“Who am I?” This timeless question has puzzled countless people – me included. Our identities shape our decisions, influence our lives, and define our sense of self. And, in today’s ever-changing, diverse world, comprehending and embracing our unique identities can both be challenging and rewarding. From inspirational messages to psychoanalysts’ insights, you can dig deep into exploring and accepting your authentic self through our collection of identity quotes below.
Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. – George Bernard Shaw
A dreamer is one who can find his way only by moonlight and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. – Oscar Wilde
We know what we are, but know not what we may be. – William Shakespeare
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. – Oscar Wilde
To become what one is, one must not have the faintest idea what one is. – Friedrich Nietzsche
Self-knowledge is not knowledge but a story one tells about oneself. – Simone De Beauvoir
We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heroes or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are. Letting our past decide our future. Or we can decide for ourselves. And maybe it’s our job to invent something better. – Chuck Palahniuk
A man is what he wills himself to be. – Jean-Paul Sartre
You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do. – Carl Jung
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. – Oscar Wilde
When I discover who I am, I’ll be free. – Ralph Ellison
We are what we are because we have been what we have been. – Sigmund Freud
In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity. – Erik Erikson
I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become. – Carl Jung
How do I know who I am or where I am? How could a single wave locate itself in an ocean? – Rumi
To be idle requires a strong sense of personal identity. – Robert Louis Stevenson
The reward for conformity is that everybody likes you except yourself. – Rita Mae Brown
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. – Dr. Seuss
Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you. – George R.R. Martin
Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known. – Chuck Palahniuk
It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story. – Patrick Rothfuss
Perhaps it’s impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be. – Orson Scott Card
When I discover who I am, I’ll be free. – Ralph Ellison
A girl should be two things: who and what she wants. – Coco Chanel
You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank… You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world. – Chuck Palahniuk
Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself. – Harvey Fierstein
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. – Mahatma Gandhi
He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. – Gabriel García Márquez
I am not an angel,” I asserted; “and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. – Charlotte Brontë
Powerful Identity Quotes to Spark Self-Reflection
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” – Dr. Seuss
“In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity.” – Erik Erikson
“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself.” – Harvey Fierstein
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” – Ralph Ellison
“You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank… You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world.” – Chuck Palahniuk
“The reward for conformity is that everybody likes you except yourself.” – Rita Mae Brown
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” – Oscar Wilde
“To be idle requires a strong sense of personal identity.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
“Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known.” – Chuck Palahniuk
“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” – Ralph Ellison
“Perhaps it’s impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.” – Orson Scott Card
“In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity.” – Erik Erikson
“I am not an angel,” I asserted; “and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself.” – Charlotte Brontë