Self-doubt

“ My habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire. ”

“ And thus all our victories contain an inseparable element of defeat. The defeated aspects of the self may no doubt, and in general do, in proportion to the degree of our individuality, belong to the “lower” and relatively more “untrue” self, yet they are elements in the whole self, and their suppression is a genuine if necessary self-suppression. ”

“ Discouragement, fear, doubt, lack of self-confidence, are the germs which have killed the prosperity and happiness of tens of thousands of people. ”

“ But to minds strongly marked by the positive and negative qualities that create severity,—strength of will, conscious rectitude of purpose, narrowness of imagination and intellect, great power of self-control, and a disposition to exert control over others,—prejudices come as the natural food of tendencies which can get no sustenance out of that complex, fragmentary, doubt-provoking knowledge which we call truth. ”

“ It was one of those rare moments in a man's life when, from the outside, through a breach in that wall of excuses and self-deception which he has been at such pains to build, he looks at himself impartially. ”

“ Thus a disconcerting chance or a temporary obstacle rouses no disposition to measure strength with adversity, or to cope with untoward combinations, but an angry amazement, an indignant displeasure, a sense of trespass upon one’s lawful domain of success and happiness that result in blundering egotistic self-assertion, which often fails in the clearance of the obstruction to the paths of bland and self-satisfied progress. ”

“ Learn to limit yourself, to content yourself with some definite thing, and some definite work; dare to be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not, and to believe in your own individuality. Self-distrust is destroying you; trust, surrender, abandon yourself; “believe and thou shalt be healed.” Unbelief is death, and depression and self-satire are alike unbelief. ”

“ I have lived to learn the great lesson that every mishap of my life was of my own procuring, and that self-indulgence and a vindictive spirit are enough to counterbalance tenfold more than all the abilities I ever possessed. ”

“ There is little of the look of a despairing swain on his face, as he concludes his soliloquy, and goes out to see that the outer door is secure, before retiring. A trifle pale, a trifle bored, a trifle cynical, and a trifle sleepy he looks. He also looks, for a man who has just been indulging in a fit of severe self-depreciation, exceedingly confident and full of faith in himself. And why not? Let that man despair who has lost confidence in his own ability to wrest favors from the fingers of Fate or Fortune. ”

“ BUT if I abase myself, and bring myself down to very nothingness, and divest myself of all self-esteem, and reduce myself, as I really am, to mere dust, Thy grace will be favorable to me, and Thy light will draw nigh to my heart; and all self-estimation, how small soever, will be sunk in the depth of my own nothingness, and there lose itself forever. ”

“ Deceive yourself if you will for a time, but sooner or later you, like those from whom you came and of whom you are a part, will be the plaything of self-indulgence and weakness and passion. Fate has made your image that you see in the mirror, refined and comely so that you may see the better the work of heredity when it asserts itself. ”

“ Deceit, then, whether it take the form of a fictitiously high estimation of oneself or the reverse, is the seed that produces an ill crop of Suffering. And we, if we would escape from Suffering and gain peace of mind, must rid ourselves of this self-deceit by all means in our power. It is above all things necessary that we possess an honest and up right heart. ”

“ Are they afraid to go to such extremes? Ah, why then go in that direction at all, if only by such extremes the desired result can be obtained? It is humiliating to degrade one's-self; but is it not still more humiliating to degrade one's-self in vain? ”

“ These facts make Us blush and sweat for shame. But these troubles have been brought about through Our partiality and self-will, giving rise to rascality and blunders leading to calamities. All have been Our own fault from the first to the last. ”

“ It is impossible to tell, nor is time likely to solve the riddle. Must I then forever blame myself, or did I only do in this matter what any honest man would have done in my place? Answer me, some one, for I do not find my lonely bachelor life in any wise brightened by the doubt, and would be grateful to any one who would relieve me of it. ”

