Quotes about narcissism

Gracia Hunter -

... don’t confuse between self-love and narcissism. Self- love is making yourself your number one priority but narcissism is start enforcing that priority over others. First one is healthy second one is not. First one is for your mental healthiness and well-being while the second one is to mess up with other peoples’ peace of mind to serve your own needs.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb - The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Half of the people lie with their lips the other half with their tears

Nassim Nicholas Taleb - The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

true humility is when you can surprise yourself more than others the rest is either shyness or good marketing

Nassim Nicholas Taleb - The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

The classical man's worst fear was inglorious death the modern man's worst fear is just death

Criss Jami - Healology

A man who loves others based solely on how they make him feel, or what they do for him, is really not loving others at all - but loving only himself.

Beverly Engel - The Jekyll and Hyde Syndrome: What to Do If Someone in Your Life Has a Dual Personality - Or If You Do

There came a time in my life when I had to admit to myself that I have some very clear narcissistic tendencies. Ironically, it occurred during the writing of my book The Emotionally Abused Woman. As I listed the symptoms of narcissism, I was amazed to find that I recognized myself in the description of the disorder.It should have been no surprise to me because I come from a long line of narcissists. My mother and several of her brothers suffered from the disorder, as did her mother. For some rea

Kilroy J. Oldster - Dead Toad Scrolls

Narcissistic pleasure seekers routinely avoid developing the humility required to manufacture a life of full measure. Shallow persons such as me hide their insecurities behind a false persona of bravado, boasting of their inconsequential deeds, pyrrhic victories, and adamant refusals to tackle any task that they fear.

F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Beautiful and Damned

In April war was declared with Germany. Wilson and his cabinet—a cabinet that in its lack of distinction was strangely reminiscent of the twelve apostles—let loose the carefully starved dogs of war, and the press began to whoop hysterically against the sinister morals, sinister philosophy, and sinister music produced by the Teutonic temperament. Those who fancied themselves particularly broad-minded made the exquisite distinction that it was only the German Government which aroused them to hyste

Criss Jami - Killosophy

We are to give (and take) true love without falling into the narcissistic habit of only trying to take it in.

Shannon L. Alder -

See it for what it is and own it, rather than rethink it so you don't have to deal with the trauma of the abuse. This is the only way to move on--through acceptance.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb - The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

English does not distinguish between arrogant-up (irreverence toward the temporarily powerful) and arrogant-down (directed at the small guy).

Craig D. Lounsbrough -

To declare myself as a genius immediately evidences that I am not.

Jay-Z - Decoded

I'm here to tell niggas it ain't all swell.There's Heaven then there's Hell niggasOne day your cruisin' in your seven,Next day your sweatin', forgettin' your lies,Alibis ain't matchin' up, bullshit catchin' upHit with the RICO, they repoed your vehicleEverything was all good just a week ago'Bout to start bitchin' ain't you?Ready to start snitchin' ain't you?I forgive you. Weak ass, hustlin' just ain't youAside from the fast carsHoneys that shake they ass in barsYou know you wouldn't be involvedW

Sigmund Freud -

That which he projects ahead of him as his ideal, is merely his substitute for the lost narcissism of his childhood - the time when he was his own ideal.

Milan Kundera -

When he told F. of his disgust at the eyelid's movement, he must have been sixteen. When he decided to study medicine, he must have been nineteen; by then, having already signed on to the contract to forget, he no longer remembered what he had said to F. three years before. Too bad for him. The memory might have alerted him, might have helped him see that his choice of medicine was wholly theoretical, made without the slightest self- knowledge. Thus he studied medicine for three years before giv

Amanda Torroni -

How starved you must have been that my heart became a meal for your ego.

Emily Matchar - Homeward Bound: Why Women are Embracing the New Domesticity

Golden sees parental uninterest in collective solutions as part of a larger “decline in the social contract”… "As a scholar, I'm very disturbed that we have more [media] articles about toxins in the home than the fact that we don’t have universal prenatal care, she says. “We’ve moved from collective concern about infant and child welfare into this very privatized focus on “my child” and this intensive child-rearing.

Kurt Cobain -

I don't care what you think unless it is about me.

Shannon L. Alder -

Empowered Women 101: A confident and faithful woman that loves herself and knows what she is capable of creating will attract the right man that will want to be part of that plan. God won't bring her a man that she has to mold into what she wants him to be. A relationship is about two people helping one another grow, not just one.

