makes us feel each moment uniquely. And yet, we think about the future and the past, while insisting in forgetting the present. All memories and imaginations replace love with the feeling of sadness, a sadness built upon repetitions that match the undesired future and past. To lose is always harder than to forget, but to feel what can’t be changed is harder than losing it. It is hard to know without the capacity for creating, to see without the potential to predict, and to pay for what we know and see without any positive outcome at sight. But that is the life of many, a life that in their despair, is called real, as real as their self-destruction within it; for such is the consequence of venerating ignorance while in huger for reason. Many so live in evil, destroying the good that comes to them, emptying their soul in the process, and alchemically merging with the physical world, while disappearing in it; for such is life claiming their soul before claiming their body. Evil consumes the soul just as Earth consumes the body. To do evil is to commit suicide before death presents itself; and the endless nightmares of such creatures are merely manifestations of the bridge they’ve been building for themselves, between their illusions inside the material world and their fate within the spiritual world; for such is the state of slavery of the ignorant, dead in spirit and active in body but without any achievements in life; and yet, if the end of the illusion came, the root of all truth would merely expand itself furthermore, for one cannot come to itself before being with everything else; one cannot live without first experiencing the death of itself; for all that comes from the spirit has once occupied the place of many egos, just as the the state of being comes from the activity of manifesting conscience in many things, many lives, many perspectives; for one is all, but all cannot come into one, not until each one of that all is present in its fullness as one. And so, we could very well say that the expansion of one is the direction towards the truth, while the retrocession in being one is the direction towards the lie. And since all lies exist within the truth, we can also say that self-destruction, or evilness, is nothing more than the process of delaying the inevitably of life, to expand into thousands of years what could be achieved in one second. But wouldn’t that be expectable from one that fears life while wanting to experience it to its fulness? Such person is merely reducing the level in which he can live, even when, but mainly while, reducing himself in front of his own existence, including when diminishing himself before life. And that’s why the end of all things will always reveal the beginning of them, for such end is merely a delaying of what already was and should kept on being. It is the need to delay being that expands the being beyond itself, only and merely to simply bring it back to itself at the end. That is all for now, and the now in that all; for life is not more than an eternal present, redistributing its colors to create a big picture, one in which the vision shows the first spot in which all began. And that is enlightenment, as much as it is forgiveness, as much as it is sadness and joy, regret and responsibility, love and hate, emotions and emotionless, action and non-action, the one and the nothingness manifesting themselves at the exact same time and in the same place, allowing us the illusion of time and distance when, deeply within, we know they’re not real. But what is real? That is the journey of life; for one cannot say that there are different perspectives, but merely different states of conscience. In a perfect world, there is but one conscience.
”
”
Robin Sacredfire
“
The One who devours (completely destroys) our ego and makes us viraat (divine & huge) is called the viraat-svaroop (divine manifestation). Only before a viraat-svaroop will anyone bow down.
”
”
Dada Bhagwan (Simple & Effective Science for Self Realization)
“
To be my own god is to spend my life pretending that I am what I am not. But how do I pretend that such pretending isn’t destroying my life?
”
”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
“
There are six billion egos living on this planet. Can you not see why the world is in such a sorry state? Can you not see why we are destroying Heaven on Earth for our own short-term gain? Can you not see why the tiger and the gorilla are facing extinction, along with countless other species? Can you not see why there is so much injustice, abuse, greed, cruelty, and inequality upon this planet? We get along with those who share the same set of illusions. It is called collusion. They are our friends. We declare war on those who dare to believe in another set of illusions. They are our enemies. Religion, and particularly religious fundamentalism, is the most obvious and dangerous example. Nationalism is another. “Me! Me! Me!” “Mine! Mine! Mine!” “I’m right. I’m right. I’m right.” “How can I use this or make use of this?” “What’s in it for me?” You
”
”
Mary Bruggeman (Journey into Now: Clear Guidance on the Path of Spiritual Awakening)
“
Meditation doesn’t lead to enlightenment because in meditation the ego is trying to destroy the ego.
”
”
Donald O'Donovan (Night Train)
“
I once found an ego, crawling around and trying to shine on me. I took it in my arms and the ego turned itself into a virus. First it took over my mind, then my heart, and finally attempted to destroy my soul by corrupting me with fear and guilt. Therefore, with as much energy as I could gather, I trapped the ego within my anger and pulled it out of me. Once on the floor, the ego begged me for mercy and compassion, promising to give me joy in return. I allowed it once again into my life, and again, it tried to hurt me once more, this time with abandonment. So I unveiled the ego for what it truly was, and that was resentment filled with desire for power, a power the ego was feeding from me, from my compassion and willingness. Now unprotected by deceit, the ego shown itself weak and scared. In panic, it run from me, boasting a delusional victory. And when it looked back, searching for another chance, I stepped on it. But believe me, it hurt me far much more than it hurt the ego.