“ My knowledge is torture to my foolish, sensitive self; yet while I writhe with the vainest of pangs, I despise utterly the thought of escaping it by illusion, or by forgetfulness, or by any means save the actual removal or conquest of the defect. And this I feel even when the defect is seen to be utterly irremovable without the destruction of myself. Better go on despising myself, and feeling the contempt of others, than return to the delights of foolishness; or, if the pain of knowing what I am is insupportable, then it were better to die, than to live in despicable ignorance. ”

“ It ends in the darkness in which you are now lost; in the self-contradictions in which you are now bewildered; in the stubborn despair by which a man profanes his own soul, and lowers himself to the level of the brutes that perish. ”

“ All things that I am bearing in mind, and all things I am in dread of, are keeping me in troubles, in this way one time, in that way another time, so that if I wasn’t taking pity on my own self it’s long ago I’d have given up my life. ”

“ Selfish are all my regrets, all my trials, and wherefore, then, trouble another with a detail of what self alone can sympathize in, or ameliorate, or cure? I will not;—for once, I will follow reason rather than inclination. ”

“ In judging of our own powers we are just as likely to under- as to over-estimate them, and the results are equally painful.
How acute are the sufferings of a diffident, shy, self-distrustful, over-sensitive disposition! Such a temperament is a sad make-weight in the struggle of life. ”

“ You will say, you have much to struggle with in your own character, and that nothing can satisfy you while you have to contend with self so continually. But your greatest temptation is to dwell too much upon your internal trials, leading you almost insensibly to that most insidious and deceptive form of self-love, a too constant thought of self even in regard to one's faults. ”

“ To find your courage quail, not before real danger, but at phantoms and shadows—nay, actually at your own horrid self—to feel every act of life and every moment of business a task, an effort, a trial, and a pain. ”

“ Most of us know how, when we have some difficult duty to perform, a chance word of discouragement will dwell in the mind, eating away our self-confidence and attuning our minds to failure. All the efforts of our will fail to throw it off ”

“ There is, however, a danger here. It is possible for the reaction from the creed of human self-reliance to be so violent that the disillusioned spirit is carried by it right across into pessimism and despair. ”

“ He saw all this; and for a time he came out of himself, out of his selfishness—out of the constant preoccupation of his interests and his desires—out of the temple of self and the concentration of personal thought. ”

“ Too many yield in the perpetual conflict between temptation to gratify the coarser appetites and aspiration for the good, the true, and the beautiful. Voices unheard by those around us whisper "Don't," but too often self-respect is lost, the will lies prostrate, and the debauch goes on. ”

“ Remember, while you are walking about to-day, feeling self-conscious of your own strength to resist any and everything in the line of temptation, the time may come when you will lose control of yourself; or, it may be, some one dear to you will fall. In such cases, how many excuses you can find for yourself or him. Can you find none for those now suffering for the same? I feel impelled by some power to speak of those very people in a few lines. ”

“ But if sometimes in unguarded moments a cloud of general distrust in man rises within my heart, it is at the aspect of such gratuitous self-degradation, for which even error and ignorance can hardly serve as an excuse. ”

“ All the victims of discouragement, those who are suffering from despondency, those who are going through life disheartened, hopeless, despairing, are the authors of their own misery. They persist in killing the very thing they are pursuing, in queering their own quest by the poison of doubt. ”

“ You will find the weaknesses necessary to deprive you of all confidence in your own strength; but this discovery, far from discouraging, will but serve to destroy your self-reliance, and raze to the ground the edifice of pride.
Our faults, even those most difficult to bear, will all be of service to us if we make use of them for our humiliation without relaxing our efforts to correct them. We must bear with ourselves without either flattery or discouragement, a mean seldom attained. ”

“ Can any anguish equal the depths of those blues in which a man's whole self hangs in suspense before his own eyes, and he doubts whether he himself, with his entire outfit and apparatus, body, soul, and spirit, isn't to be, after all, a complete failure? ”

