Self-love

Self-love is the strong sense of respect for and confidence in oneself. Loving oneself differs from being arrogant, conceited or egocentric, instead focusing on caring about oneself, taking responsibility for oneself, respecting oneself, and knowing oneself (e.g. being realistic and honest about one's strengths and weaknesses).

Quotes

• Self-love is a principle of action; but among no class of human beings has nature so profusely distributed this principle of life and action as through the whole sensitive family of genius.
  • Isaac D'Israeli, The Literary Character, Illustrated by the History of Men of Genius (1795-1822), Chapter XV

• Now, so far as I can judge, self-love is the root of all evil;
  • Helen Keller, The Story of My Life. (AmazonClassics Edition) p. 104.

• Since the world does not really believe in God, in the long run the God-fearing person must really love himself. The God-fearing person does not love what the world loves, but then what is left—God and himself. The world takes God away, and therefore the God-fearing person loves himself. The world regards the fear of God as self-love.
  • Søren Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers, II 1613 (Pap. VIII.1 A283) n. d., 1847, as cited in Works of Love (Kierkegaard)|Works of Love, note on pp. 468-469

• Ofttimes nothing profits more
  Than self-esteem, grounded on just and right
  Well manag'd.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book VIII, line 571

• To observations which ourselves we make,
  We grow more partial for th' observer's sake.
  • Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle I, line 11

• Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin
  As self-neglecting.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry V (c. 1599), Act II, scene 4, line 74

• O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four times seven years; and since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself.
  • William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act I, scene 3, line 312.

• I to myself am dearer than a friend.
  • William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590s), Act II, scene 6, line 23

• This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind:—it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.
  • Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique portatif ("A Philosophical Dictionary") (1764), Self-Love

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 697.

• He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.
  • George Eliot, Adam Bede, Chapter XXXIII

• Wer sich nicht zu viel dünkt ist viel mehr als er glaubt.
  • He who does not think too much of himself is much more esteemed than he imagines.
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sprüche in Prosa, III

• A gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to the claims of self-love in others, and exacts it in return from them.
  • William Hazlitt, Table Talk, On the Look of a Gentleman

• Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers.
  • François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, No. 3.

• Voyez le beau rendez-vous qu'il me donne; cet homme là n'a jamais aimé que lui-même.
  • Behold, the fine appointment he makes with me; that man never did love any one but himself.
  • Mme. de Maintenon, when Louis XIV. in dying said, "Nous nous renverrons bientôt." (We shall meet again).

• Le moi est haïssable.
  • Egoism is hateful.
  • Blaise Pascal, Pensées Diverses

• But respect yourself most of all.
  • Golden Verses of the Pythagoreans

• Sans doute
  Je peux apprendre à coqueriquer: je glougloute.

• Without doubt
  I can teach crowing: for I gobble.
  • Edmond Rostand, Chanticleer, Act I, scene 2

• Et sonnant d'avance sa victoire,
  Mon chant jaillit si net, si fier, si peremptoire,
  Que l'horizon, saisi d'un rose tremblement,
  M'obéit.
  • And sounding in advance its victory,
    My song jets forth so clear, so proud, so peremptory.
    That the horizon, seized with a rosy trembling,
    Obeys me.
  • Edmond Rostand, Chanticleer, Act II, scene 3

• Je recule
  Ébloui de me voir moi même tout vermeil
  Et d'avoir, moi, le coq, fait élever le soleil.
  • I fall back dazzled at beholding myself all rosy red,
    At having, I myself, caused the sun to rise.
  • Edmond Rostand, Chanticleer, Act II, scene 3

• I am the most concerned in my own interests.
  • Terence, Andria, IV. 1

• L'amour-propre offensé ne pardonne jamais.
  • Offended self-love never forgives.
  • Vizée, Les Aveux Difficiles, VII

See also

• Self-esteem
• Selfishness