The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others’ appraisals to play a determining role in how we see ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among.
Perhaps it’s impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.
Every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself.
Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!
What do you expect, one is what one is, partly at least.
We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heroes or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are. Letting our past decide our future. Or we can decide for ourselves. And maybe it’s our job to invent something better.
There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.
Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known.
No man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part.
It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous. Resign yourself to be the fool you are.
If I am what I have and if what I have is lost, who then am I?
As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.
