To be nobody-but-myself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else-means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.

The search for a personal identity is the life task of a teenager.

You are, when all is done-just what you are.

It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.

To say a thing simply: I am my history, but the story of my life is always guarded, self-conscious. It is finally the only story we give to someone we love.

I'd really love to meet the guy I'm supposed to be. I'd hire him in a second.

What thou art, that thou art; that God knoweth thee to be and thou canst be said to be no greater.

You see in others who you are.

While you cannot resolve what you are, at last you will be nothing.

Philosophy forms us for ourselves, not for others; to be, not to seem.