“It’s quite good when you fall flat on your bum on a creative level. Critics can hate what I do, or I’ve got something completely wrong, and it’s good because that ego thing gets zapped for a while.”
― Abi Morgan
“Your job as a producer is to make suggestions without putting your ego in front of everything else. Also, I think you want to focus on that artist’s best qualities and really highlight them.”
― Adam Schlesinger
“As far as base humiliation goes, acting is a tough business. It’s a tough, embarrassing thing to do for a living when you’re starting out, and you better not have any ego or pride, because that will be wiped away clean by utter devastation.”
― Adam Scott
“I’ve worked in this business long enough that I know people who complain, like, ‘My character does this, and my character does that,’ and I think it’s just ego talking.”
― Adina Porter
“I think everyone is born 100 percent ego, and after that it’s just adjustment.”
― Agnes Martin
“I think one of the interesting things about poker is that once you let your ego in, you’re done for.”
― Al Alvarez
“The ego is kind of a big, unwieldy thing. It’s not so easily tamed or subdued.”
― Alan Ball
“The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention.”
― Alan Watts
“The ego is a fascinating monster.”
― Alanis Morissette
“Canada has a passive-aggressive culture, with a lot of sarcasm and righteousness. That went with my weird messianic complex. The ego is a fascinating monster. I was taught from a young age that I had to serve, so that turned into me thinking I had to save the planet.”
― Alanis Morissette
“An actor is totally vulnerable. His total personality is exposed to critical judgment – his intellect, his bearing, his diction, his whole appearance. In short, his ego.”
― Alec Guinness
“When you see things upside down, the ego can be extraordinarily funny; it’s absurd. But it’s tragic at the same time.”
― Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
“It’s very healthy to be aware of your ego.”
― Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
“My ego every day is more and more polite. I tame it.”
― Alejandro Jodorowsky
“Surrealism – in particular with Salvador Dali – was all about ego. It was all about extreme individualism.”
― Alejandro Jodorowsky
“For a spy novelist like me, the Edward J. Snowden story has everything. A man driven by ego and idealism – can anyone ever distinguish the two? – leaves his job and his beautiful girlfriend behind. He must tell the world the Panopticon has arrived. His masters vow to punish him, and he heads for Moscow in a desperate search for refuge.”
― Alex Berenson
“One big power of an actor is knowing when to say no to something. It can be very tempting to say yes to something, because you’re flattered that somebody would like to work with you, and your ego sort of takes over, but it’s important to ask whether there could be something you could add to a project by being part of it.”
― Alex Lawther
“Reddit offers the opportunity for us as humans to connect on a much deeper, broader level because users have an alter ego and aren’t tied to a social network of friends with whom they want to share how perfect their lives are.”
― Alexis Ohanian
“Parents are destined to sin against their kids; it’s inevitable. As is narcissism and the human condition. Everyone has their ego and their ambitions. Life happens in between.”
― Alice Ripley
“My strength as a singer is my versatility. I find it really frustrating when I’m only expected to show off. The music industry is awash with female acrobats. What happens to the song, and treating it for its sake and not as an ego example?”
― Alison Moyet
“The column’s worked out great for me. I’ve gotten a ton of ego satisfaction, had a lot of fun, won a batch of prizes and occasionally done some public good.”
― Allan Sloan
“We actors have a big problem. We have a lot of insecurity and we are fragile. We surround ourselves with people who praise our ego and lie to us… till that moment you realise that these people are not helping you get ahead.”
― Amala Paul
“I know that some of the spiritual beliefs that I have are that if I come from a place of love, and I try to get out of my ego and my desire to want more and be selfish in any shape or form, then whatever I’m doing is not good.”
― Amber Valletta
“We are all idealists in that we are ever discontented with the present state of the Ego and the World.”
― Ameen Rihani
“I’m one of seven kids. That’ll keep your ego in check.”
― Amy Adams
“Moving to L.A. was hard. I had a career in Spain, and you have to forget your ego. I was a nobody again.”
― Ana de Armas
“Donald Trump is a lost soul wandering this Earth. He’s been led down the Willy Loman path and believes his own hype. He’s serving his little self and his little ego; otherwise, why would he need to overcompensate so much?”
― Andrew Garfield
“A lot of people have this ego need that makes them want to believe that Earth is the center of the universe and humans are the most important species, the supreme expression of creation.”
― Ann Druyan
“If I took myself too seriously, I would be a mess every day because the world keeps my ego in check.”
― Anna Kendrick
“I think part of becoming a wonderful actor and part of defining your craft is defining yourself and being confident in yourself, so when the hard knocks come, and you don’t get a job for five years, and your ego is being kicked around, you can pull yourself out of it.”
― Annaleigh Ashford
“Usually, new producers and writers want to put their stamp on a show. They don’t want to continue what’s working. They want to reinvent the wheel. It’s an ego thing.”
― Anthony Geary
“I want to keep my head in the game, my ego low.”
― Anthony Scaramucci
“I do have an ego, but I acknowledge the help I get.”
― Anton Corbijn
“The worst thing you can have as an actor is too big an ego. It just kills creativity.”
― Ari Graynor
“I’m such a theater geek. Most of my friends are in this community, and it’s really important for me to keep doing it. It takes the ego out of acting, whereas movies tend to involve it.”
― Ari Graynor
“Basically, I think you need two things to get by in this world: a sense of humor and the ability to laugh when your ego is destroyed.”
― Arlo Guthrie
“Everybody knows, when you have a band, there’s always going to be a hierarchy, and there’s always going to be some issue where ego gets involved and causes some kind of shake-up.”
― Ashleigh Murray
“I think at all social networks, be it Facebook or Twitter or whatever it is, there’s an ecosystem that exist there. But there’s also an ego system that exists there.”
― Ashton Kutcher
“My performances have finally caught up with my ego.”
― Ato Boldon
“I’ve never really minded being Mrs. Robbie Williams because my ego is relatively small, but it is really nice now that people know there is something else there besides that.”
― Ayda Field
“I am someone without an ego.”
― Ayushmann Khurrana
“For an artiste to grow, for a person to grow, you have to learn. A learner cannot afford to have an ego. Learning can never stop. If it does, then it is death.”
― Ayushmann Khurrana
“’Miss Rumphius’ has been, perhaps, the closest to my heart. There are, of course, many dissimilarities between me and Alice Rumphius, but, as I worked, she gradually seemed to become my alter ego. Perhaps she had been that right from the start.”
― Barbara Cooney
“To have ego means to believe in your own strength. And to also be open to other people’s views. It is to be open, not closed. So, yes, my ego is big, but it’s also very small in some areas. My ego is responsible for my doing what I do – bad or good.”
― Barbra Streisand
“I have a huge ego and a huge inferiority complex at the same time.”
― Barry Gibb
“It’s in the act of having to do things that you don’t want to that you learn something about moving past the self. Past the ego.”
― bell hooks
“We are constantly protecting the male ego, and it’s a disservice to men. If a man has any sensitivity or intelligence, he wants to get the straight scoop from his girlfriend.”
― Betty Dodson
“You would think that wrestling has so much to do with being aggressive and having a big ego, and it’s exactly the opposite.”
― Betty Gilpin
“I’m in the acting business. That’s the ego business.”
― Betty White
“I’m tired of people disturbing the peace, getting on the radio and sounding a hot mess. If I can tell what the note really is, why let them go to the note they think it is? I’ve got that mama vibe. I don’t look at it with an ego.”
― Betty Wright
“Everybody needs to lower his ego.”
― Bhumibol Adulyadej
“The only time I had an ego is I when wanted to have a reverse Undertaker record at WrestleMania, and they messed it up!”
― Big Show
“Let’s face it; God has a big ego problem. Why do we always have to worship him?”
― Bill Maher
“I own and operate a ferocious ego.”
― Bill Moyers
“The most successful entrepreneurs tell you they have a great team. Lots of small-business owners let ego get in the way. Many people helped me along the way. You’ve got to remember the people who were loyal to you, and don’t forget them when you become successful.”
― Bill Rancic
“When you’re older and wiser a lot of the ego has gone out of the window.”
― Billy Ocean
“In 2016, Trump, with his outsized ego, his anti-immigrant and anti-trade positions, coupled with barely disguised racism and deep-seated sexism and a willingness to lie whenever it suited him, was a near perfect fit.”
― Bob Beckel
“I like the moment when I break a man’s ego.”
― Bobby Fischer
“Chess and me, it’s hard to take them apart. It’s like my alter ego.”
― Bobby Fischer
“As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place.”
― Bono
“Any time there is a lot of money or ego involved, people tend to behave badly.”
― Brad Grey
“It was important to have a similar energy in my performance. To make the character too different would have just been about my ego because it didn’t need to be drastically different.”
― Brandon Routh
“I’m not even really attempting to brand myself outside of ‘Humans of New York.’ I think part of the reason for my success is that I’ve put my ego aside and said I’m not going to put all of my effort into trying to promote myself. I’m going to try to promote my work and am going to try to promote my project.”
― Brandon Stanton
“The big message of gospel is that you don’t have to keep fighting the universe; you can stop, and the universe is quite good to you. There is a loss of ego.”
― Brian Eno
“A big ego means that you have some confidence in your abilities, really, and that you’re prepared to take the risk of trying them out.”
― Brian Eno
“I was only ever part of ‘Lost’ – a very small part of an extremely talented writers’ room, where as a writer, it’s sort of your job to sublimate your ego and work in the service of the show and the show’s voice.”
― Brian K. Vaughan
“There’s ego in all of us rugby players.”
― Brian O’Driscoll
“Don’t let a lack of big company names on your resume get you down, but also, don’t let it feed a Silicon Valley ego. Oftentimes, the best candidates come from startups or smaller companies. It shows they are open to risk and can keep up with the long hours and occasional harsh demands.”
― Brit Morin
“It’s not about ego. Really. If it was ego, I’d be telling you about my awesome… oh, never mind.”
― Bruce Perens
“But the star thing I can live with. The music I can’t live without. And that’s how it lays out for me, you know. I got as big an ego and enjoy the attention.”
― Bruce Springsteen
“The star thing I can live with. The music I can’t live without. And that’s how it lays out for me, you know. I got as big an ego and enjoy the attention.”
― Bruce Springsteen
“In America they like my spicy TV alter ego, probably because there were a lot of Italians and Hispanics in the country, but the real L.A. life is a hard-working one.”
― Bruno Tonioli
“Ego gets you inches but it doesn’t get you impact.”
― Cameron Sinclair
“I’m not – I’m not a person looking for money. I have no political ambitions whatsoever. I don’t seek power. I don’t seek any kind of praise. I have no ego to fulfill.”
