The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.
Henry Miller

True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself.
Henry Miller

When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.
John Ruskin

When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.
Jacques Yves Cousteau

Man, of all the animals, is probably the only one to regard himself as a great delicacy.
Jacques Yves Cousteau

Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.
Benjamin Disraeli

The right honourable gentleman caught the Whigs bathing, and walked away with their clothes. He has left them in the full enjoyment of their liberal positions, and he is himself a strict conservative of their garments.
Benjamin Disraeli

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.
Benjamin Disraeli

If a man be gloomy let him keep to himself. No one has the right to go croaking about society, or what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief.
Benjamin Disraeli

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.
Thomas Carlyle

No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence.
Thomas Carlyle

For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
W. H. Auden

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.
Desmond Tutu

I really believe that everyone has a talent, ability, or skill that he can mine to support himself and to succeed in life.
Dean Koontz

A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.
Michel de Montaigne

Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain - at least in a poor country like Russia - and his vanity begins to swell out like his tires. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect.
Leon Trotsky

The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces - in nature, in society, in man himself.
Leon Trotsky

Be Prepared... the meaning of the motto is that a scout must prepare himself by previous thinking out and practicing how to act on any accident or emergency so that he is never taken by surprise.
Robert Baden-Powell

The Scoutmaster teaches boys to play the game by doing so himself.
Robert Baden-Powell

God loves to help him who strives to help himself.
Aeschylus