Self-Possession Quotes

He who is by nature not his own but another's man is by nature a slave.

Keep both heart and hand in your own possession, till you see good reason to part with them.

True debauchery is liberating because it creates no obligations. In it you possess only yourself, hence it remains the favorite pastime of the great lovers of their own person.

Propaganda is not French, it is not civilized to want other people to believe what you believe because the essence of being civilized is to possess yourself as you are, and if you possess yourself as you are, you of course cannot possess any one else, it is not your business.

Alexander esteemed it more kingly to govern himself than to conquer his enemies.

There's no room for demons when you're self-possessed.

Your most important asset is the conscious control of your own life.

Our own temperate blood, schooled to self-possession and the measured conduct of self-government, is receiving a constant infusion and yearly experiencing a partial corruption of foreign blood.

He that would govern others, first should be The master of himself.

I want to feel what I feel. What's mine. Even if it's not happiness, whatever that means. Because you're all you've got.

Who do I belong to? How come I mortgaged my being till I don't belong to myself? How come I sold my blood? And who now owns my indecisions, my hands, my private pain, my pride?

The fortune my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.

Those who can command themselves command others.

But while I breathe Heaven's air and Heaven looks down on me, And smiles at my best meanings, I remain Mistress of mine own self and mine own soul.

Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.

For if I am to love truly and freely, I must be able to give something that is truly my own to another. If my heart does not first belong to me, how can I give it to another?

Grace in women has more effect than beauty. We sometimes see a certain fine self-possession, an habitual voluptuousness of character, which reposes on its own sensations and derives pleasure from all around it, that is more irresistible than any other attraction. There is an air of languid enjoyment in such persons, "in their eyes, in their arms, and their hands, and their face," which robs us of ourselves, and draws us by a secret sympathy towards them.

I'm an in-control person.

It is not the man who is beside himself, but he who is cool and collected,--who is master of his countenance, of his voice, of his actions, of his gestures, of every part of his play,--who can work upon others at his pleasure.

I'm good at my own company.

I have to reign myself in a lot.

I know what I do and what it means to me and where its sources lie, and that's mine. It still is mine.

I am in control at all times.

I don't think I have ever been out of control.

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.