― Carl Paladino
“When I’m on stage, I know exactly where I am. It’s not an ego thing or anything like that, but I am more in my body and aware of myself and aware of what I’m doing, and I feel more from that, from sharing the music.”
― Carlene Carter
“Am I an ego on legs? No I am not. Do I want to be seen out there all the time saying everything? No, I don’t.”
― Catherine Ashton
“Gnarls Barkley is an alter ego and something like an out of body experience.”
― CeeLo Green
“Zuck is unemotional. He doesn’t get influenced by ego.”
― Chamath Palihapitiya
“When we used to go to the car-wash where people would wipe the windows, my dad would go out and help them and then tip them as well, so I learned my empathy from my dad, and my mum is very empathetic too, but in a very stern way; she will always check my ego.”
― Charlie Puth
“All my ego wants is to be sitting by a lake in Italy. It doesn’t want to be backstage, warming up.”
― Chet Faker
“Maybe, as a Chinese woman, I was never told I would be a filmmaker, so I didn’t have the ego set up.”
― Chloe Zhao
“My personal life is the same. At the end of the day, this is just a job. I love what I do, and it’s a great job. But it’s like my alter ego. There’s Chris Brown the singer. And there’s Christopher Brown, the down-home Tappahannock boy that plays video games and basketball and hangs out.”
― Chris Brown
“Stupidity combined with arrogance and a huge ego will get you a long way.”
― Chris Lowe
“You need ego but mine is not blinding.”
― Christian Lacroix
“I’m an actor; I have an ego that is sometimes disproportionate to the reality of the situation.”
― Christian Slater
“Hollywood is, of course, loaded with egos, but it’s amazing to see how, despite the egos, those collaborators pull together and focus on telling a story rather than butt heads and sabotage what is extremely hard work and investment just because their ego apparently demands it.”
― Christopher Priest
“I have made a number of movies that I have never seen. It’s not a matter of ego. It’s a matter of being disappointed. It’s really a shame. It’s just as difficult to make a movie that no one cares about as to make a hit.”
― Christopher Walken
“GOP leaders need to let go of their ego factions and come together with one primary goal in mind: keeping ‘Billary’ from getting back into the Oval Office.”
― Chuck Norris
“Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts.”
― Clare Boothe Luce
“Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.”
― Colin Powell
“Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.”
― Colin Powell
“Don’t let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn’t go with it.”
― Colin Powell
“I guess I have a little bit of an ego. I’m confidently cocky, you might say.”
― Conor McGregor
“If people want to go do some big outdoor thing for their ego, have them climb snowy mountains rather than shoot animals.”
― Conrad Anker
“Perhaps you could say that mountaineers are driven by ego or our competitiveness, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Whether it’s a huge face in the Himalaya or some crag in the woods behind your house, exploration offers us a unique perspective on the world that you can’t really find anywhere else.”
― Conrad Anker
“The beauty of having your ego checked as many times as my ego was checked in Newark made me recognize how much I needed other people who were very different than me in order to get big things done.”
― Cory Booker
“When you first come out of the box, you want to play the 300-capacity place, then it’s 1,600-capacity, then it’s an arena – so, do you want to be in a stadium now? The ego keeps telling you that it’s not enough.”
― Craig David
“If I had a weak ego, and doubts about this, the first genome would not yet have been completed with US and UK government funding.”
― Craig Venter
“I think Ronda’s biggest fear was losing to me, so if we were to do it in WWE, she would have to win. I don’t have such a big ego, but if we were to put on a show for the fans, something like that, no problem.”
― Cris Cyborg
“Be thankful for all successes, lose your ego, take risks, fail fast, and if you don’t absolutely love what you do, run!”
― Cynthia Rowley
“From compassion springs humility. The ego is verily a gateway to hell. The person who is egoistic is far from being religious.”
― Dada Vaswani
“You need a big ego to be an artist.”
― Damien Hirst
“After years of doing it, you learn the difference between your ego and your opinion. When you’re married you have to cut through that.”
― Dan Castellaneta
“When you truly believe in your idea or your company or yourself, then you don’t need to have a huge ego or a huge personality.”
― Dan Pena
“The great thing with film is that it doesn’t have an ego. It’s just a film. Everybody that makes them has an ego, and the problem with awards and stuff like that is that it always affects the egos, and everyone gets stained by it in some way. And that can be fine and very innocent, but it can be horrible as well.”
― Danny Boyle
“Certainly when, you know, you put a lot of creative people together, there’s ego and tension and all that stuff comes into play. But on the flip side, there’s a lot of camaraderie and closeness.”
― Darren Star
“As an actor, I’m always critical watching others; it’s just the nature of the beast. For me, any performance that doesn’t cause my ego to say, ‘I can do that’ really signifies that it’s spectacular.”
― David Alan Basche
“In retrospect I realize that the threat was about ego rather than the validity of the music.”
― David Baker
“I do value the respect I get from my contemporaries, but to have Oasis cover my song, to have Puff Daddy cover a song, to have Goldie come along to my gigs – that’s where my ego is at. To have my fellow musicians like what I do, that’s very cool.”
― David Bowie
“I think much has been made of this alter ego business. I mean, I actually stopped creating characters in 1975 – for albums, anyway.”
― David Bowie
“Part of what makes you great as a young player can hurt you at the end of your career, in terms of you need a certain amount of ego, a certain amount of arrogance to be able to play well and to push yourself and trick yourself into thinking you’re better than you really are.”
― David Cone
“Learning to accept failure on multiple levels is, to my way of thinking, the key to become a world-class therapist. But that means humility, and setting your ego aside, while you develop superb new technical skills.”
― David D. Burns
“As a typical creative, I am all ego and insecurity!”
― David Droga
“There are certain societal laws that are just accepted, things that are arbitrary. I think the fun thing about psychotics is that they question that. It can be very freeing… like, my ego or my individuality trumps society’s law.”
― David Harbour
“I think all people are familiar with thinking about their death and trying to come to terms with the fact that we will, at some point, no longer exist. The loss of one’s ego is very tough to reconcile with; you really have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to wrap your head around the idea of just not existing anymore.”
― David Lowery
“Ego suppression can be an act of ostentation.”
― David Milch
“It’s tough to be in a relationship with a musician, because it reads sometimes as this ego and self-involvement when it’s really just concentration and focus.”
― David Sanborn
“The great corrupter of public man is the ego. Looking at the mirror distracts one’s attention from the problem.”
― Dean Acheson
“When you treat yourself with the kindness and high regard that you would give to one of your spiritual heroes, your body becomes the epicenter of quiet joy rather than a battlefield for the ego.”
― Debbie Ford
“Beneath the surface of your ego’s insatiable cravings, your authentic desires are waiting patiently for you to acknowledge, claim and express them.”
― Debbie Ford
“My ego is one thing. Of course I want people to like what I do. Of course. There’s no doubt. You wouldn’t do it. But I think what people don’t fully know is how responsible you feel for so many entities. So many hardworking people who’ve collaborated.”
― Debra Granik
“If you’re in such a position of power and your ego is such that this is not possible, then its essential to have a small cadre of very bright, committed people who are questioning, exploring and understanding these emerging concepts.”
― Dee Hock
“We must go beyond the constant clamor of ego, beyond the tools of logic and reason, to the still, calm place within us: the realm of the soul.”
― Deepak Chopra
“On a film crew, you can see very quickly that some people who are working with you are stronger than you. Then you have to have the humility to listen to them. And because very often they have better ideas than yours, it can be tough on the evil ego. But it makes a better film.”
― Denis Villeneuve
“As a director, you’re a bit of a dictator. But I feel that you’re a better director if you’re open to other people’s ideas. It means that it’s tougher: you have to be in a choosing process; you have to put the ego aside. As long as everybody’s aiming in the same direction… I’m open to my main partners in the film crew.”
― Denis Villeneuve
“To have a little recognition, that is very nice, you dig. It is good for the ego, for the psyche.”
― Dexter Gordon
“Every writer knows that unless you were born gifted with either supreme confidence or outsize ego, handing in your work holds, in some cases, admitted terror. If that’s too strong, at least fairly high anxiety.”
― Dick Cavett
“Competition keeps you young. It motivates you. It challenges your ego. Messi and Ronaldo have this with each other.”
― Diego Forlan
“I don’t feel I have an alter ego.”
― Dita Von Teese
“Any comparison to a WWE legend or someone I’ve looked up to is really cool, but make no mistake about it, my ego is too big to want to be a really good replica of someone else!”
― Dolph Ziggler
“I don’t need to beat Faber, because his ego will always beat him. He’s got excuses for every loss he’s ever had.”
― Dominick Cruz
“Drugs, alcohol and ego. They are a bad mix.”
― Don Dokken
“Vietnam was a lie but at least there was a political agenda. It was the domino theory. Iraq is about nothing but George Bush’s ego laced with imperialist ambitions. And it was helped by your government.”
― Donald Sutherland
“I think I probably got a lot of my father’s natural security or ego or whatever. I can be my own person and not have to live under his shadow. I definitely look up to him in many ways – I’d like to be more like him when it comes to business – but I think I’m such a different person, it’s hard to even compare us.”
― Donald Trump, Jr.
“I appreciate when people give us some positive feedback, and in the past, when I was younger, I might have allowed it to get to my head and have a bit of an ego.”
― Drew McIntyre
“That connectivity with the audience that I get to enjoy, that’s my church. It’s not one of ego or anything like, ‘I’m on the stage and the lights.’ It’s just this connectivity, and it’s always been that way for me.”
― Duff McKagan
“Check your ego at the door. The ego can be the great success inhibitor. It can kill opportunities, and it can kill success.”
― Dwayne Johnson
“It is probably very necessary to present your ego at some point.”
― Eberhard Weber
“The personal ego already has a strong element of dysfunction, but the collective ego is, frequently, even more dysfunctional, to the point of absolute insanity.”
― Eckhart Tolle
“When people get taken over by the ego to such an extent, there is nothing else in their mind except the ego. They can no longer feel or sense their humanity – what they share with other human beings, or even with other life forms on the planet. They are so identified with concepts in their minds that other human beings become concepts as well.”
― Eckhart Tolle
“To me the ego is the habitual and compulsive thought processes that go through everybody’s mind continuously. External things like possessions or memories or failures or successes or achievements. Your personal history.”
― Eckhart Tolle
“In the West, as well as some other parts of the world, the personal sense of ego tends to predominate, whereas in other areas, there is a more collective sense of ego. This collective ego emphasizes the ‘we’ rather than the ‘I.’”
― Eckhart Tolle
“Because of its phantom nature, and despite elaborate defense mechanisms, the ego is very vulnerable and insecure, and it sees itself as constantly under threat. This, by the way, is the case even if the ego is outwardly very confident.”