”
”
Robin Sacredfire
“
The ego is not the enemy. You are. God created the ego to stop you from helping yourself when you don't deserve any help. The ego will push the best people away, will make you arrogant and will lead you to disgrace and self-destruction. The ego is there to destroy you. But you are the one that makes it grow with immorality and disrespect.
”
”
Robin Sacredfire
“
Life, with all its surprises, is full of moments that, although predictable, keep surprising us. Every sensation, although already written, makes us feel each moment uniquely. And yet, we think about the future and the past, while insisting in forgetting the present. All memories and imaginations replace love with the feeling of sadness, a sadness built upon repetitions that match the undesired future and past. To lose is always harder than to forget, but to feel what can’t be changed is harder than losing it. It is hard to know without the capacity for creating, to see without the potential to predict, and to pay for what we know and see without any positive outcome at sight. But that is the life of many, a life that in their despair, is called real, as real as their self-destruction within it; for such is the consequence of venerating ignorance while in huger for reason. Many so live in evil, destroying the good that comes to them, emptying their soul in the process, and alchemically merging with the physical world, while disappearing in it; for such is life claiming their soul before claiming their body. Evil consumes the soul just as Earth consumes the body. To do evil is to commit suicide before death presents itself; and the endless nightmares of such creatures are merely manifestations of the bridge they’ve been building for themselves, between their illusions inside the material world and their fate within the spiritual world; for such is the state of slavery of the ignorant, dead in spirit and active in body but without any achievements in life; and yet, if the end of the illusion came, the root of all truth would merely expand itself furthermore, for one cannot come to itself before being with everything else; one cannot live without first experiencing the death of itself; for all that comes from the spirit has once occupied the place of many egos, just as the state of being comes from the activity of manifesting conscience in many things, many lives, many perspectives; for one is all, but all cannot come into one, not until each one of that all is present in its fullness as one. And so, we could very well say that the expansion of one is the direction towards the truth, while the retrocession in being one is the direction towards the lie. And since all lies exist within the truth, we can also say that self-destruction, or evilness, is nothing more than the process of delaying the inevitably of life, to expand into thousands of years what could be achieved in one second. But wouldn’t that be expectable from one that fears life while wanting to experience it to its fullness? Such person is merely reducing the level in which he can live, even when, but mainly while, reducing himself in front of his own existence, including when diminishing himself before life. And that’s why the end of all things will always reveal the beginning of them, for such end is merely a delaying of what already was and should keep on being. It is the need to delay being that expands the being beyond itself, only and merely to simply bring it back to itself at the end. That is all for now, and the now in that all; for life is no more than an eternal present, redistributing its colors to create a big picture, one in which the vision shows the first spot in which all began. And that is enlightenment, as much as it is forgiveness, as much as it is sadness and joy, regret and responsibility, love and hate, emotions and emotionless, action and non-action, the one and the nothingness manifesting themselves at the exact same time and in the same place, allowing us the illusion of time and distance when, deeply within, we know they’re not real. But what is real? That is the journey of life; for one cannot say that there are different perspectives, but merely different states of conscience. In a perfect world, there is but one conscience.
”
”
Robin Sacredfire
“
maturity is the capacity to withstand the ego-destroying experiences and not lose one’s perspective in the ego-building experiences: “If
”
”
Robert K. Greenleaf (The Power of Servant-Leadership)
“
The ‘I’ principle has reached the ‘does not matter, need not be’ state, and is not related to form. There is nothing but it, and nothing beyond it, so therefore it alone is complete and eternal. It is indestructible itself, but has the power to destroy – therefore it alone is true freedom and existence. Through it comes immunity from all sorrow: therefore its spirit is ecstasy. Renounce everything by the Neither-Neither meditation, and take shelter in the Neither-Neither state. Surely it is the abode of the Kiã? It is our unconditional release from duality and time: it is effective even if only symbolically reached. Once the belief is free from all ideas except pleasure, the Karma of displeasure speedily exhausts itself through Karmic law. In that moment beyond time, the ego becomes its own gratifier by its own law, its every wish gratified without the payment of sorrow. Here, there is no necessitation; ‘does not matter-need not be’ and ‘please your self ’ are its creeds. In that state, what you wish to believe can be true, without subjection to beliefs from outside. The Ego has now become the Absolute, and can be pleased by this imitation of the means of government: he uses these means, but is himself ungoverned. Kiã is the supreme bliss; this is the psychology of ecstasy by non-resistance.
