No one in al-Nahda believes that jihad is a way to impose Islam on the world. But we believe that jihad is self-control, is social and political struggle, and even military jihad is only a way to defend oneself in the case of aggression.
In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.
Questions are a burden to others; answers are a prison for oneself.
To keep oneself safe does not mean to bury oneself.
Comparing oneself with one's fellow writers is a bad idea. I would not review a fellow writer unless I had something terribly positive to say.
It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.
To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.
On the one hand, life is made infinitely easy for the personality in that stimulations, interests, uses of time and consciousness are offered to it from all sides. They carry the person as if in a stream, and one needs hardly to swim for oneself.
One of the things that evangelicals do really, really well is to make giving a joyous, social enterprise. Too often, the world sees giving as a burden, a sacrifice, when in fact it's more like an opportunity to help others and oneself at the same time.
If you're in the media, particularly newspapers, you are in the thick of all the interesting things that are going on in a community, and I can't imagine any other life that one would want to dedicate oneself to.
To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.
To forget oneself is to be happy.
Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself.
Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause.
My clothes don't make one a different person, just more of oneself.
One does afford oneself the luxury to come into the studio and all day, every day, spend one's life making aesthetic propositions. What an immense luxury.
The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
When at a loss about something, go and take counsel by yourself. For in the midst of shouting, the advantageous course is not to be seen, but as one reasons with oneself, it shines out clear.
One ought to look a good deal at oneself before thinking of condemning others.
To place oneself in the position of God is painful: being God is equivalent to being tortured. For being God means that one is in harmony with all that is, including the worst. The existence of the worst evils is unimaginable unless God willed them.
Writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.
Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.
Nobody can teach what is inside a person; it has to be discovered for oneself and a way must be found to express it.
Not to like ice cream is to show oneself uninterested in food.
What one hides is worth neither more nor less than what one finds. And what one hides from oneself is worth neither more nor less than what one allows others to find.
I enjoy popularisation and I think I'm reasonably good at it. I also think it's a duty. It's just so pedagogically stupid to forget how difficult one found these ideas oneself to begin with.
One should make morals judgements for oneself.
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.
A complete life may be one ending in so full an identification with the oneself that there is no self left to die.
We have observed that, in society and the world in which we live, selfishness has increased more than love for others, and that men of good will must work, each with his own strengths and expertise, to ensure that love for others increases until it is equal and possibly exceeds love for oneself.
Coming out is a means of redefining oneself, of claiming membership in a lifestyle and a social order with distinct values. Chief among these values is honesty.
When you are not treated seriously, you develop comically. Its sense of oneself is so fractured and fragile that it's like the picked-on kid who has to become funny.
The Southern whites are in many respects a great people. Looked at from a certain point of view, they are picturesque. If one will put oneself in a romantic frame of mind, one can admire their notions of chivalry and bravery and justice.
It is curious how instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original to be believed any longer.
The contemplative life is often miserable. One must act more, think less, and not watch oneself live.