― Eckhart Tolle
“I want to be respected as an actor. There’s my ego. But I don’t have a great need to be liked by an audience.”
― Eddie Marsan
“If you get conquered by ego, then you are losing the fight.”
― Edgar Ramirez
“It’s very good for you, riding. You know how every model is like, ‘I do yoga.’ Well, I find horses to have the same effect, in that you have to put your ego aside and concentrate on making the horse do the things you want it to do, and move in the way you want it to move – particularly if you’re doing dressage.”
― Edie Campbell
“Everything comes back to the horse, which is why I love it. You put your ego aside, and you concentrate on getting the best performance out of this creature.”
― Edie Campbell
“Part of ego is displaying the ego. I’ve got ego, and I think I’m really good. But maybe I fall down in trying to sell it to people.”
― Edward Ruscha
“I’m not one of those women writers who are obsessed by their ego, possibly because I don’t have one.”
― Elfriede Jelinek
“I’ve got a big ego, I admit it; I’m ego-driven.”
― Eli Broad
“In a novel, I could submerge my ego in a character’s and let his perceptions take over.”
― Elizabeth Moon
“I work really hard at trying to see the big picture and not getting stuck in ego. I believe we’re all put on this planet for a purpose, and we all have a different purpose… When you connect with that love and that compassion, that’s when everything unfolds.”
― Ellen DeGeneres
“I am a bit difficult to be around sometimes. I can be stubborn on a lot of things, and I’m set, but I can also adapt in a conflict situation and don’t hold on to an ego. I end up seeing the larger good and adapt to it, provided it benefits me. I may come across as a cold person, but I am extremely sentimental.”
― Emraan Hashmi
“I’m not over-enamored of complicated books, and wonder if it’s more for the author’s ego than anything else?”
― Eric Hill
“I wrote and recorded a song that I highly doubt I will release. The lyrics are somewhat risque. I may have to create an alter ego, and she can be the ‘singer.’”
― Erika Christensen
“The ego is as little absolutely permanent as are bodies.”
― Ernst Mach
“Art has more ego to it than what I do.”
― Eva Zeisel
“People come into public life for different reasons. None of us are ego-challenged, I think, or we probably wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing, so if anyone tells you that they don’t like the sound of the applause and the ego gratification, I don’t think they’re being straight with you.”
― Evan Bayh
“Professional societies are sooner or later fractured by the ego of their leaders. Everyone wants to be president, chairman, CEO; no one wants to be a mere follower.”
― F. Sionil Jose
“We are shallow because we are ‘mayabang,’ ego driven, and do not have the humility to understand that we are only human, much too human to mistake knowledge for wisdom.”
― F. Sionil Jose
“I always wanted to have sort of an alter ego.”
― Finn Balor
“I always wanted to be an actress. And it wasn’t ego. I felt so little about myself, considered myself such a sparrow. Not just my size. I thought I was so plain… I did plays not to show off but because if I did that – I didn’t realize it at the time – I would be somebody other than this person I didn’t really approve of.”
― Frances Bay
“The sense of crisis is everything for Trump – even if it’s largely invented. His depiction of darkness justifies his candidacy, the need to violently shake the system. His ability to conjure fear is what distinguished him from all those career pols he has vanquished. And it suits his ego.”
― Franklin Foer
“To walk around with an ego is a bad thing. To have confidence in yourself is a great thing.”
― Fred Durst
“Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‘Ego’.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
“If I hadn’t become a golfer, I doubt I’d be wealthy, because I don’t have the sort of ego that drives a person all day long. I might have wound up driving a tractor.”
― Fuzzy Zoeller
“I’m a straight shooter, and most of the time my ego doesn’t interrupt my relationships.”
― Gabriel Macht
“My mother is the sort of a person who has no boundaries and no filter. She also has a big ego, but it’s a very unique one. And I grew up with lots of artists in an environment where conformity and the norm were totally not what anybody was after.”
― Gaby Hoffmann
“I’m not confident in my own ability to resist the titanic force of my own ego.”
― Garth Risk Hallberg
“The ego being shattered is not what frightens me – that can be useful for writing – but the ego being inflated is sort of like it dying of gout.”
― Garth Risk Hallberg
“All athletes speak about the mental element of athletics, and it usually boils down to the same thing: if you can remove your ego from the game, you can function with much more clarity and you are more likely to succeed. Wouldn’t it be interesting if we all began speaking about the mental element of our lives in this way?”
― Garth Stein
“I’m very competitive, and my ego couldn’t handle that lack of success.”
― Gavin DeGraw
“Discerning the will of God is a very tricky thing, partly because, you know, the little voice in my head can either be God’s voice or it can be my own ego doing a magnificent impression of God’s voice.”
― Gene Robinson
“Everyone in Kiss is replaceable. My ego will tell you that I am not, but that’s not so.”
― Gene Simmons
“I love Captain Cold. I have him on my door at the office. He’s grounded; he doesn’t want to rule the world. He’s not necessarily driven by ego, which a lot of villains are.”
― Geoff Johns
“Nobody ever said that growing old would be easy. Just having to hold the newspaper out in your forties and then hair growing out of unusual parts of your body in your fifties. It’s tough on the ego.”
― Geoffrey Rush
“If you want to be popular and famous, you can do it; it’s dead easy if you have that ego desire. But most of my ego desires as far as being famous and successful were fulfilled a long time ago.”
― George Harrison
“It takes so much strength to say to your ego, ‘You know what? You’re going to keep me lonely, so I have to ignore you.’”
― George Michael
“The whole business is built on ego, vanity, self-satisfaction, and it’s total crap to pretend it’s not.”
― George Michael
“My ego is sated.”
― George Michael
“Deep down, my ego always thought that I would outlast a lot of people that I was competing against.”
― George Michael
“I know that I sound self-satisfied, and I know that I’ve got an ego, but I don’t have an ego problem.”
― George Michael
“I’d been out to a lot of people since 19. I wish to God it had happened then. I don’t think I would have the same career – my ego might not have been satisfied in some areas – but I think I would have been a happier man.”
― George Michael
“There’s a really nice moment in the life of a piece of writing where the writer starts to get a feeling of it outgrowing him – or he starts to see it having a life of its own that doesn’t have anything to do with his ego or his desire to ‘be a good writer.’”
― George Saunders
“I don’t think it’s wrong to have a big ego. Sometimes a big ego can help you also.”
― Georginio Wijnaldum
“One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.”
― Gilbert K. Chesterton
“Everyone in a band has a big ego – they love having pictures taken.”
― Giles Duley
“There are so many things to take into account – your ambition, your ego, the press, the consumers. You can never be sure that you’ll be on top of the pile again.”
― Giorgio Armani
“As a busker, one thing that does not work is self-consciousness. A busker needs to be working. A busker needs to shed all ego and get down to work. Play your songs, play them well, earn your money, and don’t get in people’s way.”
― Glen Hansard
“I think it’s important to talk to your inner thing. The purpose is to go over the decisions that will affect my life and others. I pray that I don’t make my decisions based on ego.”
― Glen Taylor
“With the hugely talented women I’ve worked with or observed, it’s not a question about temperament or ego; it’s a question about getting it right. If they’ve got a reputation for being difficult it’s usually because they just don’t suffer fools.”
― Glenn Close
“Beethoven’s reputation is based entirely on gossip. The middle Beethoven represents a supreme example of a composer on an ego trip.”
― Glenn Gould
“Women don’t want to exchange places with men. Male chauvinists, science-fiction writers and comedians may favor that idea for its shock value, but psychologists say it is a fantasy based on ruling-class ego and guilt.”
― Gloria Steinem
“The minute you start compromising for the sake of massaging somebody’s ego, that’s it, game over.”
― Gordon Ramsay
“The greatest thing that prepared me for editing ‘Vanity Fair’ was having four kids because you just learn to subjugate your ego with the greater interest in mind.”
― Graydon Carter
“Racing is a very selfish, self-centred, self-glorifying thing. My wife’s life for 14 years was centered around me. It was all about me. It was all for my ego.”
― Greg LeMond
“Being a singer is all about me. About ego. Being a mom is all about being selfless – two different worlds.”
― Gwen Stefani
“It’s hard to look inside a person to answer a question about why anybody wants to be president. I suppose a combination of ambition, ego, and a real feeling that he could make a difference and could accomplish some things. All you ever had to do for Jimmy Carter was to tell him something was impossible, and he would usually do it.”
― Hamilton Jordan
“Our goal is to solve a problem for the retailer, not to solve a problem for my ego – which is big.”
― Harper Reed
“I have a big ego, and I’m a confident person, but when it comes down to being a jerk, that doesn’t work for me, I tried it… for about ten years.”
― Harry Connick, Jr.
“I’m kind of concerned about ‘Ego & Hubris’ because I’m thinking that people will read it and maybe even be entertained by it, but at the end of it, you know, they’ll wonder, ‘Why did this guy write this? What was the point of it?’”
― Harvey Pekar
“The minute I ever start thinking about what a character would do is the minute I bring my ego into play. It’s the minute I’m putting a judgment on something.”
― Heather Matarazzo
“I thought I was investing in myself and my brand, like Kim Kardashian. When she buys these clothes, she’s investing in herself, because she is a big brand and is likable. I thought I had that potential. My ego got too big. To think I could be someone like that when I was the most hated girl ever.”
― Heidi Montag
“I have not changed much. I haven’t gotten a big ego or anything.”
― Helio Castroneves
“Pride or ego is not important to me. What is more important is common sense, the welfare of the company, and the objective reality that we need to be cautious during difficult times. One should not make decisions based on emotions or ego.”
― Henry Sy
“My ego is controlled enough that I don’t have to be the focus.”
― Herbie Mann
“I have no ego investment in being on the air. I don’t knock others for whom that kind of attention is like oxygen, but I don’t miss anything about it.”
― Hugh Downs
“I’m not a hopeless romantic. I’m quite the reverse. I’m a nasty piece of work, an ego maniac.”
― Hugh Grant
“I don’t have any ego, and I will go and audition for parts if I’m offered an interesting script.”
― Huma Qureshi
“I’ve fallen over on stage a couple of times, but I’ve only ever bruised my ego.”
― Imelda Staunton
“The smallest wound or pain of the ego is examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy.”
― Ingmar Bergman
“You’ve got to know what your ‘thing’ is, and you’ve got to call it a ‘thing,’ whether it’s meanness, nastiness, un-forgiveness, arrogance, ego, resistance, rebelliousness or defiance. Everybody’s got a ‘thing,’ and once you call your ‘thing’ a ‘thing,’ we can give it a place to be or dismiss it.”
― Iyanla Vanzant
“I really rebel against this idea that politics has to be a place full of ego and where you’re constantly focused on scoring hits against each one another. Yes, we need a robust democracy, but you can be strong, and you can be kind.”