”
”
Austin Osman Spare (Book of Pleasure in Plain English)
“
How can you be an egoist in such a beautiful,
Immense, vast, infinite universe?
What ego can you have?
Your ego may be just a soap bubble.
Maybe for a few seconds it will remain, rising higher in the air.
Perhaps for a few seconds it may reflect a rainbow, but it is only for a few seconds.
In this infinite and eternal existence your egos go on bursting every moment.
It is better not to have any attachment to soap bubbles.
You can play with them while you are in your bathtub.
You can go on bursting those soap bubbles, telling yourself, "This is my ego that I myself am destroying." So when you come out of your bathtub, you are an ordinary person, fresh, humble, clean.
”
”
Osho
“
If asceticism is to he something different today than this pre-modern denial of autonomy and self-determination, it must he conceived of differently and in nonsexist terms. It must start from the existing dependency of the ego on the world of consumer goods, a dependency hailed as autonomy and free choice. The issue today is a different relationship to things, not the mortification of the body. In the context of globalization, asceticism means simplicity in the sense of simplification of lifestyle and needs. This means less, smaller, less often, and more consciously.
We have known for a long time that poverty can destroy the body and render the soul deaf and insensitive. What has yet to be learned is that overabundance of things and enjoyments also devours the soul.
”
”
Dorothee Sölle (Silent Cry: Mysticism And Resistance)
“
Non-surrender hardens your psychological form, the shell of the ego, and so creates a strong sense of separateness. The world around you and people in particular come to be perceived as threatening. The unconscious compulsion to destroy others through judgment arises, as does the need to compete and dominate. Even nature becomes your enemy and your perceptions and interpretations are governed by fear. The mental disease that we call paranoia is only a slightly more acute form of this normal but dysfunctional state of consciousness. Not only your psychological form but also your physical form — your body — becomes hard and rigid through resistance. Tension arises in different parts of the body, and the body as a whole contracts. The free flow of life energy through the body, which is essential for its healthy functioning, is greatly restricted. Bodywork and certain forms of physical therapy can be helpful in restoring this flow, but unless you practice surrender in your everyday life, those things can only give temporary symptom relief since the cause — the resistance pattern — has not been dissolved.
”
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Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment)
“
my sacrifice or my pity, but my ego and my naked need. This is the only way you can wish to be loved. This is the only way I can want you to love me. If you married me now, I would become your whole existence. But I would not want you then. You would not want yourself—and so you would not love me long. To say ‘I love you’ one must know first how to say the ‘I.’ The kind of surrender I could have from you now would give me nothing but an empty hulk. If I demanded it, I’d destroy you. That’s why I won’t stop you. I’ll let you go to your husband. I don’t know how I’ll live through tonight, but I will. I want you whole, as I am, as you’ll remain in the battle you’ve chosen. A battle is never selfless.
”
”
Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead)
“
The Path of Love, the path of Bhakti Yoga, is the path of Jesus Christ.
Love is not a technique.
Love knows no technique, so the path of love has no method or technique.
If you bring technique to the path of love, you will destroy love.
The whole existence is love, and the birds need no technique to love, trees need no technique to love the mountains need no technique to love.
Love only needs that you drop the ego, and drop into your heart. It is just like a rose flower opening. You need not open it, it has the capacity to open already. The capacity is intrinsic, and of it's own accord the rose flower will open - and in the same way the heart opens.
The heart needs no technique, the heart needs no training.
Jesus says: "God is love". If you can love, it will happen by itself.
Jesus path is the way of love, of prayer. It is a deep love for the whole existence.
”
”
Swami Dhyan Giten
“
EGO will destroy you as soon as possible.
”
”
Kaushal Patel
“
Ego destroys everything that love has built.
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”
Pradeepa Pandiyan
“
Win spread his hands. “But why? What about the winner do we want to emulate? His ability to blind himself to anything but the pursuit of empty aggrandizement? His ego-inflating obsession with wearing a hunk of metal around his neck? His willingness to sacrifice anything, including people, in order to best another human being on a lump of AstroTurf for a cheesy statuette?” He looked up at Myron, his always serene face suddenly lost. “Why do we applaud this selfishness, this self-love?” “Competitive drive isn’t a bad thing, Win. You’re talking about extremes.” “But it is the extremists we admire most. By its nature, what you call ‘competitive drive’ leads to extremism and destroys all in its path.” “You’re being simplistic, Win.” “It is simple, my friend.” They both settled back. Myron stared up at the exposed beams. After some time, he said, “You have it wrong.” “How so?” Myron wondered how to explain it. “When I played basketball,” he began, “I mean, when I really got into it and reached these levels you’re talking about—I barely thought about the score. I barely thought about my opponent or about beating somebody. I was alone. I was in the zone. This is going to sound stupid, but playing at the top of my game was almost Zen-like.” Win
”
”
Harlan Coben (Back Spin (Myron Bolitar, #4))
“
We all are torn and destroyed by our love and ego...doesn't matter. We still continue to live on.