Joshua Ferris - To Rise Again at a Decent Hour

I had never thought much of genealogy. A lot of wasted time collecting the names of the dead. Then stringing those names, like skulls upon a wire, into an entirely private and thus irrelevant narrative, lacking any historical significance. The narcissistic pastime of nostalgic bores.

Jeffrey Kluger -

Since narcissism is fueled by a greater need to be admired than to be liked, psychologists might use that fact as a therapeutic lever - stressing to patients that being known as a narcissist will actually cause them to lose the respect and social status they crave.

Kathy Krajco - What Makes Narcissists Tick: Understanding Narcissistic Personality Disorder

In a very real way, attention is a drug. Like dope, attention makes people feel good by delivering a ‘’hit’’ of certain neurotransmitters (chemicals that transmit, or block the transmission of electrochemical currents) in the brain. Like anything that does this (viz., sex, risk-taking, power), in excessive amounts it’s addictive. And, simply because it works, nothing is as addictive as a pain killer. Hence Narcissus is well-named from the Greek word for narcosis.Attention is his pain killer.

Sam Keen - The Passionate Life: Stages of Loving

The psyche cannot tolerate a vacuum of love. In the severely abused or deprived child, pain, dis-ease, and violance rush in to fill the void. In the average person in our culture, who has been only "normally" deprived of touch, anxiety and an insatiable hunger for posessions replace the missing eros. The child lacking a sense of welcome, joyous belonging, gratuitous security, will learn to hoard the limited supply of affection. According to the law of psychic compensation, not being held leads t

Sheree' Griffin - Manipulation & Betrayal

Narcissistic love is riding on the rollecoaster of disaster filled with a heart full of tears.

Rodney Ulyate -

You don't know how shallow you are, or how narcissistic, until you acquire a facial scar. On the plus side, it's so situated as to make me look tough and worldly. On the downside, I'm never kissing my dog again.

Danu Morrigan -

Invalidation is about dismissing your experiences, thoughts and above all your emotions. Indeed the intention is to not even allow you to have those thoughts, experiences and emotions. It‟s a way of invading your head and reprogramming it. It‟s psychological abuse (messing with your thoughts) and emotional abuse (messing with your feelings).

Steven Franssen - Make Self-Knowledge Great Again

Grandiosity is when we are wrapped up in winning life's false contest. This happens only when we live to impress the abusive parents in our heads, not when we are soberly and philosophically working to advance civilization.

Ahmed Mostafa -

To love others you've got to love yourself, but I love myself too much I've got no place for others.

Clifford Cohen -

You are not a better or wiser person simply because you’ve ceased to care.

Susan Rivers - The Second Mrs. Hockaday

Our enemy is [. . .] and all people like him, who never question their motives or doubt their desires. They are put on this earth to cause misery, because what they take so freely for themselves comes always at great cost to others.

Franz Kafka - Letter to His Father

Since there was nothing at all I was certain of, since I needed to be provided at every instant with a new confirmation of my existence, since nothing was in my very own, undoubted, sole possession, determined unequivocally only by me — in sober truth a disinherited son — naturally I became unsure even of the thing nearest to me, my own body.

Michael P. Naughton - Deathryde: Rebel Without a Corpse

Social Media is a shared delusion of grandeur.

Elan Golomb - Trapped in the Mirror: Adult Children of Narcissists in Their Struggle for Self

Often, her mate is the child of a narcissist, already indoctrinated to regard exploitation and disregard as love. Others lured by the narcissistic aura are those in whom healthy childhood exhibitionism has been repressed. . . . If the parent puts the child to shame for showing off, the need for attention gets repressed into the unconscious. Repression means that the need is not satisfied and continues to press for expression in the adult without her being aware of it. The repressed adult may sel

Joel McDonald - AdWords For Dummies

Hypocrissist: A narcissist who has their head so far up their ass they can't hear the hypocrisy coming out of their mouth.

David G. McAfee -

There's nothing more narcissistic than being sure that you are built in the image of an all-powerful Creator-God, and that same God answers your prayers, knows your name, and has a personal relationship with you.