― Jacinda Ardern
“Having one’s image, and effectively, life, democratized, dehumanizes and sometimes objectifies it into an entertainment product. What sort of valuation of the ego would one have once you’ve let it been preyed upon by the public for years and years? Perhaps, it becomes truly just skin and bones.”
― Jack Gleeson
“You can be committed to somebody because of ego: ‘I said I was going to be with this joker for the rest of my life, so I’m just going to do it.’ Or you can be committed because you have a deeply rooted connection.”
― Jada Pinkett Smith
“There’s no ego when you’re a ukulele player.”
― Jake Shimabukuro
“Honesty is about the scars. It’s about the blemishes. But it’s more than just bragging about failure, which could be a form of ego. It’s about truly helping people.”
― James Altucher
“The best, very best scammers will always ask for your advice. This is their favorite technique. It makes them vulnerable. It flatters your ego.”
― James Altucher
“The first movie, I was 23; I thought I knew everything, but my ego soon took an irrevocable blow.”
― James Gray
“Nations have their ego, just like individuals.”
― James Joyce
“You have to make sure you have a relatable emotion through the movie. You have to check your ego and go into a territory and recognize that nobody knows you. You go back again and again, and by the third time, you are a star.”
― James Lassiter
“The ego certainly is the biggest obstacle as an artist or performer, so any chance you get to destroy that is really healthy.”
― James Van Der Beek
“Look at someone like Kanye West – ego is the death of a lot of art. To believe in yourself that much is to stop being an artist.”
― Jamie Hewlett
“My guess is that people look at me and project their own values – importance of family, ego is healthy but not the biggest thing. I don’t know. I can’t explain my popularity.”
― Jane Pauley
“My desire is to let go of my ego and let in His direction.”
― Janine Turner
“I don’t really have any interest in doing Donald Blake stories. Maybe it’s just I don’t know what to do with that sort of alter ego.”
― Jason Aaron
“Our company, it’s, uh, really un-sexy. And I think most people get into Hollywood to be showy. We first of all make horror movies, which people turn their noses up at. Second of all, we make cheap movies, and Hollywood’s a lot about ego and money and, ‘My movie cost $200m!,’ you know?”
― Jason Blum
“Childish egocentrism is, in its essence, an inability to differentiate between the ego and the social environment.”
― Jean Piaget
“You don’t want to vilify your ego.”
― Jeff Bridges
“The ego always needs to be ‘doing,’ and repeating a mantra guides my mind to a deeper, less active experience.”
― Jeff Kober
“’Drag Race’ has taught me a lot about how to form community, to take myself less seriously and lose some ego.”
― Jenna Wortham
“I’m blessed with three children who actually aren’t terribly impressed with pandering to my ego, and one of my children has a bit of a problem with the sex scenes because when she reads the stuff, she hears my voice in her head, and apparently reading a sex scene written by your mother with her describing it is rather off-putting!”
― Jennifer Fallon
“I knew if I had to struggle, I couldn’t struggle in New York. My ego was too big for it. I couldn’t be a guy who is starving when I had a very successful business when I was young.”
― Jeremy Luke
“To say it very honestly, removed from ego, standup is just a thing that I understood, a God-given ability.”
― Jerrod Carmichael
“My ego and my vanities have nothing to do with comedy.”
― Jerry Lewis
“It wasn’t until I got to college and had a lot of my ego beaten out of me… That’s when I started to turn to literature as something deeper than a way to put up points.”
― Jesse Andrews
“Well I think any designer that can understand what people need to be wearing right now is the biggest and best step that you can take. Instead of putting your ego first, you put the buyer first. And I think that that’s a really important thing just to know what the consumer is wanting to wear.”
― Jessica Simpson
“We misuse language and talk about the ‘ascent’ of man. We understand the scientific basis for the interrelatedness of life, but our ego hasn’t caught up yet.”
― Jill Tarter
“I’ve got no ego; I just like to have thousands of people write to me and tell me how wonderful I am.”
― Jim Beaver
“I love playing ego and insecurity combined.”
― Jim Carrey
“I’m interested in listening to the people who walk in the door. If your ego and your accomplishments stop you from listening, then they’ve taught you nothing.”
― Jimmy Iovine
“If you get your ego in your way, you will only look to other people and circumstances to blame.”
― Jocko Willink
“I never had this ego where I must write everything. I’m not Bob Dylan.”
― Joe Bonamassa
“I happen to have a giant ego, an admission that will not shock my close friends or critics. I am not uncomfortable in saying that because the ego of a man often gets great things done.”
― Joe Jamail
“The trick is to learn to contain one’s ego, not conceal it.”
― Joe Jamail
“Being a great founder or early team member is a difficult dialectic – you have to be a bit overconfident, and a big ego isn’t always a bad thing. To change the world requires pushing really, really hard and believing you and your team know something others don’t.”
― Joe Lonsdale
“My ego’s not the kind that says, ‘I want to be an actor and be accepted as that.’”
― Joe Namath
“Fighting in the ring or cage is very much different from fighting in the street. Fighting in the street is very much fueled by anger, pride, and male dominance and ego.”
― Joel Edgerton
“Ego is to the true self what a flashlight is to a spotlight.”
― John Bradshaw
“Good writers are often excellent at a hundred other things, but writing promises a greater latitude for the ego.”
― John Cheever
“Winning is important in this league. Just check your ego at the door. It’s all about winning. That’s what we all should be striving for.”
― John Dorsey
“I was a shy kid growing up, and I liked the idea of playing under this alter ego: like, I could be Ziggy Stardust, but I also knew I could never be Ziggy Stardust.”
― John Gourley
“Sometimes I wish I was one of those artists like David Bowie. They’re not putting their private lives out there; it’s about show and entertainment. But an alter ego is very dangerous for me. Because I am the guy who will become lost in that.”
― John Grant
“I tell young people, including my own kids, don’t do this, it’s too difficult. It’s a career full of rejection, disappointment and failure. It’s murderously hard on the ego. Don’t become an actor.”
― John Lithgow
“This cycle of make a record, tour has been going on for 20 years now. I don’t even know why I do it sometimes. Do I need more money? Do I need more platinum and gold records? The only thing I can think of is ego.”
― John Mellencamp
“Prudence is what makes someone a great commodities trader – the capacity to face reality squarely in the eye without allowing emotion or ego to get in the way. It’s what is needed by every quarterback or battlefield general.”
― John Ortberg
“I have an ego like everyone else. I want to be recognized as a good ballplayer.”
― John Stockton
“I’ve done so many interviews that I’ve gotten past the ego and the personality.”
― John Travolta
“We’re still growing into that place of higher consciousness; we are becoming a global conscience. The idea is to unravel the onion and let go of the ego and evolve to that place where you perceive everything to be a beautiful experience rather than a daunting experience.”
― Jon Anderson
“Any time a bar or chef cares more about their own ego than the tastes and comforts of their customers, they should just open a monument to themselves and not a business.”
― Jon Taffer
“There’s something real in women’s intuition. It’s an accurate signpost for decision making, but it usually bumps up against man’s logic. So we have to put ego aside and listen to them.”
― Jon Voight
“When my writing career took off, it was pretty easy to keep my ego in check because old-school martial arts isn’t about ego gratification. It’s about maintaining a balanced view of the world and your place in it.”
― Jonathan Maberry
“It was easy for me to play someone with a massive ego. It’s actually really fun to have the freedom to be that person.”
― Jonathan Pryce
“My poems getting published in Russia doesn’t make me feel in any fashion, to tell you the truth. I’m not trying to be coy, but it doesn’t tickle my ego.”
― Joseph Brodsky
“It’s not good to have a huge ego.”
― Josephine Langford
“I’m a competitor, and I’m sure a lot of people who don’t get to play because of an injury, whether it’s their pride or their ego, whatever it is, they want to be out on the field.”
― Josh Allen
“I have to tell you, you can’t have an ego when you’re an actor. A lot of actors have them, but in reality most of those people are just sensitive artists dying for a hug and a compliment.”
― Josh Brolin
“I don’t want the giant ego. I don’t want to become Kevin Costner, singing on the soundtrack to The Postman.”
― Joss Whedon
“I get recognized just often enough to keep my ego bouncing along, but not so much that I can’t go places.”
― Joss Whedon
“I’m realistic. I’m not becoming Farrah Fawcett here. If you stay beyond your welcome, it’s for ego or money or because you can’t exist without the limelight. I’m fine without it.”
― Judy Sheindlin
“It’s good to have a healthy ego because that pushes you to succeed. But when you cross a line, and your views are not balanced, that’s when you get into trouble.”
― Judy Smith
“To surrender your ego, you have to have one first.”
― Justin Simien
“I think I have a better sense of my weaknesses – being self-important, selfish and having a big ego probably triggers all the other stuff. I can see myself more clearly.”
― K. D. Lang
“Religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don’t want to give up their egotism. They want their religion to endorse their ego, their identity.”
― Karen Armstrong
“I am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions.”
― Karen Armstrong
“When everyone is buying into a system and puts their ego to the side, that’s when greatness happens.”
― Karl-Anthony Towns
“I think about death a lot, I really do, because I can’t believe I won’t exist. It’s the ego isn’t it? I feel that I should retreat into a better form of Zen Buddhism than this kind of ego-dominated thing. But I don’t know, I mean, I want to come back as a tree but I suspect that it’s just not going to happen, is it?”
― Kate Atkinson
“I love the perspective afforded by having lived five decades, a degree of bemused and muted calm, a relief from the insistent demands of a turbulent ego and rampant ambition. I’d love to stay here forever. But something tells me that 50 is a sunny idyll, a temporary state of grace, a golden afternoon.”
― Kate Christensen
“I never read reviews – I never have. I’ve never read message boards, either. I’m just not interested in it in any way – I’m not interested in it inflating my ego, and I’m not interested in it improving my self-worth. So, I don’t read them.”
― Kate Levering
“If my ego was out of whack and I believed I could carry anything off, that would be a stupid risk. But so far there’s been no reason not to try anything.”
― Kathleen Turner
“When it is working, you completely go into another place, you’re tapping into things that are totally universal, completely beyond your ego and your own self. That’s what it’s all about.”
― Keith Haring
“To be successful, you really have to put your ego in the background and try to be diplomatic to achieve what you want to achieve.”
― Ken Adam
“The biggest obstacle that stalls leaders’ growth is the human ego. When leaders start to think they know it all, they stop growing.”
― Ken Blanchard
“I don’t need a big K Street office or a British secretary or a facade for my ego.”
― Ken Hakuta
“I have no theories about the divorce rate or things like that, but it does occur to me that dealing with kids and their problems can be real binding glue. It keeps you out of the range of too much ego.”