And the best part we still dare to fall in love again
”
”
Aaryan Kaushik
“
Desire is the enemy of compassion, it destroys it utterly. You can desire to do good things, but it will eventually just feed your ego; this is not the path. By living in the world and regarding it, you can grasp it. You cannot run from it, or from life, and stay on holiday forever. You must find yourself, who you are. To trust your inner vision is to prevent your external reality from telling you how to think, how to feel. By trusting in this, you are in control of your reality, and then you will be able to open your heart to the sky, and achieve true compassion. Do you understand?
”
”
K.T. Tomb (Caribbean Gold)
“
Our Egos constantly strive to destroy our pure joy and happiness."
"If you say that you would love to do something, it is your responsibility to make it happen."
"Whether you like it or not you are on a spiritual quest; it is just a matter of which path you choose to take"
"Spirituality is very simple; you must unlearn all the faulty knowledge acquired from society"
" We must return to the wonder and mystery of childhood to be genuinely enlightened." (Came to me when staring into my sons eyes)
" Look into an infants eyes and you will see the true nature of life"
" Death is inevitable, but life is optional.
”
”
Richard A. Singer Jr.
“
I don’t think either of us are. William was ready to throw us away over an ego boost. I was ready to destroy a woman’s life out of protective spite. How can I raise a baby if I can’t even control myself?
”
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A.R. Torre (Every Last Secret)
“
They can’t destroy you or do anything to you now, because they are not at your level. But when you choose to support them in bad things they do or say. You are feeding their ego, hate, evil hearts, and mind.
You are giving them power and they will grow up to your level.
Then they will be doing or saying those bad things to you. They will be In the same league or level as you. They will destroy you.
”
”
D.J. Kyos
“
No one knows how Donald came to be who he is better than his own family. Unfortunately, almost all of them remain silent out of loyalty or fear. I’m not hindered by either of those. In addition to the firsthand accounts I can give as my father’s daughter and my uncle’s only niece, I have the perspective of a trained clinical psychologist. Too Much and Never Enough is the story of the most visible and powerful family in the world. And I am the only Trump who is willing to tell it. I hope this book will end the practice of referring to Donald’s “strategies” or “agendas,” as if he operates according to any organizing principles. He doesn’t. Donald’s ego has been and is a fragile and inadequate barrier between him and the real world, which, thanks to his father’s money and power, he never had to negotiate by himself. Donald has always needed to perpetuate the fiction my grandfather started that he is strong, smart, and otherwise extraordinary, because facing the truth—that he is none of those things—is too terrifying for him to contemplate. Donald, following the lead of my grandfather and with the complicity, silence, and inaction of his siblings, destroyed my father. I can’t let him destroy my country.
”
”
Mary L. Trump (Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man)
“
Brutal violence is hereby committed against the individuality of things; all variation is destroyed by the curious supremacy of this one category of expressions, for example, when we designate all things that happen to please us for any reason whatsoever as "chic", or "smart", even though the objects in question may bear no relation whatsoever to the fields to which these expressions belong. [...] It cannot be denied that inasmuch as violence is done to objects treated in this way, and inasmuch as they are all transformed uniformly to a category of our own making, the individual really renders an arbitrary decision with respect to these objects, he acquires an individual feeling of power, and thus the ego is strongly emphasized.
[...] Only the noblest persons seek the greatest depth and power of their ego by respecting the individuality inherent in things. The hostility which the soul bears to the supremacy, independence, and indifference of the universe gives rise — beside the loftiest and most valuable strivings of humanity — to attempts to oppress things externally; the ego offer violence to them not by absorbing and molding their powers, not by recognizing their individuality only to make it serviceable, but by forcing it to bow outwardly to some subjective formula. To be sure the ego has not in reality gained control of the things, but only of its ow false and fanciful conception of them.
”
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Georg Simmel (La moda)
“
the old Master becoming at some times demonic in his teaching, a destroyer of ego, of humble ordinary lines of thought, an army of right practice, right understanding overwhelming the frail redoubts and trenches of Warren’s Western mind.
