Quotes on Identity

Here are the quotes that we used in class as part of our preunit learning activity:

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.
James Baldwin

As a young teenager I looked desperately for things to read that might excuse me or assure me I wasn't the only one, that might confirm an identity I was unhappily piecing together.
Edmund White

First of all, what happens is, when you're good at something, you spend a lot of time with it. People identify you with that sport, so it becomes part of your identity.
Mike Krzyzewski

Human identity is the most fragile thing that we have, and it's often only found in moments of truth.
Alan Rudolph

I have done everything I can to make sure my daughter knows her father because you form your own identity by rebelling against your parents - but first you have to know them.
Greta Scacchi

Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings. It is based on the experience of one's identity as a being of worth and dignity.
Rollo May

Strengthening our identity is one way or reinforcing people's confidence and sense of citizenship and well-being.
David Blunkett

The firmest friendship is based on an identity of likes and dislikes.
Sallust

We don't need a melting pot in this country, folks. We need a salad bowl. In a salad bowl, you put in the different things. You want the vegetables - the lettuce, the cucumbers, the onions, the green peppers - to maintain their identity. You appreciate differences.
Jane Elliot

Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Man's life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self.
B. R. Ambedkar

You have your identity
when you find out, not what you can keep your mind on, but what you can't keep your mind off.
A. R. Ammons

Your life will be a blessed and balanced experience if you first honor your identity and priority.
Russell M. Nelson

You manifest based on who you are already - so you must own the identity of the dream in order to manifest it.
Joy Page

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do. ~Epictetus

You cannot belong to anyone else until you belong to yourself. -Pearl Bailey

Telling others about oneself is...no simple matter. It depends on what we think they think we ought to be like—or what selves in general ought to be like. Nor do our calculations end when we come to telling ourselves about ourselves. Our self-directed self-making narratives early come to express what we think others expect us to be like. Without much awareness of it, we develop a decorum for telling ourselves about ourselves: how to be frank with ourselves, how not to offend others....
-Jerome Bruner

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
-Buddha

A verse from the Veda says, 'What you see, you become.' In other words, just the experience of perceiving the world makes you what you are. This is a quite literal statement.
-Deepak Chopra

Always be a first rate version of yourself, and not a second rate version of someone else.
-Judy Garland

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
-Nathaniel Hawthorne

If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.
-Aldous Huxley

"We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves."
-François de La Rochefoucauld

Beware of no man more than yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.
-C. H. (Charles Haddon) Spurgeon

“Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.” ~ Kevin Arnold

“If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?” ~ Chuck Palahniuk

The value of identity of course is that so often with it comes purpose.” ~Richard R. Grant

“Identity is such a crucial affair that one shouldn't rush into it.” ~ David Quammen

“Identity is theft of the self” ~ Estee Martin

“The identity of one changes with how one perceives reality” ~ Vithu Jeyaloganathan

~ I think history is inextricably linked to identity. If you don't know your history, if you don't know your family, who are you? ~ Mary Pipher

~ Integrity simple means not violating one's own identity. ~
Erich Fromm

A people must have dignity and identity. ~Andrew Goodman

A racial community provides not only a sense of identity, that luxury of looking into another's face and seeing yourself reflected back, but a sense of security and support.
Wentworth Miller