― Ken Howard
“What is it in you that brings you to a spiritual teacher in the first place? It’s not the spirit in you, since that is already enlightened, and has no need to seek. No, it is the ego in you that brings you to a teacher.”
― Ken Wilber
“Long ago, I had to sort of learn to have a thick skin to read some of the things you read in the papers and to also keep my ego in check when you read some really flattering things in the papers.”
― Kenneth C. Griffin
“I listen to all the top 20 songs, and top 20 albums, even the rap albums. But I don’t like negative messages. If somebody is putting a lot of ego out there, I don’t like it. When I make my records I want it to be sincere.”
― Kenny G
“When you can take away the ego, you learn a lot about yourself and the world around you.”
― Kevin Jonas
“I’m aware that, from the outside, this looks like I’ve got quite an ego.”
― Kevin Spacey
“I have a huge ego – I know that. Do I worry about it? No, I think it’s cool. I have a lot of fun.”
― Kim Dotcom
“Hollywood is so governed by the ego, and I never wanted to fall into that trap.”
― Kimberly Elise
“I think my biggest problem was, as a celebrity on a TV show, you get an inflated ego and you think you’re the center of the universe.”
― Kirk Cameron
“The Black Mamba collection of watches is me: It is my alter ego, so to speak. As I mentioned before, it is sharp, cutting edge and sleek which are characteristics I try to apply when I’m out there on the basketball court.”
― Kobe Bryant
“It’s good that I put my personal ego aside. My basketball ego was, ‘Why we negotiating?’ But my personal ego didn’t take it personal. I put my personal ego aside a little bit.”
― Lamar Odom
“Dentistry was an ego trip, and acting is a personal need. Usually it’s the reverse, and I honestly don’t think I had the talent in my hands to be a good dentist.”
― Larry Wilcox
“When you’re playing someone who has a strong ego about themselves, you can’t play them when you have the opposite opinion of the one they have of themselves.”
― Laura Dern
“I never thought about being on a series before. It seemed like such a big commitment. But I love going to work every day. This is not about ego, it’s about work, and that’s refreshing in this town.”
― Lauren Ambrose
“Since those who believe they need a hero/celebrity outnumber the actual heroes/celebrities, people feel safe and comfortably justified in numbers, committing egregious crimes in the name of the greater social ego. Ironically diminishing their own true hero-celebrity nature in the process.”
― Lauryn Hill
“When a director you admire says that he wants to work with you, it’s always a compliment, very good for your ego.”
― Lea Seydoux
“Because Scientologists view children as spiritual beings, you’re not treated as a kid, so you’re given a lot of responsibility. Your ego becomes extremely inflated.”
― Leah Remini
“The rules are: The only ego is the film, and you have to serve the film.”
― Lee Daniels
“When you’re paying everybody nothing, I mean, they have homes to pay for. And my movies are like putting on theater. Nicole Kidman is at craft services, and John Cusack is moving furniture; there are no egos. The only ego is the story.”
― Lee Daniels
“It was 100 percent music. There was no ego involved, no attitudes, no black and white, it was pure music.”
― Lee Konitz
“You proceed from a false assumption: I have no ego to bruise.”
― Leonard Nimoy
“Oh, there’s so much ego with men; in their head, they can’t possibly think about Tesco’s when they are doing Othello. Er, why not? They want to think that they are such geniuses they can’t muddy their day with domesticity, and I’ve got no truck with it whatsoever.”
― Lesley Manville
“If you’re working out in front of a mirror and watching your muscles grow, your ego has reached a point where it is now eating itself. That’s why I believe there should be a psychiatrist at every health club, so that when they see you doing this, they will take you away for a little chat.”
― Lewis Black
“I have Kanye’s ego to some extent.”
― Lil Dicky
“You kind of have to have no ego to be a producer and a songwriter.”
― Linda Perry
“I definitely have an alter ego that can come out and get me out of situations where I’m having social anxiety. I can take a deep breath and create a bubble so I can perform in some way.”
― Lindy Booth
“Fabio kept asking me out, but I knew we’d never get his ego through the door.”
― Lorna Luft
“With every performance I just feel more energized somehow. Like, this is how I exercise! This is how I feed my ego, by playing this loud rock music.”
― Lou Barlow
“I think it’s pretentious to create art just for the sake of stroking the artists ego.”
― Lou Reed
“I think I’m great. I mean, I might as well come out and say it. Like most people, I have an ego and I’m in show business, so you have to have kind of a healthy, conflagrated ego to a degree. On the other hand, I’m consumed, like a lot of people, with self-doubt and loathing and guilt.”
― Loudon Wainwright III
“Everyone always comes to one point in their life as an artist where you can either let your heart guide you or your ego.”
― Louie Anderson
“What’s cool about Matador is that everyone I’ve met there is just so chill and really into what they’re doing. Everyone that works there, there’s just such a lack of ego, and there’s such a commitment to what they’re doing. They all like each other.”
― Lucy Dacus
“The most satisfying thrillers send ordinary people into battle against the forces of evil – otherwise known as greed, ego, rage, fear and laziness – and bring them out bloodied but whole.”
― M. J. Rose
“Collaboration is an important part of the process, and ego is never a part of it.”
― Mack Wilberg
“I believe that we are at a very low level of consciousness, and we do not know how to treat each other as human beings. We are caught up in our own lives, our own needs, our own ego gratification. I feel a strong sense of responsibility in delivering that message.”
― Madonna Ciccone
“I like the fact that when you’re put into a really extreme situation, you put everything else aside. You put your ego aside and get on with it, and I quite like that.”
― Maisie Williams
“I love the energy of an independent film set. No one is there for the money. Everyone is there ’cause they really want to be there. It makes all the difference in the world. It’s without ego and agenda, other than just wanting to fulfill a creative dream.”
― Mamie Gummer
“My message to the world is to surrender your ego: try not to think that you are not as fortunate as some people or inferior or not as good as someone else.”
― Manal al-Sharif
“For me, I have no political ego in this thing with respect to any other leader and what they might feel is appropriate or necessary in what they’re going to try to do… We need everybody on the front lines.”
― Marc Morial
“The songwriting community in Nashville really is all about your talent. It’s not about your image, and you have to be humble. You have to be kind. You have to have zero ego when you walk into that writing room.”
― Maren Morris
“Being the everyman in the writing room helps a lot: you have to be a real collaborator and selfless, and not have ego when you walk in there. That’s the antithesis of the artist mentality.”
― Maren Morris
“Giving in to your ego is one of the oldest stories in the showbiz book. But so is figuring out how to stay vivid.”
― Margo Jefferson
“In the hands of the ego, marriage is a prison. It is exclusive. It is a place where people are constantly reminded of their failures and limited by the energies of another person. It is rife with judgment and blame.”
― Marianne Williamson
“The ego mind both professes its desire for love and does everything possible to repel it, or if it gets here anyway, to sabotage it. That is why dealing with issues like control, anger, and neediness is the most important work in preparing ourselves for love.”
― Marianne Williamson
“Jesus is a personal symbol of the Holy Spirit. Having been totally healed by the Holy Spirit, Jesus became one with him. Every thought, action, and deed of Jesus was guided by the Holy Spirit instead of ego.”
― Marianne Williamson
“Planned Parenthood is being mentioned by the Republican Party more than ISIS. I think Trump is insane. I don’t think you could have a normal conversation or even convince him. I think the ego is just about Trump. It’s not about the issues at all.”
― Marilyn Minter
“What I hate is that not many people admit to having a big ego, but you have to – and there’s nothing wrong with it.”
― Marina and the Diamonds
“I don’t have an ego; I’m not egotistical or anything like that.”
― Mario Williams
“I selfishly like a lot of first-time directors because they over-prepare, they’re super eager, and there’s very little ego.”
― Mark Duplass
“God only knows we need a great role model as a leader who is more leader than they are male or female, who is more about their mission that serves everyone than about ego and personal ambition that only serves them.”
― Mark Goulston
“As the ego cogito, subjectivity is the consciousness that represents something, relates this representation back to itself, and so gathers with itself.”
― Martin Heidegger
“I am very sure of the ground I stand on. I am also very sure that it is the path shared by republicans across this island genuinely interested in building a new agreed Ireland: republicans who put Ireland before ego, criminality, and self-gain.”
― Martin McGuinness
“Creative writing lessons can be very useful, just like music lessons can be useful. To say, as Hanif Kureishi did, that 99.9% of students are talentless is cruel and wrong. I believe that certain writers like to believe they arrived into the world with special, unteachable powers because it is good for the ego.”
― Matt Haig
“A lot of my work has to do with not allowing my characters to have an ego in a way that the stomach doesn’t have an ego when it’s wanting to throw up. It just does it.”
― Matthew Barney
“The only person I’ll marry is myself. Believe me, my ego is that big.”
― Max Beesley
“Ego is the immediate dictate of human consciousness.”
― Max Planck
“I take bits and pieces from everything. But I think the Method can be very isolating, and sometimes it’s more about ego than playing the character truthfully.”
― Maxine Peake
“I would model when they wanted me, and as I got older, they wanted an older model. I was quite willing to be mother of the bride at 28. I was quite happy to be on the cover of a grandparents’ magazine at 42; I have no ego about that.”
― Maye Musk
“Actors are a lot like professors on dissertation committees – it’s a lot of ego, a lot of rallying for position, there is a lot at stake in every single interaction.”
― Mayim Bialik
“I’m always gonna be all over my CD the most, of course. My talent is my talent. I ain’t really tripping off no ego; I just like to make good music with good people.”
― Meek Mill
“My talent is my talent. I ain’t really tripping off no ego; I just like to make good music with good people.”
― Meek Mill
“I had this ego that was unstable. If you said anything about me good or bad, it really went to my head.”
― Metta World Peace
“I’ve totally sacrificed my ego. And what happens? God is giving me everything.”
― Metta World Peace
“I’m an athlete; I’ve got an ego when stunt doubles have to come in. Not an ego like that, but when it comes to physical stuff, if I didn’t have to have a stunt double, I would always probably do it myself unless the producers were jumping in and stopping me.”
― Michael B. Jordan
“It’s very exciting to take magic into a new direction, whereas a lot of times magic comes from a place of sort of ego, like, ‘Look what I can do that you can’t do.’ It kind of comes across that way a lot, and you’re always trying to challenge the magician; you’re always trying to figure out how the magician is doing it.”
― Michael Carbonaro
“I get pretty terrified, to be honest, when I’m on tour. You really have to muster a lot of ego to go our there, which I find rather draining.”
