Gloria Steinem Quotes

The thing I believe is we are good if our peers think we're great. But we are great if the real world thinks we're good. And there's a huge difference.

People before the public live an imagined life in the thought of others, and flourish or feel faint as their self outside themselves grows bright or dwindles in that mirror.

It is good to know what a man is, and also what the world takes him for. But you do not understand him until you have learnt how he understands himself.

Nine-tenths of our suffering is caused by others not thinking so much of us as we think they ought.

Insecurity is a natural part of human nature, and there are times we feel our stories are not worth telling, so we turn to the people we admire for strength. If we dress like someone everyone thinks is cool, perhaps we'll be seen as cool.

The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we hold of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us.

I've always tried to figure out what people think of themselves and what they think they're projecting.

Social psychology has, as a rule, dealt with various phases of social experience from the psychological standpoint of individual experience.

The Public is merely a multiplied 'me.'

I've always looked for my affirmation through my peers, the people I race against, and within my team.

The imaginations which people have of one another are the solid facts of society.

The perception of identity is so intimately bound up with the perception of the human form.

As teenagers, we all see ourselves as outsiders... and it's very easy to look at other people who are more popular, who have more pocket money, and it makes you feel even more like an outsider, and it does shape who you become as a person.

We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.

To me, it seems like both 'Brief Interviews' and 'The Office' deal with characters that see themselves differently than the world sees them.

My mother helped me identify myself the way the world would identify me. Bloodlines didn't matter as much as how I would be perceived.

I absolutely do care what people think about me.

Every human being has an assortment of diverse identities, and it greatly matters which one is triggered by social situations, which hold up different kinds of mirrors. The same is true for nations.

The thing that keeps me being a performer is my interest in society's obsession with identity, because I'm not sure that I really believe identity exists.

In high school, everyone told me I had a great personality and sense of humor, but I wanted to be the girl who boys liked because she was pretty on top of being funny. I was boy crazy.

I distinctly remember being very young, sixth grade maybe, and being at a party and hearing the mothers discuss the children. And the mothers said, 'Well, it's very clear who's the leader in the group.' And they were talking about me!

Maybe I don't have an accurate view of myself. For instance, I keep getting cast as 'The Beautiful Girl,' but I don't happen to think I'm beautiful.

I was seen as a little weirdo. But I was certain I wasn't a weirdo. I knew who the weirdos were, and it wasn't me!

Are we all unhappy with our true selves, and likes and follows are what give us value?

I was the funny one in my group; there was a lot pressure to be responsible for everyone's happiness. I didn't like watching other friends of mine be called the 'pretty one' or the 'smart one.' That had no depth, and it didn't match how I knew them.