“ Being fully persuaded, owing to his lack of imaginative sympathy, that his own outlook on life is alone compatible with mental sanity, and yet being too clear-sighted to accept that outlook as satisfactory, he will mingle with his frivolity a strain of bitterness and discontent,—the bitterness of self-corroding scepticism, and the discontent which grows apace through its very effort to ignore its own existence. ”

“ They are not aware that by impressing these unfortunate images of themselves upon their mental mirror they are seriously injuring their self-confidence, their ultimate chance of being what they would like to be or of getting what they desire. ”

“ From this continual reaction of your mind on your heart, from this insatiable need of occupying your thoughts, is born the fatal habit of self-examination, that entices you to such horrid study of your own conduct, and the spirit of analysis that leads you to the discovery of such unworthy motives in others. ”

“ When the mind enters the fear of loss and begins to feel that there is going to be loss, the first loss is the loss of self-possession. You lose your hold upon your own powers, and, in consequence, begin to weaken. Your faculties fail to do their best, your work becomes inferior, your personality does not attract as it did, and your power to inspire confidence in others, is on the wane. You suffer loss in all things, physical, mental and spiritual, and you are daily losing ground. ”

“ They have so utterly failed that they have lost their vital confidence, and they have become pathetic victims of self-disparagement. What do they need? They need to have their lamps re-lit with the cheering light of hope. ”

“ Many of us find it difficult—even impossible—to accept this reasoning, and why? Because our minds are always more or less attuned to the lower key of Self—Self, and our own private and particular sorrow. ”

“ You are prejudiced when it comes to judging yourself. You compare your weakness with your friends' strength, and this comparison is unfair; it makes you lose confidence.
Doubt and Belief.
Nothing hurts one worse than doubting one's own ability, assets, and character. When you find yourself experiencing doubt, or inability, or hard luck, turn square around and say: "Begone, doubt; henceforth I have belief."
Say: "I have ability; I have pluck, and pluck means luck."
Always express confidence, faith, courage, and cheer thoughts, whether you feel them or not. ”

“ I waste myself for others, give myself!
Let God take notice, and reward the gift!
This is the failure’s recourse often-times,
A prodigal flinging of the self—let God
Find what He can of good, or find all good. ”

“ Such search for one’s own will often occupies, in the practical life of youth, some very anxious years. Idleness, defective modes of conduct, self-defeating struggles without number, fickle loves that soon die out, may long accompany what the youth himself all the while regards as the search for his own will, for the very soul of his own inner and conscious purposes. ”

“ The cause is the reaching and grasping, the unreasonable insistence on its own way of kicking, dust-raising self-will at the back of the mind.
A quiet will, a will that can remain quiet through all emergencies, is not a self-will. It is the self that raises the dust—the self that wants, and strains to get its own way, and turns and twists and writhes if it does not get its own way. ”

“ Which modes of choice 178 proceed naturally from a petulant sympathy with local and immediately visible interests or sorrows, not regarding their large consequences, nor capable of understanding more massive view or more deeply deliberate mercifulness;—but peevish and horror-struck, and often incapable of self-control, though not of self-sacrifice. There are more people who can forget themselves than govern themselves. ”

“ Supposing we withdraw from pain into nonentity, into the deaf, dumb, and rigid sphere of self-surrender, self-forgetfulness, self-effacement—one is another person when one leaves these protracted and dangerous exercises in the art of self-mastery, one has one note of interrogation the more, and above all one has the will henceforward to ask more, deeper, sterner, harder, more wicked, and more silent questions, than anyone has ever asked on earth before. ”

“ If he failed, or barely avoided failure, perpetual anxiety ate out his heart; and if he succeeded, his success usually made him a grosser and more hopelessly self-satisfied materialist than if he had failed. ”

“ Weeks ago, in pride and self-confidence, I made the effort, and failed miserably, as might have been expected. Instead of being a gifted and brilliant man, as I supposed, that had been suddenly brought under a cloud as much through misfortune as fault, I have discovered myself to be a weak, commonplace, illiterate fellow, strong only in bad passions and bad habits. ”