― Michael Hutchence
“Surrounded by high-paid publicity people and professional ego massagers, movie stars, like politicians, almost invariably come to believe that they are nicer, more charming, and more beloved than they appear to be to a casual observer, and that their stories about their careers are universally fascinating.”
― Michael Korda
“The rich and famous expect to get a lot for their story, whether they are writing it themselves or not. It’s not that they need the money, of course; it’s a question of ego, like catching the biggest fish.”
― Michael Korda
“The creative act is also in a small way a suffering act – we start out with our ego, this hope of making this thing whatever it be, but so often it eludes us and it collapses and we kind of regress into this mental suffering, we can’t find what we’re looking for.”
― Michael Leunig
“Clearly I am a person who suffers from a lack of ego.”
― Michael Moore
“There is nothing better than playing a scene with John Cleese or Maggie Smith. It’s electric. But I don’t think I’m the sort of person who needs to have an outer ego in order to produce something. I realised that through the travel programmes.”
― Michael Palin
“You’ve got to recognize, there will never be another you. It has nothing to do with ego; it happens to be the truth. There will never be another person the same. There’ll never be another you.”
― Mickey Rooney
“Art is based on emotion, but being macho is based on ego; the wall protecting that emotion.”
― Miguel
“Even though we want huge individual egos, our collective ego is unbelievable.”
― Mike Krzyzewski
“One might say that the novel is the genre that most predisposes one to a profound insight into the tremendous life around us, instead of putting forward one’s own tiny ego as the centre of the universe.”
― Mikhail Sholokhov
“I will never put my ego before the team. I have never done and will never do so.”
― Miroslav Klose
“I think your ego gets in the way of making something good because it kind of blinds you from the actual art.”
― Mitski
“It’s really important to create something, like with my creations as a musician. Just let it flow. Focus on how to deliver message to audience. Don’t get ego.”
― Miyavi
“Rush Limbaugh’s pathetic abuse of logic, his absurd pomposity, his relentless self-promotion, his ridiculous ego – now those, friends, are appropriate targets for satire.”
― Molly Ivins
“The ultimate aim of the ego is not to see something, but to be something.”
― Muhammad Iqbal
“A wrong concept misleads the understanding; a wrong deed degrades the whole man, and may eventually demolish the structure of the human ego.”
― Muhammad Iqbal
“The Ego is partly free. partly determined, and reaches fuller freedom by approaching the Individual who is most free: God.”
― Muhammad Iqbal
“The ultimate purpose of religious life is to make this evolution move in a direction far more important to the destiny of the ego than the moral health of the social fabric which forms his present environment.”
― Muhammad Iqbal
“Sexual self-restraint is only a preliminary stage in the ego’s evolution.”
― Muhammad Iqbal
“What happens if the music or alter ego isn’t well received? The fact that people are talking about it, I won already.”
― Musiq Soulchild
“I hope I don’t have a big ego. I try to keep that in check. But I am a prideful person, I will say.”
― Natalie Maines
“When it comes to doing my job, I keep my ego in my handbag.”
― Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
“Surfing is such an incredible experience with a huge ego element.”
― Nick Woodman
“I think you see more of like, the party side of me, which I call Snooki, it’s kind of my alter ego.”
― Nicole Polizzi
“I think it’s very important to get ego out of the room. I think it’s important to realize it takes two hands to clap – stop the pointing, stop the blame game. I think we’ve seen enough of that, I think the country is tired of it. I think they want to see Washington function, they want to see action.”
― Nikki Haley
“Ego is the great enemy. Ego will hold you back every single time.”
― Nikki Sixx
“I basically look at PR as something you do if there’s an object in mind. But my ego doesn’t need it.”
― Nolan Bushnell
“I don’t think there’s room in video games for people to bring an ego. It’s very frustrating for any actor to have someone who’s a celebrity take over your place. Like the ‘Uncharted’ film, they’re trying to find someone to play Nathan Drake. And it’s like, why do they not think of us? We do this.”
― Nolan North
“When I get on stage, Beyonce is my alter ego. The way that she’s Beyonce in real life and then Sasha Fierce on stage, I’m Normani in real life, and then I pretend to be Beyonce on stage. I just love that she’s constantly reinventing herself but stays true to who she is as a person – and she wears so many hats in her life.”
― Normani Kordei
“The pursuit of beauty is much more dangerous nonsense than the pursuit of truth or goodness, because it affords a stronger temptation to the ego.”
― Northrop Frye
“I believe that ‘ego’ is much overused term.”
― Nushrat Bharucha
“You cannot outperform your ego.”
― Ole Gunnar Solskjaer
“No one can be a yogi, maintaining a state of mental equilibrium, free from inner involvement in planned desireful activities, unless he has renounced identification with his ego and its unsatisfiable lust for the fruits of actions.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda
“Man is important in one sense only. He was made in the image of God: That is his importance. He is not important for his body, ego, or personality. His constant affirmation of ego-consciousness is the source of all his problems.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda
“The physical ego, the active consciousness in man, should uplift its body-identified self into unity with the soul, its true nature; it should not allow itself to remain mired in the lowly delusive strata of the senses and material entanglement.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda
“The physical ego serves as its own worst enemy when, by delusive material behavior, it eclipses its true nature as the ever blessed soul.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda
“I still believe heavily that we have to be careful about having this ego and hubris as a successful corporation, that we should do it all. Because then I think we start to fail our customers and we’re too focused on taking over the world.”
― Parker Harris
“Serial killers kill for the power and control they experience during the murders and for the added ego boost they get in the aftermath from community fears, media coverage, and the police investigations.”
― Pat Brown
“Each Warrior wants to leave the mark of his will, his signature, on important acts he touches. This is not the voice of ego but of the human spirit, rising up and declaring that it has something to contribute to the solution of the hardest problems, no matter how vexing!”
― Pat Riley
“The kind of people that all teams need are people who are humble, hungry, and smart: humble being little ego, focusing more on their teammates than on themselves. Hungry, meaning they have a strong work ethic, are determined to get things done, and contribute any way they can. Smart, meaning not intellectually smart but inner personally smart.”
― Patrick Lencioni
“When truth takes a backseat to ego and politics, trust is lost.”
― Patrick Lencioni
“There must be an alternative between Hollywood and New York, between those two places psychically as well as geographically. The University of Iowa tries to offer such a community, congenial to the young writer, with his uneasiness about writing as an honorable career, or with his excess of ego about calling himself a writer.”
― Paul Engle
“At the end of the day if you want to entertain people, you’ve got to take your ego out of the equation.”
― Paul Feig
“I have such an ego ’cause I’m a double Leo. I can’t let go of me, you know, so it’s very difficult for me to be somebody else and not me. I’m so into me.”
― Paul Mooney
“I love to be the center of attention. My oversized ego craves it and needs it.”
― Paul Shaffer
“As big as my ego may be, I’m really not of the belief that I can’t be replaced. I didn’t invent the wheel. There’s someone else out there who can do what I do, maybe a little differently. I believe that Kiss is bigger than its individual members.”
― Paul Stanley
“I would just say that nobody could do what I do unless you had a big ego. It’s the only way you can really put it. You have to be arrogant enough to challenge the arrogance of the human race.”
― Paul Watson
“Nothing ages as poorly as a beautiful woman’s ego.”
― Paulina Porizkova
“I equate ego with trying to figure everything out instead of going with the flow. That closes your heart and your mind to the person or situation that’s right in front of you, and you miss so much.”
― Pema Chodron
“There are no consequences for Snowden breaking the law in Snowden’s World. It’s where his massively inflated ego dictates the rules and determines which he will follow.”
― Pete Hoekstra
“I hated improvisation because in my early days as an actor, improvisation meant somebody had just come down from Oxford and they were doing a play above a pub in Kentish Town, and the biggest ego would win.”
― Peter Capaldi
“If I have enough ego to say I’m a writer, a director, a producer, and an actor, I should have the energy and the knowledge to write a scene for this great actor named Henry Fonda and direct him in it and have it work.”
― Peter Fonda
“You have to have an ego to be an actor, but you need an ego just to get through life! Unless you want to sit on a corner and suck your thumb, it takes a healthy ego to get up in the morning and say, ‘I deserve to be here.’”
― Peter Riegert
“I’ve done ‘The Love Boat’ twice. I had a great time, but my ego rails against it.”
― Peter Scolari
“The more I can make a person comfortable in their environment by taking my ego’s hat off and leaving it at the door, then they can dive deep within themselves and we can pull out something interesting that people have never heard before. It’s the stuff that’s – that no one’s ever heard before is really interesting.”
― Pharrell Williams
“You can’t play not to lose. You kind of have to put your ego aside and accept the fact that careers are long, and there’s gonna be stuff people like and stuff that people don’t like, and you try to get better every time, and always put something out that you’re proud of. And let the chips fall where they may.”
― Phil Lord
“You get tangled up in your own ego of how you’re perceived. You can lose your way.”
― Pierce Brosnan
“As you get older, there’s a loosening of the ties to the ego and the posturing of who you are and how you behave.”
― Pierce Brosnan
“We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.”
― Pope Benedict XVI
“When it comes to filmmaking, we have to deal with ego, anger, and a lot more; barring all these, how the team works towards the outcome matters.”
― R. Madhavan
“In religion, there’s a certain type of fear that if somebody believes differently from me, that it’s a threat. Because I’m right, and there cannot be two ways that are right, so if I’m right, anything different than this must be wrong; and we attack those things and it’s really due to insecurity, ego and fear.”
― Radhanath Swami
“I am not saying I don’t think I’m good, but I’m not the type of player to have an ego or big myself up.”
― Raheem Sterling
“All bad qualities centre round the ego. When the ego is gone, Realisation results by itself. There are neither good nor bad qualities in the Self. The Self is free from all qualities. Qualities pertain to the mind only.”
― Ramana Maharshi
“That which comes and goes, rises and sets, is born and dies is the ego. That which always abides, never changes, and is devoid of qualities is the Self.”
― Ramana Maharshi
“If there is anything besides the Self there is reason to fear? Who sees the second? First, the ego arises and sees objects as external. If the ego does not rise, the Self alone exists and there is no second.”
― Ramana Maharshi
“My ego is really good. I don’t need to watch myself on TV, like some others.”
― Randy Jackson
“If you want to build an open source project, you can’t let your ego stand in the way. You can’t rewrite everybody’s patches, you can’t second-guess everybody, and you have to give people equal control.”
― Rasmus Lerdorf
“I believe that the biggest problem that humanity faces is an ego sensitivity to finding out whether one is right or wrong and identifying what one’s strengths and weaknesses are.”
― Ray Dalio
“I am a better cook than I am an actor. If I have any ego, it’s about cooking. I’m one of the best cooks… and I cook in any language.”
― Raymond Burr
“I don’t have much of an ego, but I have a great deal of confidence!”