Jeffrey Kluger - in Your Bed--in Your World

The most decisive and certainly most delicious option for an aggrieved worker in a narcissist’s office is simply quitting. Slamming your resignation letter on the boss’s desk and striding out to take a better job somewhere else is satisfying and in both its finality and its totality. Instantly the feared figure is stripped of all power, reduced to a person of utter inconsequence in your life. Not only does this spell immediate freedom for the exiting employee, it can also contribute to the long-

Gore Vidal - Point to Point Navigation

A current pejorative adjective is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adective is often applied to those "liberals" who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the hightest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meanings of words is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to con

Milan Kundera - The Festival of Insignificance

And think about the precise meaning of that term: a Narcissus is not proud. A proud man has disdain for other people, he undervalues them. The Narcissus overvalues them, because in every person's eyes he sees his own image, and wants to embellish it. So he takes nice care of all his mirrors.

Debra Crown -

Arrogance is an illusion of superiority one perpetrates upon their self. Some may ultimately find their way through the illusion, but only after many losses.

Ramani Durvasula - Should I Stay or Should I Go?: Surviving a Relationship with a Narcissist

The democratization of media means that anyone with a phone can become a celebrity. Our short-sighted focus on self-esteem in children means that everyone gets a trophy, universities and education are “brands” instead of places of learning, standardized testsare used to assess wisdom, and grade inflation is rampant. The tribe has been replaced with followers and likes. Our economy, our bodies, our health, our children, and frankly our psyches are in big trouble.

Shannon L. Alder -

Don't ever believe that Narcissists don't understand they have hurt you. They know exactly what they did and why they did it. The reason they can't stop their abuse is because the narcissistic supply is their addiction. Unlike, drug addicts that need their fix to feel normal, narcissists need to feel significant. This is their addiction. Even if it takes destructive ways to have this emotional balance they will pursue it. Your feelings don't count only the supply does. The greater the supply the

Zoë Heller -

He had made a fairly unambiguous pass at her, as she was getting out of the cab. But event that had come to nothing. Sheba said that she had sensed something resentful about him, as if he begrudged her for having the power to attract him.

George Saunders - CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

What I'm primarily saying,' he says, 'is that this is a time for knowledge assimilation, not backstabbing. We learned a lesson, you and I. We personally grew. Gratitude for this growth is an appropriate response. Gratitude, and being careful never to make the same mistake twice.

Robert Hughes -

Confidence is the prize given to the mediocre

Dave Matthes - the Bastard

Confidence don't mean jack shit in the real world, sis," she once said. I feel myself finding the courage to trust those words more and more with every twist of the knife. Coincidentally, last Tuesday afternoon I was involuntarily exposed to the punch line of an old wise tale that goes something like: "There's beauty that can be found in everything." But why can't the insensitive cunt who said that ever find the courage to look in the mirror? Because poopycock, one might say.

Shannon L. Alder -

When you can identify the insecurities inside the person that is hurting you then you can begin to heal. It isn't about you. It is about their past.

Craig D. Lounsbrough -

The thing that I’m most likely to collapse under is not the weight of the stresses that stand around me, but the ego that sits within me.

Craig D. Lounsbrough -

If it’s about me, I can be assured that there will be a bunch of empty chairs in the auditorium of my life; save the one I’m sitting in.

Craig D. Lounsbrough -

If I can’t quite figure out what an ego is, all I have to do is look for the thing that’s killing itself in the very act of feeding itself.

Craig D. Lounsbrough -

If it has anything to do with me, it has nothing to do with sacrifice.

Craig D. Lounsbrough -

If I’m my biggest fan, the only person in the stadium is probably me.

Munia Khan -

In a world of selfie-addiction smile usually is the brand name for an essential drug called pretense

Criss Jami - Killosophy

You can be yourself without pursuing yourself. Have you ever seen a dog chase his own tail? He just runs in circles.

Craig D. Lounsbrough -

To be an end in myself is to bring an end to myself.

Criss Jami - Killosophy

The 2 extremes, neither one worse than the other: the result of bad religion is self-loathing and violence; the result of bad spirituality is self-worship and narcissism.

Hanif Kureishi - The Buddha of Suburbia

Yes, Eleanor loathed herself and yet required praise, which she then never believed.

George F. Will - One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation

The most capricious modern entitlement is not just Social Security but to self-esteem.

