Self-expression

“ And the need of self-expression felt by all those who have not the gift of communicating themselves fully and easily in speech or manner, a strong need in her case, from her having so much to express, was the spur that drove her to seek and find the mode of so doing in art. ”

“ Perfect self-expression will never be labor; but of such absorbing interest that it will seem almost like play. ”

“ Self-expression is something infinitely more subtle than the moderns conceive. This man studied to express himself: he investigated his ego, and thereby cut himself off from Life more completely than any anchorite, for the anchorite had at least heaven in addition to himself. ”

“ I have arrived at a certain sort of self-knowledge and there are, I find, very distinct imperatives for me, but I am quite prepared to admit there is no proving them imperative on any one else. One's political proceedings, one's moral acts are, I hold, just as much self-expression as one's poetry or painting or music. ”

“ Self-expression in any legitimate form tends to call out what is in a man, his resourcefulness, inventiveness; but no other form of self-expression develops a man so thoroughly and so effectively, and so quickly unfolds all of his powers, as expression before an audience. ”

“ She confused him and hindered the flow of his ideas. Self-expression had never seemed at once so desirable and so impossible. ”

“ First, we observe that those three capacities or faculties which we have under consideration—the thinking faculty, the feeling faculty, the willing or acting faculty—practically cover all the ways in which the self can react to other selves and other things. From their combination come all the possibilities of self-expression which are open to man. ”

“ We have said that the greatest need of the human heart is for self-expression. To satisfy the heart that act of expression must be a creative act. True interpretation is creative expression. The fundamental step toward creative expression is complete possession of the thought to be expressed. Complete possession depends upon your power to con [Pg 58] centrate your mind upon a thought until it is your own. The first step in interpretation is to establish vitality in thinking.
The new arithmetic trains the mind to see the relation behind the mathematical statement of the relation. ”

“ The Real Always There
¶ But the real individual is always there, filled with the tendencies of his type, bending always toward them, constantly seeking opportunities to run as he was built to run, forever striving toward self-expression. It is this ever-active urge which causes him to revert, in the manifold activities of everyday life, to the methods, manners and peculiarities common to his type. ”

“ Their instinct of self-expression in the arts has been slower to assert itself than those other traits which we have been considering,—self-reliance, fair-play, common order, the desire of personal development. ”

“ And the more I perspire over my periods the more self-exacting I seem to become. There will arrive a time, I fear, when my ideal of expression will be so high I will not be able to express myself at all. ”

“ Within the body, as a dweller and a motive power, is the ego, the real self. It is that and that only which can be developed and which possesses those attributes, compelling, bye and bye, success. It is that which must, to some degree, be understood. Be the body what it may, the real self has the power of expression and improvement. That real self will be spoken of as the ego, and its power considered. ”

“ In each expression of yourself—in your every word, tone, and act—you convey some idea of your particular character and ability. You should know how to make true, attractive impressions of your best self ”

“ There are two great styles—the self-conscious, like that of Gibbon or Macaulay, where great success in expression is accompanied by an unceasing and manifest vigilance that expression shall succeed, and where you see at each step that there is or has been much care and work in the mind, if not on the paper ”

“ The present action no doubt belongs entirely to the personal self, and from this point of view complete expression is possible through the medium of language. From an opposite one, however, the movement of action is towards objective reality, and it requires the complete man to express its movement in his corporeal existence, deed and demeanour, as well as the physiognomical expression of emotions and passions, and not only these on their own account, but in their effect on other men, and the reactions which are thereby brought into being. ”

“ For it only arises—and here nothing but direct experimentation can be appealed to as evidence—as a contrast-effect in connection with our awareness of a not-self, whether as imposing restraints upon the expression of the self, or as undergoing modification by the self. ”

“ All other men have it in common with me to be 'I': just as it is common to all my sensations and conceptions to be mine. But 'I,' in the abstract, as such, is the mere act of self-concentration or self-relation, in which we make abstraction from all conception and feeling, from every state of mind and every peculiarity of nature, talent, and experience. ”

“ Thoughts are nearer, more akin to our personality than actions are, for they are primary expressions from personality, always preceding conscious speech and action. Of all the indices to our personality of which we have knowledge thoughts are the clearest; we are as our thoughts are. In compliance with that grand mandate, “Know Thyself,” why scan life’s page of speech and actions—shadows—when a vast volume of thoughts—realities—expressions of our personality, lies open to us for finding knowledge of self? ”

“ The prevalence of this obvious preference which we feel for everything of our own is indeed striking. Does it not look as if our dear Ego must first lend its color and flavor to anything in order to make it please us?... Is it not the simplest explanation for all these phenomena, so consistent among themselves, to suppose that the Ego, the self, which forms the origin and centre of our thinking life, is at the same time the original and central object of our life of feeling, and the ground both of whatever special ideas and of whatever special feelings ensue? ”

“ If we consider the nature of any coherent purpose or “mental system,” we shall find that, as the coherent embodiment of a purpose, it possesses a degree of individuality of its own. In proportion to the comprehensiveness, and again to the inner harmony or systematic structure of the interest it embodies, it constitutes a genuine self-existing individual whole of the kind which psychologists recognise as a “self.” ”

