Mason Cooley Quotes

[Dona Maria] saw that the people of this world moved about in an armor of egotism, drunk with self-gazing, athirst for compliments, hearing little of what was said to them, unmoved by the accidents that befell their closest friends, in dread of all appeals that might interrupt their long communion with their own desires.

I lived with the only continuity, day to day, of the me-me-me.

Some people spend their lives interested only in themselves.

Projecting yourself until everything is talking about you is, of course, a self-flattering form of self-pity

Fastidiousness is only another word for egotism; and all men who know not where to look for truth save in the narrow well of self will find their own image at the bottom, and mistake it for what they are seeking.

I never really look at other people; I just worry about myself.

I’d always thought I was above being fascinated by anyone but myself.

Being preoccupied with our self-image is like being deaf and blind. It's like standing in the middle of a vast field of wildflowers with a black hood over our heads. It's like coming upon a tree of singing birds while wearing earplugs.

The vain being is the really solitary being.

Self-pity is egotism undiluted, after all—self-centeredness in its purest form.

You’re a human, you should understand self-obsession.

Lonely people console themselves with self-absorption or curiosity.

Everything else outside me seems far, far away.

Individualism, one of the great achievements of Western civilization, is now accompanied more and more by such phenomena as fragmentation, solitude, egocentricity and the disintegration of solidarity

We humans are self-absorbed by nature, and spend most of our time focusing inwardly on our emotions, on our wounds, on our fantasies.

The enormous pitfall is devotion to oneself instead of to life. All works that are self-devoted are absolutely ineffective.

Pride, like the magnet, constantly points to one object, self; but, unlike the magnet, it has no attractive pole, but at all points repels.

For the air of lonely men surrounded him now, a still atmosphere in which the world around him slipped away, leaving him incapable of relationship, an atmosphere against which neither will nor longing availed. This was one of the significant earmarks of his life.

Frankly, you need to get over yourself. It might sound harsh, but that's seriously what it means [1 Corinthians 10:31].

Selfishness is the making a man's self his own centre, the beginning and end of all he doeth.

Dwelling upon the self too much produces terrible fatigue. A man in that position is deaf and blind to everything else. The fatigue itself makes him cease to see the marvels all around.

He walked on in silence, the solitary sound of his footsteps echoing in his head, as in a deserted street, at dawn. His solitude was so complete, beneath a lovely sky as mellow and serene as a good conscience, amid that busy throng, that he was amazed at his own existence; he must be somebody else's nightmare, and whoever it was would certainly awaken soon.

If you want to be miserable, think about yourself, about what you want, what you like, what respect people ought to pay you and what people think of you.

He who lives only for himself is truly dead to others.

That love of self, which the world advocates, is a thousand times more dangerous than any poison.