Ramani Durvasula - Should I Stay or Should I Go?: Surviving a Relationship with a Narcissist

The pendulum has overcorrected from the cruel era of rapping a disobedient child’s knuckles with a ruler togiving every child a trophy for showing up. Every child should have the experience of being loved unconditionally, supported, and encouraged,but this requires more than a standing ovation every time he or she enters the room.

John Steinbeck - East of Eden

I remember clearly the deaths of three men. One was the richest man of the century, who, having clawed his way to wealth through the souls and bodies of men, spent many years trying to buy back the love he had forfeited and by that process performed great service to the world and, perhaps, had much more than balanced the evils of his rise. I was on a ship when he died. The news was posted on the bulletin board, and nearly everyone recieved the news with pleasure. Several said, "Thank God that so

William Voegeli - Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State

Etymologically, "compassion" means to suffer together. "Together," however, is different from "identically." Compassion is not the same as selflessness, and not really the opposite of selfishness. Rather, it provides a basis for helping other people that is materially disinterested but emotionally self-regarding. As Rousseau wrote in Emile, "When the strength of an expansive soul makes me identify myself with my fellow, and I feel that I am, so to speak, in him, it is in order not to suffer that

Dominic Riccitello -

I love you, but I’m more in love with myself and that’s the problem.

Criss Jami - Killosophy

The spirit of arrogance most definitely makes you shine. It paints a bright red target on your own forehead.

Rod Serling -

The ultimate obscenity is not caring, not doing something about what you feel, not feeling! Just drawing back and drawing in, becoming narcissistic.

Dean Koontz - Deeply Odd

But the line between moral behavior and narcissistic self-righteousness is thin and difficult to discern

Sophocles -

The only crime is pride.

Caitlyn Paige -

We're walking with our eyes on everyone else, ignoring the screams that come from the people buried alive underneath our feet. Yet we say we're here for each other and say we care. And we hypocritically wonder why everyone is walking passed our own screams as though we don't do the same.

Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Whenever an occasion arose in which she needed an opinion on something in the wider world, she borrowed her husband's. If this had been all there was to her, she wouldn't have bothered anyone, but as is so often the case with such women, she suffered from an incurable case of of pretentiousness. Lacking any internalized values of her own, such people can arrive at a standpoint only by adopting other people's standards or views. The only principle that governs their minds is the question "How do

Criss Jami - Killosophy

Some people's theologies come across as blatantly wrong when weighed against what is revealed in Scripture. However God has mercy on those who may be wrong but genuinely seek understanding before seeking themselves.

Jean Lorrain - Monsieur De Phocas

His fame as an artist requires very tender care. Look what a mask of diplomacy is painstakingly formed by the whole of that fine profile; he is as wily as a cardinal. He has scented in Miss White a useful agent of celebrity, and he has come solely to harness her to the cause of his glory. It is himself that he courts by means of the salaams he offers to her; he only ever flirts with himself. He is the Narcissus of the inkpot...

Sylvia Plath -

I think writers are the most narcissistic people. Well, I musn't say this, I like many of them, a great many of my friends are writers.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana -

Narcissism is as profitable to a model as scruffiness is to a homeless person.

Craig D. Lounsbrough -

It’s thinking that I had the solution that probably created the problem in the first place.

Brené Brown - The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

I see the cultural messaging everywhere that says an ordinary life is a meaningless life. . . . I know the yearning to believe that what I'm doing matters and how easy it is to confuse that with the drive to be extraordinary. I know how seductive it is to use the celebrity culture yardstick to measure the smallness of our lives. And I also understand how grandiosity, entitlement, and admiration-seeking feel like just the right balm to soothe the ache of being too ordinary and inadequate.

Criss Jami - Electric Personality

The hated man is the result of his hater's pride rather than his hater's conscience.

Debra Crown -

The high road is littered with pot shots.

Stephen Jenkinson - Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul

When your focus is on how you feel about things in the world then the things of the world slip from view, your little boat of learning things for what they are are swamped by the swells of how you feel about them. With hard work and with learning, the things of the world are still somehow out there, waiting for you to know about them, no matter how you feel. They survive how you feel about them and they are there before and after the storms of your feelings roar through and abate. Feelings aren'

Wayne Gerard Trotman - Veterans of the Psychic Wars

I see you have returned, my love; and your mood is as dark as ever. Did your soldiers not adore you to your complete satisfaction?

Marty Rubin -

One should love oneself enough not to love oneself too much.