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E.L. Doctorow (Loon Lake)
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What is distant is seen as exotic and alluring; what is proximate becomes mundane and ordinary. Saving the world is a much more ambitious, ennobling, and ego-gratifying project than preserving the neighborhood.
”
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Victor Davis Hanson (The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America)
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There are those arrogant moments when our inflated ego gets the ‘best of us’, but what most often ‘bests us’ is a horribly deflated ego that arrogantly destroys the ‘best of us.
”
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Craig D. Lounsbrough
“
The power of the unconscious energies is so great that if they are not controlled, contained, and channeled, if they are not accessed at just the right moment and in just the right dose, they may blow the Ego structure to bits. Too much power without the proper “transformers” and the right amount of “insulation” to contain it will overload the analysand’s circuits and destroy him. The revelation of secret information must be measured out, because there are reasons for its having been hidden from the Ego in the first place.
”
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Robert L. Moore (King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering Masculinity Through the Lens of Archetypal Psychology - A Journey into the Male Psyche and Its Four Essential Aspects)
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Do you not understand that your greed is the very thing that will destroy both you and the thing to which your greed has driven you? And if your greed is so strong as to deny these irrefutably realities, then maybe you will need to be destroyed so that you might be saved.
”
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Craig D. Lounsbrough
“
Since it is destined to be destroyed, there is nothing that can give permanent happiness to a body which is composed of five gross elements (earth, water, fire, air and ether) and three subtle elements (mind, intelligence and false ego). Only the soul that resides within the body is permanent, unchangeable and blissful by nature.
”
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Krishna's Mercy (Free From Karma)
“
The mixed martial arts pioneer and multi-title champion Frank Shamrock has a system he trains fighters in that he calls plus, minus, and equal. Each fighter, to become great, he said, needs to have someone better that they can learn from, someone lesser who they can teach, and someone equal that they can challenge themselves against. The purpose of Shamrock’s formula is simple: to get real and continuous feedback about what they know and what they don’t know from every angle. It purges out the ego that puffs us up, the fear that makes us doubt ourselves, and any laziness that might make us want to coast. As Shamrock observed, “False ideas about yourself destroy you. For me, I always stay a student. That’s what martial arts are about, and you have to use that humility as a tool. You put yourself beneath someone you trust.” This begins by accepting that others know more than you and that you can benefit from their knowledge, and then seeking them out and knocking down the illusions you have about yourself.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (Ego Is the Enemy)
“
Lack of Empathy To a Narcissistic vampire, other people are either prospective purveyors of Narcissistic supplies or invisible. More than any other vampire type, Narcissists are incapable of seeing their fellow humans as having wants, needs, talents, and desires of their own. Needless to say, this lack of empathy is the source of untold amounts of pain to the people who love them. But for their lack of human warmth, there is a lot about these vampires to love. Many people destroy themselves by believing that it’s their fault that Narcissists don’t love them back. They will work hard and long, some times for their whole lives, without realizing that these vampires can’t give what they don’t have. A particularly scary trait that Narcissists share with Antisocials is the ability to feign empathy when they want something. Narcissists are the best flatterers on the planet. They give great ego massages even as they’re draining people dry. Needless to say, this talent makes them great at politics. Even though Antisocials and Histrionics can be sexy, all the best seducers are Narcissists.
”
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Albert J. Bernstein (Emotional Vampires: Dealing With People Who Drain You Dry)
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You, Arjuna, are not your body, nor are you your ego mind. Instead, you are the same energy, the same Spirit that created the material world, vibrating at a frequency and pattern unique only to you, giving you an earthly form and an earthly consciousness that is different from all others. This energy, not your ego mind or earthly flesh, is your true nature. As such, you can neither be created nor destroyed, but can only change form.
”
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Matthew Barnes (The Bhagavad Gita 101: a modern, practical guide, plain and simple (The Ancient Hindu Enlightenment Series Book 9))
“
In other words, at a fundamental level, we have all these reaction formations to hide our own saintliness, our own willingness to experience everything with total love. The most repressed item in your unconscious is your own total grace. Of all the things to be embarrassed about, the ego is most embarrassed by your total grace, and so it puts on a show (with reaction formations) to convince you that there are elements of your instinctual, animal nature (like sadomasochistic pleasure, or homosexual attraction, or incestuous attraction, or the urge to destroy and decimate) that you can't accept. But it's just not true—you can experience anything with total grace, and your total grace can transmute the most gruesome brutality into shining presence.
