Sheena Iyengar Quotes

I champion the idea of being more conscious. I call it being an active architect of your own life. Building your life like an architect builds a structure.

I make me. At 18, I decided I wasn't going to have an unconstructed self ever. I was going to be the composer, the designer, the architect of me. It's been really fun.

Making your life is ultimately an extraordinarily creative endeavor.

Your talent is in your choice.

On some level, we as human beings can be who we want to be.

Whoever undertakes to create soon finds himself engaged in creating himself.

In preindustrial times, the idea of creating something was more related to your personality. Personality was something that you constructed; it's something you had to actively develop and work on. Now personality is something that you have.

I am still the place where creation does some work on itself.

The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action.

One creates oneself.

The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew. Seek therefore, not to find out Who You Are, but seek to determine Who You Want to Be.

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

I like people that define their own values. I am much more interested in somebody who has their own definition of what they value, their own definition of what success is, their own definition of what love is.

I want the subject to be in control. Because they will give me something I couldn't possibly know about them.

Everything we know by heart enriches us and helps us find ourselves. If it should get in the way of finding ourselves, it is because we have no personality.

You're writing your life as you go - the question becomes, how do you want to write your life?

It's very clearly stated in the film: You make your own choices, and what you're always fighting is ego.

There is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves.

Everybody makes his path differently.

The only things standing between you and the compassionate, wise, and creative person you want to be are matters of choice. Your choice. No one can occupy your generosity except you.

People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.

If you really have your own identity you'll keep on doing what you think is really right for you, and you'll also understand the next step you want to take.

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.

We're allowed as adults to create a life that we like. Kids don't have that freedom.