Halle Teart -

Some people think that the world revolves around them but even the Sun is not the center of the Universe.

Ana Claudia Antunes - A-Z of Happiness: Tips for Living and Breaking Through the Chain that Separates You from Getting That Dream

Don´t let egos get in the way to ruin your day. If someone holds their inflated ego, blow it away!

John Oliver -

Politics has become infused with narcissism in America.

Adam Goldberg -

Twitter is the marriage of full-tilt narcissism and full-tilt voyeurism that has finally collided in 140 words.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb - The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Love without sacrifice is like theft

Craig D. Lounsbrough -

If I’m asking what kind of ‘return’ I should be expecting on the sacrifices I’m making, I have in that question revealed the need to ‘return’ that question to wherever I found it and have the word ‘return’ edited out of it.

Kevin Focke -

Love yourself’ the social horde spouts from on high, mere moments later they frown at a bypassing narcissist.

Azar Nafisi - Reading Lolita in Tehran

It is not accidental that the most unsympathetic characters in Austen's novels are those who are incapable of genuine dialogue with others. They rant. They lecture. They scold. This incapacity for true dialogue implies an incapacity for tolerance, self-reflection and empathy.

Erik Pevernagie -

For some, life may be a playground to undermine the brainwaves of others or simply a vainglorious game with an armory of theatrics, illustrating only bleak self-deception, haughty narcissism and dim deficiency in empathy. ("Another empty room")

Brené Brown - and Lead

When I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. I see the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose.

Christopher Farnsworth - and Blood

Zach had once heard the president described as "the most dangerous narcissist alive, because the world really does revolve around him.

Sam Vaknin - Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited

[Abusers] blame the world - circumstances, other people - for their defeats, misfortune, misconduct, and failures. The abuser firmly believes that his life is swayed by currents and persons over which he has no influence whatsoever (he has an external locus of control).But there are even subtler variants of this psychological defense mechanism. Not infrequently an abuser will say: "I made a mistake because I am stupid", implying that his deficiencies and inadequacy are things he cannot help havi

Shahida Arabi - Becoming the Narcissist's Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself

The fact of the matter is, if you haven’t been in an abusive relationship, you don’t really know what the experience is like. Furthermore, it’s quite hard to predict what you would do in the same situation. I find that the people most vocal about what they would’ve done in the same situation often have no clue what they are talking about – they have never been in the same situation themselves.By invalidating the survivor’s experience, these people are defending an image of themselves that they i

Shahida Arabi - Becoming the Narcissist's Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself

(a quote from a survivor)Read up on the psychology of abuse. Listen to music. Being alone to process without chatter. Usually outside doing something physical, doing these things helps you believe you CAN do anything. Share my story without shame.

Keith Aaron Gilbert -

The narcissist, cut off from her spirituality, is one who spends unquantifiable energy supporting and maintaining and utterly and completely fake self, in denial of one's true self, trading it for glamour to compensate for a core of being that is simply wracked,a deep dark cold void; using and abusing others to maintain and sustain the false state. this fake self is contrived in absentia from the connectivity that even the most unaware take for granted. The narcissist doesn't see other human bei

Criss Jami -

Narcissists often feign oppression because narcissists always feel entitled.

Jonathan Franzen - Freedom

Walter had never liked cats. They'd seemed to him the sociopaths of the pet world, a species domesticated as an evil necessary for the control of rodents and subsequently fetishized the way unhappy countries fetishize their militaries, saluting the uniforms of killers as cat owners stroke their animals' lovely fur and forgive their claws and fangs. He'd never seen anything in a cat's face but simpering incuriosity and self-interest; you only had to tease one with a mouse-toy to see where it's tr

Elias Aboujaoude Md -

All we need to release our inner God is a pulpit and an audience, both of which the Internet supplies in great abundance. Too bad that the corollaly to being in God mode in cyberspace is an explosion of narcissism and self-centeredness.

Craig D. Lounsbrough -

Sacrifice” and “self” both begin with the same letter, but the spelling is way different after that.

Craig D. Lounsbrough -

An obese ego is just about the heaviest thing you’ll ever carry. So maybe you should stop feeding it.

Steven Franssen - Make Self-Knowledge Great Again

By aggrandizing one's own abilities and achievements, the grandiose person remains out of touch with who they truly are and as such, remains prone to crossing the boundaries of others.