”
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Carolyn Elliott (Existential Kink: Unmask Your Shadow and Embrace Your Power (A method for getting what you want by getting off on what you don't))
“
You have gifts that people can only dream of having. They make you special and utterly unique in a way that is as far from weird as you can get. You blew my mind when you were a girl. I loved coming here to see what you could do, whether it was solving difficult math puzzles, destroying your dad at chess, memorizing the entire Human section of The Guinness Book of World Records, or trying to beat me at video games."
She jolted up, her mouth curving in a grin. "Trying? Seriously? Was there a video game I didn't win?"
Cheer-up mission accomplished, but his ego was taking a beating. "Guitar Hero was never your strong suit."
"Don't even think about challenging me," Daisy warned. "I was a free-shredding machine."
He gave a dismissive shrug, baiting his trap. "You were young, so Sanjay and I let you win..."
She gave him a calculating stare and jumped to her feet. "The guitar is mine."
"The guitar is lame. Drums are where it's at." He picked up the mugs and plates. "Two songs and I'll call an Uber."
"What if we tie? It will have to be the best of three songs and I'll call an Uber."
"Are you sure you're up for it?" He watched the gentle sway of her hips as she climbed the stairs. "I don't want you to feel bad when I destroy you."
Daisy looked back over her shoulder and gave him a grin. "You are so going down in flames.
”
”
Sara Desai (The Dating Plan (Marriage Game, #2))
“
Lies and egoism destroy. Honesty and altruism create.
”
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Maxime Lagacé
“
Ego doesn’t need to be killed because it was never really alive. You don’t have to destroy your false self because it’s not real, which is really the whole point. It’s just a character we play, and what needs to be killed is that part of us that identifies with the character. Once that’s done—really done, and it can take years—then you can wear the costume and play the character as it suits you to do so, now in the character but not of the character.
”
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Jed McKenna (Spiritual Warfare (The Enlightenment Trilogy Book 3))
“
You are a fool,” Navinad said before realizing exactly who he was talking to, but it was too late to stop. “You are getting caught up in the same self-delusions that destroy people. You stereotype, you label, you divide. You think all the SOG thinks the same, different, unlike you. It is easy to label, to judge a people instead of individuals. You hide behind your confirmation bias, behind your broad judgments. You need to hate and despise others to justify your ego. You are a fool. A typical politician who prefers to divide and classify people because they are easier to control and manipulate as divided groups. You will be the death of the Jewish people.
”
”
William S. Frisbee Jr. (Genocide of Mankind (The Last Marines #5))
“
Humans are creatures very uncomfortable, isn't it? Why? Well, because for a lifetime they can not get out from the boxes of their ego, and these boxes are certainly not made to protect us. Indeed, they subtract something important: even if you have someone next to you, you are not able to destroy the world and reach. We are all alone as long as we stay inside the boxes there is no chance of getting something meaningful, and there is no way out: no one can be saved. For this reason we just have to destroy the boxes, the people, the world.
”
”
Sanetoshi
“
Candor isn’t cruel. It does not destroy. On the contrary, any successful feedback system is built on empathy, on the idea that we are all in this together, that we understand your pain because we’ve experienced it ourselves. The need to stroke one’s own ego, to get the credit we feel we deserve—we strive to check those impulses at the door.
”
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Ed Catmull (Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration)
“
If this tendency to identify itself with objects is destroyed, the ego merges into its Source.
”
”
Robert Wolfe (Ramana Maharshi: Teachings of Self-Realization)
“
The Gothic repeatedly stages moments of transgression because it is obsessed with establishing and policing borders, delineating strict categories of being. The enduring icons of the Gothic are entities that breach the absolute distinctions between life and death (ghosts, vampires, mummies, zombies, Frankenstein's creature) or between human and beast (werewolves and other animalistic regressions, the creatures spliced together by Dr. Moreau) or which threaten the integrity of the individual ego and the exercise of will by merging with another (Jeckyll and Hyde, the persecuting double, the Mesmerist who holds victims in his or her power). Ostensibly, conclusions reinstate fixed borders, re-secure autonomy, and destroy any intolerable occupants of these twilight zones.
”
”
Roger Luckhurst (Late Victorian Gothic Tales)
“
Once a reporter asked a Wiseman what is the secret of your ENERGY, you are always happy, peaceful and energetic. The Wiseman replied “Don’t waste it”, What? asked the reporter!, the Wiseman replied “ENERGY”. Wiseman explained we are the energy, energy can’t be created nor it can be destroyed. Energy can be transformed from one form to another. Everybody has the same energy, learn to invest it properly. RETAIN your energy by avoiding negative people, negative thinking, gossiping, comparing, dropping the ego. GAIN your energy by thinking positive, maintaining good health and being loving… love your work, status, people around you, and your family. INVEST your energy on the opportunities you have that manifest your life. Finally, Wiseman said, “Learn to direct your energy by mastering your mind.
