top of page
Identity Quotes


"The kingdoms of kings are confined, either by mountains or rivers, or by a change in customs or by a difference of language; but my kingdom is as great as the world, because I am neither Italian, nor French, nor Hindu, nor American, nor a Spaniard; I am a cosmopolitan. No country can claim to be my birthplace, God alone knows in which region I shall die. I adopt every custom, I speak every tongue [... ] In this way, you see, being of no country, asking for the protection of no goverment and acknowledging no man as my brother, I am not restrained or hampered by a single one of the scruples that tie the hands of the powerful or the obstacles that block the path of the weak."


"You are special creation."


"Guileless and without vanity,we were still in love with ourselves then. We felt comfortable in our own skins, enjoyed the news that our senses released to us, admired our dirt, cultivated our scars, and could not comprehend this unworthiness."


"People give themselves away so freely, and we can't be lesser to them for this, we've all experienced density in which we've honoured another's journey before our own, and they too, like us will start to believe that they hold a rare infectious gift by being their 100% self. When they realise this, they won't waste another moment giving away apart of them they fought so hard to find."


"The vision of her own personality, of herself as a real everlasting thing, different from anything else, unmergeable, like the sea or the wind, flashed into Rachel's mind, and she became profoundly excited at the thought of living."



"I was just stock in the middle, vague and undefined."


"Some girls feel they are like boys, They play rough, they like a lot of noise."


"Work on making yourself a complete being. Though you were born with the physical traits of one sex, you possess the characteristics of both - including those of plants and animals. You were created as a nearly complete universal being, but with flaws. True perfection can only be achieved when one recognizes that they need to combine their oneness with others and nature. Only then is one considered complete."


"She's not classically beautiful, but somehow that only makes her more interesting."


"What's your name?" he asked above the roar of the music.She leaned close. "My name is Wind," she whispered. "And Rain. And Bone and Dust. My name is a snippet of a half-remembered song."He chuckled a low, delightful sound. She was drunk and silly, and so full of the glory of being young and alive and in the capital of the world that she could hardly contain herself."I have no name," she purred. "I am whoever the keepers of my fate tell me to be."He grasped her by her wrist, running a thumb along the sensitive sknin underneath. "Then let me call you Mine for a dance or two."


"Not that I would not, if I could, be both handsome ...and well-dressed, and a great athlete, and make a million a year, be a wit, a bon-vivant, and a lady-killer, as well as a philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African explorer, as well as a 'tone poet' and saint. But the thing is simply impossible. Such different characters may conceivably at the outset of life be alike possible to a man. But to make any one of them actual, the rest must more or less be suppressed. So the seeker of his truest, strongest, deepest self must review the list carefully, and pick out the one on which to stake his salvation. All other selves thereupon become unreal."


"Yeah, well," I say, "I left Abnegation because I wasn't selfless enough, no matter how hard I tried to be.""That's not entirely true." He smiles at me. "That girl who let someone throw knives at her to spare a friend, who hit my dad with a belt to protect me-that selfless girl, that's not you?"..."You've been paying close attention, haven't you?""I like to observe people/""Maybe you were cut out for Candor, Four, because you're a terrible liar."


"You are a special and unique person, who has never lived before and who will never live in the future."


"What is inherent inside you is your uniqueness and peculiarity."


"That's how I do this life sometimes by making the ordinary just like magic and just like a card trick and just like a mirror and just like the disappearing. Every Indian learns how to be a magician and learns how to misdirect attention and the dark hand is always quicker than the white eye and no matter how close you get to my heart you will never find out my secrets and I'll never tell you and I'll never show you the same trick twice. I'm traveling heavy with illusions."


"I've always looked at America like a foster mother doing it only for the check. At any minute, I just knew she'd be ready to give up on me."


"Without accepting ourselves, we try to meet requirements of society and do everything to be accepted."


"Ego, Identity and Self - the 3 concepts of one's creation that defines them entirely. Have an Ego, for without one, there is nothing but self-doubt. Have an Identity, for without one, there is nothing but an empty shell. Understand your 'Self,' for if you don't, then who or what are you?"


"Were I the Moor I would not be Iago.In following him I follow but myself;Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,But seeming so for my peculiar end.For when my outward action doth demonstrateThe native act and figure of my heartIn compliment extern, 'tis not long afterBut I will wear my heart upon my sleeveFor daws to peck at. I am not what I am."


"You can tell yourself that you would be willing to lose everything you have in order to get something you want. But it's a catch-22: all of those things that you're willing to lose are what make you recognizable. Lose them, and you've lost yourself."


"Be uniquely you. Stand out. Shine. Be colorful. The world needs your prismatic soul!"


"Everybody thinks I'm this delicate little girl."



"I too am my own forerunner, though I sit in the shadows of my trees and seem motionless."


"I'm fairly fond of boys, but my preference is for girls; When I have enough of a girl, she serves me still as a boy."


"Every woman is born with her own sense of style and idea of beauty. To stifle that is a sin as great as snuffing out a blossoming bud, a one-of-a-kind flower will never bloom again."


"Freedom is being whole on my own and not needing somebody else to complete me."


"Dont try to be useful. Try to be yourself; that is enough, and that makes all the difference."


"You must show the world that you are a chosen generation."


"Somehow, we'll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be. But for now, we simply have to be satisfied with who we are."


"...something important is lost if this man has been forced to deny his own nature."


"Sometimes you're the protagonist and someone else is the hero."


"If you spend your time trying to become who everyone else wants you to be, you will be torn apart. There is no way to be perfect in a world with so many different opinions on the right way to be. If you want to feel whole, you have to live as who you believe you need to be."


"If everyone wants to be somebody, I want to be somebody else."


"Your original self is worth more than your imitation of someone else."


"I really think the range of emotions and perceptions I have had access to as a black person and as a female person are greater than those of people who are neither.... So it seems to me that my world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got bigger."


"Sometimes I feel as though there are two me's, one coasting directly on top of the other: the superficial me, who nods when she's supposed to nod and says what she's supposed to say, and some other, deeper part, the part that worries and dreams... Most of the time they move along in sync and I hardly notice the split, but sometimes it feels as though I'm two whole different people and I could rip apart at any second."


"I didn't want you flawless - I have a bare wall at home that's flawless - I wanted your character trapped in the amber of your skin..."


"You've been brought up like a gentleman and a Christian, and I should be false to the trust laid upon me by your dead father and mother if I allowed you to expose yourself to such temptation.'Well, I know I'm not a Christian and I'm beginning to doubt whether I'm a gentleman,' said Philip."


"Don't be deceived; who they say you are, is not who you become. You become who you think you are. You take the chair in your own programmings!"
bottom of page