― Raymond Burr
“The creative artist seems to be almost the only kind of man that you could never meet on neutral ground. You can only meet him as an artist. He sees nothing objectively because his own ego is always in the foreground of every picture.”
― Raymond Chandler
“There’s so much crap attached to acting: the fame aspect, the ego aspect, the ‘Am I good, am I bad, am I being judged, who likes me, who doesn’t like me…’”
― Rebecca Hall
“Misconception Number 1, the public always thought, ‘Reggie has a massive ego; he’s narcissistic, he’s cocky, he needs everyone to look at him all the time,’ because that’s what the media told them. Wrong. I could handle the attention. I didn’t let the attention affect my performance. But I never needed the attention.”
― Reggie Jackson
“Social networks do best when they tap into one of the seven deadly sins. Facebook is ego. Zynga is sloth. LinkedIn is greed.”
― Reid Hoffman
“I’ve gotten to a place where I’m better at curbing your ego, which usually happens when you’re feeling super small and scared about whatever you’re seeing, and you want to go read, ‘Oh, I hear there’s a really good article about me.’ I’ve gotten better about knowing that’s not going to end well, usually.”
― Rhea Seehorn
“I just don’t take myself as seriously anymore. But as a result of that, I am taking myself more seriously. My ego has gone on holiday, and it can’t get a flight back home.”
― Rhys Ifans
“When you go onstage, the process of getting you from the dressing room to the stage is all about ego.”
― Richard Ashcroft
“Life’s about ego. So for someone to talk about my ego, as they are writing their piece about my ego, I’m wondering what they’re doing with their ego?”
― Richard Ashcroft
“I know what Twitter is; I don’t use it. I don’t use Facebook, so luckily, it does zero to my ego.”
― Richard C. Armitage
“Pride is one of the socially acceptable sins in some corners of the evangelical culture. It’s just straight-out ego gratification – how important I am; whether my name gets on the building or on the TV program or in the magazine article.”
― Richard Foster
“We Catholics must admit that there is a constant temptation among us to avoid the lectionary and the Word of God for private and pious devotions that usually have little power to actually change us or call our ego assumptions into question.”
― Richard Rohr
“I’m a songwriter, principally, and I was real excited that people liked my songs, but you get a bit of an ego about it.”
― Rick Springfield
“I think you can make fun of anything except things people can’t help. They can’t help their race or their sex or their age, so you ridicule their pretension or their ego instead. You can ridicule ideas – ideas don’t have feelings. You can ridicule an idea that someone holds without hurting them.”
― Ricky Gervais
“Ego is hilarious – especially the vanity of a comedian. As soon as you see one start worrying about how cool he is or about how many stadiums he can fill, he stops being funny.”
― Ricky Gervais
“The ego is there, but I’m learning to channel it.”
― Ridley Scott
“Guys need attention. They need that nourishment, that little stroke of the ego that gets them by every now and then.”
― Rihanna
“Anyone driving great social change, willingly or not, is going to be a fascinating contradictory mix of idealism and ego.”
― Riz Ahmed
“I try not to have too much of an ego. I’ll do anything.”
― Rob Schneider
“I’m constantly doing new stuff, and I want it to be received really well. Who knows what’s ego, what’s business, what’s artistic. It all shifts on a day-to-day basis.”
― Robbie Williams
“I have a gigantic ego and need to be at the top of the pile and be doing amazingly well; also, at the same time, I’m just pleased to be anywhere.”
― Robbie Williams
“Ego is a social fiction for which one person at a time gets all the blame.”
― Robert Anton Wilson
“But I think Barry Sonnenfeld let his ego go out of control. He told me in a meeting that he had to do something to make it his film.”
― Robert Conrad
“Goals must never be from your ego, but problems that cry for a solution.”
― Robert H. Schuller
“The greatest impact of ‘We Are the World’ seems to have been the video, which lets us see the singers take their turns at the microphone without any sense of star ego.”
― Robert Hilburn
“It’s not the great stars that win; it’s the great teams that win. It’s the teams that subjugate their ego to the team and put the team first.”
― Robert Kraft
“The best way to tell an actor he’s going to be working more and much harder is to appeal to his ego.”
― Robert Picardo
“My career is based primarily upon finding a balance with a director and their vision, and that means sublimating my own personal ego toward their material.”
― Robert Richardson
“When you work in a creative environment, people get protective about their ideas. Sometimes it’s justified; sometimes it’s about ego.”
― Robert Sheehan
“Leadership is not a popularity contest; it’s about leaving your ego at the door. The name of the game is to lead without a title.”
― Robin S. Sharma
“Leave your ego at the door every morning, and just do some truly great work. Few things will make you feel better than a job brilliantly done.”
― Robin S. Sharma
“When I was 22 years old, and I first got to Nashville, women or girls were objects. It was a conquest. My emptiness inside and the external manifestation of my ego was to somehow conquer women.”
― Rodney Crowell
“This Romeo character is something I decided to create, like my alter ego. So the name Romeo was invented from the original Romeo and Juliet. I wanted to show people I’m like a modern Romeo.”
― Romeo Santos
“A guy is a lump like a doughnut. So, first you gotta get rid of all the stuff his mom did to him. And then you gotta get rid of all that macho crap that they pick up from beer commercials. And then there’s my personal favorite, the male ego.”
― Roseanne Barr
“Being a cook, there’s always pressure – not for your ego but for people to love your food.”
― Roy Choi
“In the life of our organism, we are continually dealing with a development of force followed by a state of equilibrium. Of course, the human being has no conscious knowledge of what is really going on within him, but what takes place is so infinitely wise that the cleverness of the human ego is nothing by comparison.”
― Rudolf Steiner
“Drag is involved with changing identities and not taking identities too seriously at all. That’s why drag is such a hard sell to a network – or anyone, really – because it’s up against the ego.”
― RuPaul
“I don’t have an ego that makes me believe the world revolves around me. I am not self-absorbed.”
― Rush Limbaugh
“I hate acting when I see it. I don’t want to feel it, I don’t want to see it, I want to be taken away with the story – I don’t want the actor’s ego in front of me. That’s what I try to live when I do the work.”
― Rutger Hauer
“It’s very important in a leadership role not to place your ego at the foreground and not to judge everything in relationship to how your ego is fed.”
― Ruth J. Simmons
“I’ve gotten to a place where I still love to play and sing, but I don’t have any ego agenda left, outside of just wanting to stay in a creative place and play music. I much prefer to sing for somebody else, and to somebody else.”
― Ryan Adams
“What I’ve found in my research is that realism and self-honesty are the antidote to ego, hubris, and delusion.”
― Ryan Holiday
“Ego is certainly there in many of the greatest and most dizzying tales of success – but it’s there in some of the greatest stories of failure and self-implosion as well.”
― Ryan Holiday
“I’ve always loved movies and animation. When I was little, I was always pretending to be some alter ego superhero. For years it was Ultraman, ninjas, Spiderman and other cool super heroes.”
― Ryan Potter
“Everyone in showbiz is driven by ego, so how do you go from having loads of fame to working at 7-11? You can’t do it!”
― Ryan Seacrest
“I think anybody would have to be with out common sense to think there weren’t aliens. There are billions of planets, and I am convinced Earth is not the only one that’s inhabited. It would be quite an ego trip to think that. I think about it all the time.”
― Sabrina Lloyd
“I had to let my ego go a long time ago.”
― Sally Field
“I think that, to be an artist, you have to have a big enough ego to believe that people out in the world want to see what you think is a good idea. And if you don’t have that sense of ego, then the minute that idea goes into the world, self-doubt kicks in.”
― Sam Taylor-Johnson
“Every great player has a big character. I don’t know any player with a lot of quality who just has quality – you have to have an ego and character to be the main person on the pitch.”
― Samir Nasri
“I hope I don’t have an ego.”
― Sandi Toksvig
“When you’re making music or playing a song, I find the moments when there are no instruments being played even stronger than when they are being played. Because they add tension. It’s also an ego-less thing – a place where you have no ego – when you’re with a bunch of musicians who stop and listen instead.”
― Sarah McLachlan
“In ‘A Bone in the Throat,’ he describes his protagonist and alter ego, the cook Tommy Pagano, as ‘darker, and not as tall as the chef, his hair stood up straight and spiky like a young Trotsky’s.’ He describes Little Italy with such verve, such flavor, that it is impossible not to smell the streets or taste the food.”
― Sarah Weinman
“A few hours after the news broke about the death of crime writer Donald E. Westlake, a newspaper asked me to write a tribute. In short order I did so, calling attention to his decades-long career, both under his own name and that of his primary alter ego, Richard Stark, who introduced the unsentimental antihero-heister Parker to the literary canon.”
― Sarah Weinman
“To understand the current state of mind of both Sara Paretsky and her private detective alter ego, one must first roll back the clock to 1982, when Victoria Iphegenia Warshawski took her first investigative bow in ‘Indemnity Only.’”
― Sarah Weinman
“Former CIA employee Joseph Weisberg’s ‘An Ordinary Spy’ may attract attention for how much it redacts – whether by authorial choice or by CIA design – but its power comes from the growing frustration Weisberg’s fictional alter ego feels at a system designed to betray seeming innocents in the most casual and cruel manner possible.”
― Sarah Weinman
“I’m very accessible. I don’t get into this ego thing.”
― Scott Hamilton
“There’s an element of ego to writing the Riddler. You research a lot of things that you end up jettisoning as a writer, and Riddler was a lot of fun to get to have that sort of annoying know-it-all personality lording over the city. He’s a lot of fun to write about.”
― Scott Snyder
“I have no ego, I’ll make fun of myself, and I’ll make fun of being humiliated. I get it.”
― Selma Blair
“I guess it’s a kind of a goal for any actor to be the lead of a movie. Not for ego reasons, but because it is creatively the biggest challenge.”
― Seth Rogen
“I have no self-centeredness or ego about being a movie star.”
― Shah Rukh Khan
“A man’s car is like an extension of their ego and their manhood.”
― Shakira
“If you’re 100% yourself, then you’re going to be different no matter what. I have this self-honesty approach as opposed to an ego that a lot of musicians put up. I can be myself, and that’s just enough to stand out.”
― Shamir
“Everybody has an ego, and they don’t like their athletic ability to be questioned.”
― Shannon Sharpe
“I learned the hard way that people are quick to judge, will jump at the chance of a cheap ego boost at another’s expense.”
― Sharon Bolton
“Comedians… they’re different from actors. There’s more ego there. They create the whole thing, I guess, so they’re more precious.”
― Sharon Horgan
“Confidence is one of those things that no one ever wants to talk about in this industry because confidence and ego run neck and neck. But you have to understand, those are things that you have to have in order to make it to where Edge has made it. You’ve got to have a certain amount of ego and confidence in yourself to get there.”
