Be what you are. This is the first step towards becoming better than you are.--J. C. Hare & A. W. Hare (Guesses at Truth: Second Series)
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.--Dr. Suess
Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan's egg.--Hans Christian Andersen
A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.--Maya Angelou (quoted in Mind Your Own Bizniche by Squire)
But an accurate definition of the self is impossible. You are more than you realize, more than you can define. And the more time you spend trying to nail down the definition, the less time you spend living right now. ... Your past is not your identity... You, living now, is your identity.--George Lawrence-Ell (The Invisible Clock)
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.--Parkenham Beatty
Committing yourself is a way of finding out who you are. A man finds his identity by identifying.--Robert Terwilliger
Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.--Pope John XXIII
Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face.--Carol Mosely-Braun
A desire to be in charge of our own lives, a need for control, is born in each of us. It is essential to our mental health, and our success, that we take control.--Robert F. Bennett
Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do and damned if you don't.--Eleanor Roosevelt
Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones tend to take care of themselves.--Dale Carnegie
Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got.--Janis Joplin
Don't listen to those who say, "It's not done that way." Maybe it's not, but maybe you will. Don't listen to those who say, "You're taking too big a chance." Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out by today. Most importantly, don't listen when the little voice of fear inside of you rears its ugly head and says, "They're all smarter than you out there. They're more talented, they're taller, blonder, prettier, luckier and have connections…" I firmly believe that if you follow a path that interests you, not to the exclusion of love, sensitivity, and cooperation with others, but with the strength of conviction that you can move others by your own efforts, and do not make success or failure the criteria by which you live, the chances are you'll be a person worthy of your own respect.--Neil Simon
Every year I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will risk nothing, and which shirking pain, misses happiness as well. No one ever yet was the poorer in the long run for having once in a lifetime "let out all the length of all the reins."--Mary Cholomondeley