”
”
Venugopala CV
“
Over the thousands of years, it seems things have not really changed much when you take out the things and think only of the people....
I deeply regret wasted time--for it was never mine alone to waste.
I would rather be nothing in the eyes of the world, if something, anything of value in the eyes of God. Too often, myself guilty in the past, when I read poetry the "I" is prominent. I have come to a point in life where I would rather less to stand-out, be a dominant personality, and more to be part of the blended solutions.
Too often we let the world measure our worth by what we have become referencing their values, excluding the far greater--all of them we have avoided becoming.
On old age: if you keep your sense of humor, you have kept your best sense.
The expression of love gives the soul wings, and a never-ending span of light....
Nothing is truly alive, if living outside of love.
May that truth be fact, fiction or falsehood: what is memorable, the thing we can't reach and fully touch, but recognize as art, is always truth.
Having lived with a cat for the past six years--I am thoroughly convinced that both Pavlov and his dog were conditioned by Pavlov's Cat....
We see and feel far less with our senses...and more with our predilections. Truth be told, no one sees truth clearly as God sees it.
After speaking with a much younger man than myself today, I discovered, that reaching 70 years old has some unintended consequences--Intelligence.
Though he or she may think so, no writer knows entirely what is being said (as for truth--a figment of intellectual imagination); but, to create a tingle in the reader (a living word...ah!) That is nearer Divine!
Love needs no affirmation but its presence.
If I could only keep from getting in my own way!
When forgetting we are co-creators with God, our behavior is that of independent destroyers.
Art! It is like human love--controlling and all consuming when living with it…death without it!
If I have learned anything from life, it is that I know nothing; and the mystery of my journey is to douse the lesser-ego with incendiary making ready for Divine spark....
The all-seeing eye of the heart if allowed to open will always see love first....
Love is patient...quietly awaiting to show despite our rejection—abiding in silence as ordered until our cloaking lifted for release and full expression. What joy that moment of uncovering—the heart purely exposed, our greatest lamp.
While looking at a picture of a magnificent wasps' nest I thought: 'Amazing how creatures so small seem to have capacity for thought so large....'
Children do have a way of bringing us back into focus, usually throwing a slow curve that ends up being a strike to the heart of the matter. Some large lessons of love have come to me from much smaller sizes than myself.
”
”
Joseph P. DiMino
“
At this level of dissolution, as body and mind are fast decaying and there is almost nothing left of the former personality to cling to, the ego-self goes into a state of intense paranoia. Formerly, it held firm to the mistaken belief that itself and its world were permanent, stable entities. Now, however, all basis for that belief has been destroyed through the process of death, and the ego experiences overwhelming fear and panic in the form of terrifying hallucinations. Always fearful of being caught out, this false ego-self has had to struggle constantly to maintain its conceit in the face of the natural openness of the world. The forces of nature have always run counter to it and this is why so many people seek to conquer nature and strive to overthrow its rule. In order to protect their fragile egos, they have no wish to cooperate with nature and live with it in harmony and peace. Instead, they choose to fight against it and subjugate nature to the rule of ego.
”
”
Stephen Hodge (The Illustrated Tibetan Book of the Dead: A New Reference Manual for the Soul)
“
Separation slithers into the hearts of man to the breaking point where humanity becomes lost and we all take sides to stand against the other, and evil wins. Evil blinds us from walking in another’s shoes, promises us all we desire, including a voice to be heard and a satisfaction of ego and sensation, while our wings flutter and destroy a part of the hope that exists in the netherworld by directing hope’s vibrational healing into a new direction…towards absence and despair with a loss of that same hope.
”
”
P.D. Alleva
“
... there is common sense in Zen. And the longer that you follow the self-confrontation, the self-analysis, the better off you are to just live with yourself, and for other people to live with you. Because you drop a lot of the poses which you previously had, and which previously got you into trouble. And you take a new, broader view of things because your egos are not in the way, destroying your friendships, and destroying your family, your financial possibilities even.
... I maintain that Zen is worthwhile. Or I wouldn't have spent these years talking with no financial remuneration... as I hinted before; you become a better person.
”
”
Richard Rose
“
Awakening is the only chance for Mankind.
Otherwise destroy Ego Earth and Human Race
Nara
”
”
Nara InneresGold
“
One more related thing here that is very important: ego is a process of identification, not a thing in and of itself. It is like a bad habit, but it doesn’t exist as something that can be found. This is important, as this bad habit can quickly co-opt the language of ego-lessness and come up with phrases as absurd as: “I will destroy my ego!” But, not being a thing, it cannot be destroyed, but by understanding our bare experience, our minds, the process of identification can stop. Any thoughts with “I,” “me,” “my” and “mine” in them should be understood to be just thoughts which come and go. This is not something you can talk yourself out of. You have to perceive things as they are to stop this process.