― Shawn Michaels
“Where id was, there ego shall be.”
― Sigmund Freud
“Every normal person, in fact, is only normal on the average. His ego approximates to that of the psychotic in some part or other and to a greater or lesser extent.”
― Sigmund Freud
“The ego is not master in its own house.”
― Sigmund Freud
“Analysis does not set out to make pathological reactions impossible, but to give the patient’s ego freedom to decide one way or another.”
― Sigmund Freud
“People confuse ego, lust, insecurity with true love.”
― Simon Cowell
“Of course I have an ego, but you have to have an ego. You have to be incredibly competitive. I can get competitive at times, way too much, and it becomes a little bit obsessive.”
― Simon Cowell
“As a writer, I always try as hard as possible to get out of the way of the story, so maybe that’s the most important thing my readers should know – I’m all about the story, not about the ego.”
― Simon Toyne
“Ego, id, and superego are terms familiar to all, but for many years, Freud’s psychoanalytic theory has thrived in English departments around the country as a tool for interpreting literary texts but has rarely, if ever, been discussed in science departments.”
― Siri Hustvedt
“I have to not let anything get to me and not get an ego about it and just do what I want to do, do things because I like them, and make the music that I like unapologetically.”
― Soccer Mommy
“By repeating sounds over and over again, I lose sense of time, space, and ego, and I get to just vibrate.”
― Sophie Hawley-Weld
“If somebody’s offering you a $400 million company at the age of 29, I’ve got the ego to say, ‘I’d like a shot at that.’”
― Stanley R. Jaffe
“My ego thinks I would like to be considered for more heavyweight roles, but the price you pay for that is they are always the same kind of roles.”
― Steffan Rhodri
“I think I have let ego get in the way sometimes – the pendulum swung pretty strongly. I was maybe a little overconfident at one point in my time, and then I went way the other way and thought I wasn’t capable of anything.”
― Stephanie McMahon
“There’s a degree of narcissism involved in anything in show business. I mean, you can’t do it without a healthy ego. Why would you want anybody to listen to you?”
― Stephen Colbert
“Obviously everybody, if you’re playing in the league, you’ve got to have somewhat of an ego about how you play the game.”
― Stephen Curry
“To build an empire – or win seven Tour de Frances in a row – you must have a Lone Star-size ego and a dash of megalomania.”
― Stephen Rodrick
“Among the mysteries of the creative ego is how the transcendence of what artists do is their own response to the darkness of who they are, and the same personal darkness that is at odds with the art is what propels artists to the light of what they create.”
― Steve Erickson
“I think, as you get older, you reflect at the silliness of your youth and the stupidity of some of the decisions that were made, and the ego and whatnot, or whatever played into it.”
― Steve Lukather
“I loved to make people laugh in high school, and then I found I loved being on stage in front of people. I’m sure that’s some kind of ego trip or a way to overcome shyness. I was very kind of shy and reserved, so there’s a way to be on stage and be performing and balance your life out.”
― Steve Martin
“I’m not a big fan of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It’s just a personal thing, not an ego thing.”
― Steve Perry
“I turned down ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Spider-Man,’ two movies that I knew would be phenomenally successful, because I had already made movies like that before and they offered no challenge to me. I don’t need my ego to be reminded.”
― Steven Spielberg
“I can’t live off the ego.”
― Steven Tyler
“I have a big ego, but I don’t buy into it. I can’t live off the ego. It’s an honor that I get to be that guy onstage. It’s not something I earned.”
― Steven Tyler
“I came to believe that my true identity goes beyond the outer roles I play. It transcends the ego. I came to understand that there is an Authentic ‘I’ within – an ‘I Am,’ or divine spark within the soul.”
― Sue Monk Kidd
“Checking your ego, abandoning it, letting it go, is a huge part of recovery from addiction.”
― Susannah Grant
“I don’t read reviews. I refuse to have my ego inflated or deflated by someone I don’t know.”
― Suzan-Lori Parks
“People sense when you’re pretending, when you’re worried about your own ego.”
― Sydney Pollack
“I must discipline myself. I must be imaginative and create plots, knit motives, probe dialogue – rather than merely trying to record descriptions and sensations. The latter is pointless, without purpose, unless it is later to be synthesized into a story. The latter is also a rather pronounced symptom of an oversensitive and unproductive ego.”
― Sylvia Plath
“Instead of looking outside of ourselves and counting potential enemies, fasting summons us to turn our glance inward, and to take the measure of our greatest challenge: the self, the ego, in our own eyes and as others see us.”
― Tariq Ramadan
“It’s very clearly stated in the film: You make your own choices, and what you’re always fighting is ego.”
― Taylor Hackford
“I’m not in front of the camera, they are. I encourage them; I build up as much of their confidence and ego as possible. They’ve got to take control; I can’t act it out.”
― Taylor Hackford
“And it’s a question of how far we’re willing to go in order to let the ego shine, in order to let that beacon penetrate not only the local scene but the world.”
― Taylor Hackford
“There are more women editors than people realise. I think we’re more able to keep our eye on what the film needs. Between men, sometimes it’s a real ego battle, and that’s very bad for the film.”
― Thelma Schoonmaker
“Today self-consciousness no longer means anything but reflection on the ego as embarrassment, as realization of impotence: knowing that one is nothing.”
― Theodor W. Adorno
“Clearly I’ve got an ego.”
― Thomas Heatherwick
“Ego is good.”
― Thomas Leonard
“I am a perfectionist. This job is a total ego thing in a way. To be a designer and say, ‘This is the way they should dress; this is the way their homes should look; this is the way the world should be.’ But then, that’s the goal: world domination through style.”
― Tom Ford
“Showing young children in these communities, that there are outlets for their feelings, that there is room in a space for their stories to be told, and that they will be applauded – and it’s not about ego, it’s about connection: that their pain is everybody else’s pain.”
― Tom Hiddleston
“People say you have to know when to retire, which is a dumb thing to say. If you want to go out on top, yeah, it becomes important when you quit. But I wasn’t afraid of that. And I wasn’t worried about getting fired. I knew the risk. To me, it’s not an ego thing. I enjoy coaching. I enjoy helping people achieve something.”
― Tom Landry
“An actress must never lose her ego – without it she has no talent.”
― Tom Lehrer
“I want people to hear the honesty in my singing, and that I’m not hiding behind anything. It’s raw. It’s not for any arrogance or ego. It’s just pure feelings.”
― Tom Odell
“There are journalists who are drawn to the most extroverted, aggressive jobs because they get an ego high from it. It can be shocking to encounter them and even worse to work with them.”
― Tom Rachman
“Usually, autobiography is such an indulgence of the ego.”
― Tom Robbins
“Golf is a game of ego, but it is also a game of integrity: the most important thing is you do what is right when no one is looking.”
― Tom Watson
“The downfall of any leader in a sport’s team is when he gets carried away with his own ego.”
― Toto Wolff
“On ‘Vikings,’ nobody’s got an ego. Michael Hirst is just so open and so collaborative.”
― Travis Fimmel
“I used to get some ego thing out of saying I wasn’t a star, just an actress. Forget it. I’m a star. I wanted it. I worked for it. I got it.”
― Valerie Harper
“In the process of ego, in the process of lobbying and in the process of just criticising for stake of criticism or in the process of politicising, don’t commit national crime. Don’t prevent exploration in the country. Let us move ahead more aggressively; it is in the best interest of the country.”
― Veerappa Moily
“Too many actors get on an ego trip and won’t do commercials, so they sit around for 20 years between jobs.”
― Vic Tayback
“I don’t like my ego stroked too much.”
― Victoria Azarenka
“Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self.”
― W. H. Auden
“There’s a little more ego involved in these jobs than people might realize.”
― Walter Cronkite
“It is a kind of ego booster, the way Egypt’s winning the 1973 war, in the first stages, was an uplift. But I did not find when I spoke to people that the war in Iraq was seen as the major issue in American-Arab relations.”
― Walter Russell Mead
“The ego is only an illusion, but a very influential one. Letting the ego-illusion become your identity can prevent you from knowing your true self. Ego, the false idea of believing that you are what you have or what you do, is a backwards way of assessing and living life.”
― Wayne Dyer
“You can either be a host to God, or a hostage to your ego. It’s your call.”
― Wayne Dyer
“Comfort and luxury are usually the chief requirements of life for your ego – its top priorities tend to be accumulations, achievements, and the approval of others.”
― Wayne Dyer
“Ambition is to be the fastest runner on this planet, to be the first on the South Pole, which is a grotesque perversion of ambition. It’s an ego trip, and I’m not on an ego trip. I don’t have ambitions – I have a vision.”
― Werner Herzog
“I’m not crazy about arenas just because I can sell them out. It doesn’t do anything for my ego at all. I want to play places where people don’t have to sit in the nosebleed seats and wonder what the hell is going on.”
― Whitney Houston
“The ego is willing but the machine cannot go on. It’s the last thing a man will admit, that his mind ages.”
― Will Durant
“A key to my thinking has always been the almost fanatical belief that what I was engaged in was a literary art form. That belief was compounded out of ego and necessity, I guess, a combination of the two.”
― Will Eisner
“Without a sense of place the work is often reduced to a cry of voices in empty rooms, a literature of the self, at its best poetic music; at its worst a thin gruel of the ego.”
― William Kennedy
“The best came from my martial arts teacher, who also taught Elvis. He said, ‘Your ego will get you killed.’”
― William Sanderson
“Winnie Harlow is my alter ego like how Beyonce refers to her stage name as Sasha Fierce.”
― Winnie Harlow
“Chantelle Brown-Young is my real name. Winnie is my nickname that I was given as a teenager, and it has stuck with me. I’ve combined my real name and my nick name to create ‘Chantelle Winnie.’ My alter ego, where I seek confidence when I model, is ‘Winnie Harlow.’”
― Winnie Harlow
“I fed my ego, but not my soul.”
― Yakov Smirnoff
“Ego is one of the biggest weapons that is used to take us down. It’s self-destructive. It’s a problem on all levels – even regular people can have big ego problems.”
― Yehuda Berg
“Establishing a friendship after divorce takes great effort and a lot of swallowing of your pride and ego.”
― Yolanda Hadid
“Chefs have the ego of an actor and fashion designer combined.”
― Zac Posen
“I think the concept of ego has kind of taken over for a lot of people in our industry.”
― Zelda Williams
“If I had an ego as big as the Eiffel Tower, would I have won this many collective trophies? I know people like to talk about it. And O.K., I am not going to answer every story. But maybe I will let my collective trophies speak for themselves. I don’t know many other footballers who have won as much. Do you?”
― Zlatan Ibrahimovic
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