A Quote by Alan Watts

Self-improvement is a dangerous form of vanity.

Alan Watts

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Dangerous Form Improvement Self Self-Improvement Vanity

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Alan Watts
English - Philosopher
January 6, 1915 - November 16, 1973

My vanity is not remotely physical, it is cerebral. I suppose feeling self-conscious might be a form of vanity, though.

Richard Griffiths

Introspection is self-improvement and therefore introspection is self-centeredness. Awareness is not self-improvement. On the contrary, it is the ending of the self, of the “I,” with all its peculiar idiosyncrasies, memories, demands, and pursuits. In introspection there is identification and condemnation. In awareness there is no condemnation or identification; therefore, there is no self-improvement. There is a vast difference between the two.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

There's a paradox with self-improvement, and it is this: the ultimate goal of all self-improvement is to reach the point where you no longer feel the need to improve yourself.

Mark Manson

The power of self goes beyond words. Self confidence, self improvement, self esteem, self enhancement, self love ... Get yourself right first!

Behdad Sami

In early psychoanalytic thought, narcissism was - and still, of course, is - self-love. The early psychoanalysts used to talk of libido directed at the self. That now feels a little quaint, that kind of language. But it does include the most fierce and self-displaying form of one's individual self. And in this way, it can be dangerous. When you look at Donald Trump, you can really see someone who's destructive to any form of life enhancement in virtually every area. And if that's what Fromm means by malignant narcissism, then it definitely applies.

Robert Jay Lifton

The desire to be the object of public attention is weak, but the excessive dread of it is but a form of vanity and over-self-contemplativeness.

Sara Coleridge

It is less mortifying to believe one's self unpopular than insignificant, and vanity prefers to assume that indifference is a latent form of unfriendliness.

Edith Wharton

Vanity prevents improvement

Ali ibn Abi Talib

Are black people conscious of how excruciatingly self-conscious white people have become in their every interaction with black people? Is this self-consciousness an improvement? Maybe not, because I'm thinking of people in categories rather than as people, which is a famously dangerous thing to do.

David Shields

Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.

Baron de Montesquieu

Whereas the only real solution to the race problem in this country is a solution that involves individual self improvement and collective self improvement in, whereas our own, wherein our own people are concerned.

Malcolm X

Without this ridiculous vanity that takes the form of self-display, and is part of everything and everyone, we would see nothing, and nothing would exist.

Antonio Porchia

If there is a single quality that is shared by all great men, it is vanity. But I mean by vanity only that they appreciate their own worth. Without this kind of vanity they would not be great. And with vanity alone, of course, a man is nothing.

Yousuf Karsh

Vanity is a weakness. I know this. It's a shallow dependence on the exterior self, on how one looks instead of what one is. I know this well... Vanity and dishonesty may be vices, but they're also the first forms of protection I ever knew.

Dennis Lehane

If the denial of death is self-hatred, as it is to deny our freedom and live in fear of death (which is to say, to live in a form of bondage), then the acceptance and affirmation of death is indeed a form of self-love. But I'd want to make a distinction between a form of self-love which is essential to what it means to be human, and a narcissism of self-regard, like Rousseau's distinction between amour de soi and amour propre, self-love and pride.

Simon Critchley

No amount of self-improvement can make up for any lack of self-acceptance.

Robert Holden

A Quote by Alan Watts

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