WIST Quotations

Beauvoir, Simone de -- Les Belles Images, ch. 3 (1966) [tr. O’Brian (1968)]

Dave — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 19:47:53 +0000

It’s frightening to think that you mark your children merely by being yourself.

[C’est effrayant de penser qu’on marque ses enfants rien que par ce qu’on est.]

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) French author, existentialist philosopher, feminist theorist
Les Belles Images, ch. 3 (1966) [tr. O’Brian (1968)]
(Source)

(Source (French))

Merton, Thomas -- “Day of a Stranger,” The Hudson Review (Summer 1967)

Dave — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 18:14:44 +0000

In an age where there is much talk about “being yourself” I reserve to myself the right to forget about being myself, since in any case there is very little chance of my being anybody else. Rather it seems to me that when one is too intent on “being himself” he runs the risk of impersonating a shadow.

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) French-American religious and writer [a.k.a. Fr. M. Louis]
“Day of a Stranger,” The Hudson Review (Summer 1967)
(Source)

Sarton, May -- Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing (1965)

Dave — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 05:15:46 +0000

We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.

May Sarton (1912-1995) Belgian-American poet, novelist, memoirist [pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton]
Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing (1965)

Scott-Maxwell, Florida -- The Measure of My Days (1968)

Dave — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 16:52:54 +0000

It is not easy to be sure that being yourself is worth the trouble, but we do know it is our sacred duty.

Florida Scott-Maxwell (1883-1979) American-British playwright, author, psychologist
The Measure of My Days (1968)
(Source)

Parker, Dorothy -- “Indian Summer,” Enough Rope (1926)

Dave — Mon, 04 May 2020 15:11:15 +0000

In youth, it was a way I had
To do my best to please,
And change, with every passing lad,
To suit his theories.

But now I know the things I know,
And do the things I do;
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you!

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer, poet, wit
“Indian Summer,” Enough Rope (1926)
(Source)

Brown, Rita Mae -- (Attributed)

Dave — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 15:57:40 +0000

About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won’t like you at all.

Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
(Attributed)

~Proverbs and Sayings -- Yiddish proverb

Dave — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 13:05:57 +0000

If I try to be like him, who will be like me?

Proverbs, Sayings, and Adages
Yiddish proverb

Wallace, Irving -- Square Pegs: Some Americans Who Dared to Be Different, ch. 1 (1958)

Dave — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 13:26:30 +0000

To be one’s self, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity.

Irving Wallace (1916-1990) American author and screenwriter
Square Pegs: Some Americans Who Dared to Be Different, ch. 1 (1958)
(Source)

Swindoll, Chuck -- Strengthening Your Grip, “On Priorities” (1982)

Dave — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 13:11:26 +0000

Let’s work hard at being real. This means we are free to question, to admit failure or weakness, to confess wrong, to declare the truth. When a person is authentic, he or she does not have to win or always be in the top ten or make a big impression or look super-duper pious. […] Authentic people usually enjoy life more than most. They don’t take
themselves so seriously. They actually laugh and cry and think more freely because they have nothing to prove — no big image to protect, no role to play. They have no fear of being found out, because they’re not hiding anything.

Charles Rozell "Chuck" Swindoll (b. 1934) American evangelist, author, educator
Strengthening Your Grip, “On Priorities” (1982)

De Sade (Marquis) -- Letter to his wife (1783)

Dave — Fri, 24 Oct 2014 13:27:49 +0000

My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care? A poor fool indeed is he who adopts a manner of thinking for others! My manner of thinking stems straight from my considered reflections; it holds with my existence, with the way I am made. It is not in my power to alter it; and were it, I’d not do so.

Donatien Alphonse François de Sade (1740-1814) French aristocrat, philosopher, writer, libertine [The Marquis de Sade]
Letter to his wife (1783)

Persius -- Fourth Satire

Dave — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 13:43:25 +0000

Please not thyself the flattering crowd to hear;
‘Tis fulsome stuff, to please thy itching ear.
[…]
Survey thy soul, not what thou does appear,
But what thou art.

Persius (AD 34-62) Roman poet and satirist [Aulus Persius Flaccus]
Fourth Satire

Nietzsche, Friedrich -- Thus Spoke Zarathustra [Also sprach Zarathustra], Part 4, ch. 73 (1883-85)

Dave — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 11:49:50 +0000

If ye would go up high, then use your own legs! Do not get yourselves carried aloft; do not seat yourselves on other people’s backs and heads!

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
Thus Spoke Zarathustra [Also sprach Zarathustra], Part 4, ch. 73 (1883-85)

Emerson, Ralph Waldo -- “Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series (1841)

Dave — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 11:44:40 +0000

Insist on yourself; never imitate.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series (1841)

Emerson, Ralph Waldo -- “Ethics,” Lecture, Masonic Temple, Boston (1837-02-17)

Dave — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 12:06:11 +0000

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own. But the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Ethics,” Lecture, Masonic Temple, Boston (1837-02-17)

cummings, e e -- A Miscellany (1958)

Dave — Fri, 29 Aug 2014 13:58:14 +0000

To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

e e cummings (1894-1962) American poet and painter [Edward Estlin Cummings]
A Miscellany (1958)

Beecher, Henry Ward -- Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1887)

Dave — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 12:13:13 +0000

There is nothing that makes more cowards and feeble men than public opinion.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1887)

Beatty, Pakenham -- “Self Reliance”

Dave — Fri, 15 Aug 2014 12:52:40 +0000

By your own soul, learn to live
And if men thwart you take no heed.
If men hate you have no care.
Sing your song, dream your dream,
Hope your hope and pray your prayer.

Pakenham Beatty (1855-1930) English poet
“Self Reliance”

Marcus Aurelius -- (Spurious)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) Roman emperor (161-180), Stoic philosopher
(Spurious)
(Source)

The earliest identifiable citation appears as an epigraph to Leo Tolstoy, Bethink Yourselves!, ch. 8 (1904), in Recollections & Essays [tr. Aylmer Maud (1937)]. A cleaner copy can be found at the Nonresistance.org site. The classic (and presumably abridged) version of Bethink Yourselves!, as translated by Chertkov (1904), does not include any of the copious epigraphs, including this one.

Regardless, this phrase is not clearly found in Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, though other parts of the lengthy epigraph appear to be. If ordered by position, this would presumably fall somewhere from 10.6 to 10.8 (i.e., the preceding and following sentences are more clearly identifiable), but the language of this sentence does not seem to line up.