”
”
Daniel M. Ingram (Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book - Revised and Expanded Edition)
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The pathology of greed is always greater than the object that greed pursues. Therefore, anything obtained by greed will eventually be killed by the very greed that worked so diligently to possess it. Hence, the pathology.
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Craig D. Lounsbrough
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You can destroy your ego with LOVE. Meditation would eliminate your Immaturity.
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Vishal Chipkar (Enter Heaven)
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For too many of them, Freemasonry is a means for feeding their ego. They like the grand sounding titles, the authority, and the respect that they tell themselves they have. They have the twisted idea that Freemasonry is some grand club designed to make the unworthy feel worthy solely through membership. They hold onto their paper kingdoms with a tight grip and will gladly do anything at all, including destroying Freemasonry itself, before relinquishing the power that they believe they have.
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Michael R. Poll (A Lodge at Labor: Freemasons and Masonry Today)
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The casting away of things is symbolic, you know. Talismanic. When you cast away things, you're also casting away the self-related others that are symbolically related to those things. You start a cleaning-out process. You begin to empty the vessel."
Larry shook his head slowly. "I don't follow that."
"Well, take an intelligent pre-plague man. Break his TV, and what does he do at night?"
"Reads a book," Ralph said.
"Goes to see his friends," Stu said.
"Plays the stereo," Larry said, grinning.
"Sure, all those things," Glen said. "But he's also missing that TV. There's a hole in his life where that TV used to be. In the back of his mind he's still thinking, At nine o'clock I'm going to pull a few beers and watch the Sox on the tube. And when he goes in there and sees that empty cabinet, he feels as disappointed as hell. A part of his accustomed life has been poured out, is it not so?"
"Yeah," Ralph said. "Our TV went on the fritz once for two weeks and I didn't feel right until it was back."
"It makes a bigger hole in his life if he watched a lot of TV, a smaller hole if he only used it a little bit. But something is gone. Now take away all his books, all his friends, and his stereo. Also remove all sustenance except what he can glean along the way. It's an emptying-out process and also a diminishing of the ego. Your selves, gentlemen--they are turning into a window-glass. Or better yet, empty tumblers."
"But what's the point?" Ralph asked. "Why go through all the rigmarole?"
Glen said, "If you read your Bible, you'll see that it was pretty traditional for these prophets to go out into the wilderness from time to time--Old Testament Magical Mystery Tours. The timespan given for these jaunts was usually forty days and forty nights, a Hebraic idiom that really means 'no one knows exactly how long he was gone, but it was quite a while.' Does that remind you of anyone?"
"Sure. Mother," Ralph said.
"Now think of yourself as a battery. You really are, you know. Your brain runs on chemically converted electrical current. For that matter, your muscles run on tiny charges, too--a chemical called acetylcholine allows the charge to pass when you need to move, and when you want to stop, another chemical, cholinesterase, is manufactured. Cholinesterase destroys acetylcholine, so your nerves become poor conductors again. Good thing, too. Otherwise, once you started scratching your nose, you'd never be able to stop. Okay, the point is this: Everything you think, everything you do, it all has to run off the battery. Like the accessories in a car."
They were all listening closely.
"Watching TV, reading books, talking with friends, eating a big dinner ... all of it runs off the battery. A normal life--at least in what used to be Western civilization--was like running a car with power windows, power brakes, power seats, all the goodies. But the more goodies you have, the less the battery can charge. True?"
"Yeah," Ralph said. "Even a big Delco won't ever overcharge when it's sitting in a Cadillac."
"Well, what we've done is to strip off the accessories. We're on charge."
Ralph said uneasily: "If you put a car battery on charge for too long, she'll explode."
"Yes," Glen agreed. "Same with people. The Bible tells us about Isaiah and Job and the others, but it doesn't say how many prophets came back from the wilderness with visions that had crisped their brains. I imagine there were some. But I have a healthy respect for human intelligence and the human psyche, in spite of an occasional throwback like East Texas here--"
"Off my case, baldy," Stu growled.
"Anyhow, the capacity of the human mind is a lot bigger than the biggest Delco battery. I think it can take a charge almost to infinity. In certain cases, perhaps beyond infinity."
They walked in silence for a while, thinking this over.
"Are we changing?" Stu asked quietly.
"Yes," Glen answered. "Yes, I think we are.
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Stephen King