“ How comes it, then, to interpret its world of facts as such that another Self could find these same facts, or some aspect of them, to be also its own facts? The power to make this abstraction, however much social intercourse is needed to give it definition, must have its logical roots in the consciousness of the Individual. ”

“ In the first place we have before us the self-subsistency of character, which is, however, a particular one, that is, a definite individual self-absorbed in its world, its specific qualities and aims. ”

“ Large.—With Comparison large, one will be strongly given to criticising and analyzing, and will readily detect fallacies and improprieties that would escape the observation of those in whom this organ is small. If Ideality and Individuality are large, his language will abound with elevated metaphors and figures of speech, but if Causality is small, his judgment will be defective. If Secretiveness is small, and Combativeness and Self-esteem large, he will be strongly inclined to criticise every observation he hears, and will thus excite enmity and ill-will. ”

“ Both other selves and my own self are intellectual constructions, each as secure as we can expect special facts to be. But, if any one stands out for demonstration, then neither is demonstrated. And, if this demand is pressed, you must remain with a feeling about which you can say nothing, and which is, emphatically, not the self of any one at all. ”

“ Still it should be remembered that the only means by which the Essence and the inner self can be verified, is their appearance in outward reality; whereas the appeal which men make to the essential life, as distinct from the material facts of conduct, is generally prompted by a desire to assert their own subjectivity and to elude an absolute and objective judgment. ”

“ Now self-realisation is a twofold process. In the absence of a fitter and more adequate word, I have applied the term perceptive to those faculties by means of which we lay hold upon the world that surrounds us, and draw it into ourselves and make it our own. ”

“ One of the surest signs that an idea or feeling is coming to the surface of consciousness—surer than the appearance of one or two new words—is the tendency of an old one to form compounds and derivatives. After the Reformation we notice growing up in our [154] language a whole crop of words hyphened with self; such are self-conceit, self-liking, self-love, and others at the end of the sixteenth century, and self-confidence, self-command, self-contempt, self-esteem, self-knowledge, self-pity, ... ”

“ Such a centre of consciousness, unlike all else, we rightly call a person, a self or ego; and because of its importance we often fix attention on it, withdrawing notice for the moment from the relations which encompass it. Such an abstraction, if clearly understood, is entirely legitimate. I shall frequently make use of it under the title of the separate or abstract self. But it should be borne in mind that it is an abstraction10 and that the real person is what I shall call the conjunct or social self, made up of that centre of consciousness and the relations in which it stands. ”

“ It is, of course, admitted that the self presents us with fresh matter, and with an increased complication. The point in debate is whether at the same time it supplies us with any key to the whole puzzle about reality. Does it give an experience by the help of which we can understand the way in which diversity is harmonized? Or, failing that, does it remove all necessity for such an understanding? ”

“ The key-note that we find in all these various creations is the imperturbable self-assurance of such characters one and all, which becomes all the more emphatic in proportion as they prove themselves incapable of carrying into effect that which they project. ”

“ No, we must employ a different method of investigation—the Socratic method of self-scrutiny, the conscious attempt to become clear and consistent about our own purposes, the probing and straightening of our aesthetic consciences. ”

“ Whenever the disposition can be stimulated to look at a fact or statement from more than one standpoint, to criticise it even, to see how true it is, or if there are exceptions, self-activity is cultivated. ”

“ Here, if the reader will call to mind that the existing not-self may be an internal state, whose alteration is desired,—and, again, if he will reflect that the idea, viewed theoretically, itself is a not-self,—he may realize the entire absence of a qualification attached to, and indivisible from, one special content. ”

“ And, presupposing an acquaintance with that process, as well as with the evolution of the unreflecting good will, we can content ourselves with saying very little.—The self, as we saw, objectifies its reactions in external things, and rises from satisfaction, as forefelt in this or that sensuous object, to the thought of ends, the ideas of permanent objects and pursuits, felt or known to be pleasant, and exciting desire by the ideal affirmation which they bring. ”

“ It is by comparing the knowledge that I have of my own impressions, ideas, feelings, powers, &c., with my knowledge of the same or similar impressions, ideas, &c., in others, and with the still more imperfect conception that I form of what passes in their minds when this is supposed to be essentially different from what passes in my own, that I acquire the general notion of self. ”

“ It is only by regarding, as it seems to me, the conception or idea of the empirical self as a secondary unitary complex organized by experience that we can approach the solution of the problem of the self and understand the phenomenon of two selves in one personality, as so often occurs in multiple personality. ”

“ Now, if we look back upon the facts stated, we have the manifestation, the realization, and the actualization of self-conscious intelligence as the three spheres or stages in the process which evolves and involves the entire activity of man, both practical and theoretical. It is also obvious that the realization of self-conscious intelligence in the family, society, and the state, and its actualization in Art, Religion, and Philosophy, depend in their genesis upon its manifestation in the individual. ”

“ In other words it presents directly before our vision an essentially independent action as a definite fact, which does not merely originate from the personal life of character under the process of self-realization, but receives its determinate form as the result of the substantive interaction in concrete life of ideal intention, many individuals and collisions. ”

“ It is the essential nature of my self, as finite, equally to assert and, at the same time, to pass beyond itself; and hence the objects of self-sacrifice and of self-advancement are each equally mine. If we are willing to push a metaphor far beyond its true and natural limits, we may perhaps state the contrast thus. ”