Insecurity Quotes

“Beware of those around you who subtly sow the seeds of doubt.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman

“Little people need to belittle.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman

“We've all felt a little incompetent, insufficient, overexposed, helpless, unlovable, terrified, defective, unfit and unsung at times. And deep down, for whatever reason, you might even think you deserve to. Because why else would you be feeling that way. Like the world is laughing at you.

I promise you it's not.”
― Anne Clendening, Bent: How Yoga Saved My Ass

“Do not be threatened by rude people because rudeness is a sign of insecurity.”
― Gift Gugu Mona

“I'm going to promote myself exactly as I am, with all my weak points and my strong ones. My weak points are that I’m self-conscious and often insecure, and my strong point is that I don’t feel any shame about it.”
― Patti Smith

“I'm trying to find something wrong with you so that I don't want you so much.”
― Kate McGahan

“I get locked into a cycle of not speaking. It’s like every time I think of something awesome to say, I rehearse it in my head so many times, I forget whether I’ve said it out loud yet. And I think it goes without saying that awesome one-liners are decidedly less awesome when you repeat them by accident. Better not to risk it.”
― Becky Albertalli, The Upside of Unrequited

“To be human is to be ‘heart led’ and valiantly vulnerable; lion-hearted and confident in what can be offered to you and what you can give in return. Insecurity is something to absorb in order to progress; much of the adventure in life is the ‘not knowing’ of what is next, and it takes distinct bravery to get to a place where you are willing to be at ease with the mystery of what’s to come.”
― Christine Evangelou, Stardust and Star Jumps: A Motivational Guide to Help You Reach Toward Your Dreams, Goals, and Life Purpose

“The fact is that life is like the river: endlessly moving on, ever seeking, exploring, pushing, overflowing its banks, penetrating every crevice with its water. But you see, the mind won't allow that to happen to itself. The mind sees that it is dangerous, risky to live in a state of impermanency, insecurity, so it builds a wall around itself; the wall of tradition, of organized religion, of political and social theories. Family, name,property,the littel virtues that we have cultivated - these are all within the walls, away from life. Life is moving, impermanent, and it ceaselessly tries to penetrate, to break down these walls, behind which there is a confusion an misery. The gods within the walls are false gods, and their writings and philosophies have no meaning because life is beyond
Think on these things chap. 17”
― J. Krishnamurti

“Insecurity takes on various disguises. Cockiness and arrogance are among the most common.”
― Luigina Sgarro

“You musn't mind people so much. They're not being disagreeable to you -- it's their way. You always think people are meaning things for you. But they don't.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Computers and mobile devices are becoming known for their inherent insecurities and the ability to damage the long term health of the users.”
― Steven Magee

“...imagine that you hold in one hand an oddly shaped stone. You keep this hand closed into a fist, but still you can feel the stone’s curvature and the pointed edges, the roughness—of course, you know the relative size and weight and might even have a mental image of the color of this stone, even if you have not yet laid eyes upon it. Imagine that stone in your hand. Imagine what it is like to know everything about the way it feels, but nothing of how it looks. Hold that in mind for a moment.

Now, imagine that there is a person standing next to you who tells you that she also holds a stone in her hand. You look down and see the clenched fist and she sees yours and you confess the same. Neither of you, it seems, has yet opened the hand and seen the stone. Still, you can only trust each other’s proclamations. Standing together with your stones in hand, the two of you theorize about whether or not your respective stones are similar to one another. You discuss mundane details about your stones (not the special ones—you hesitate to make mention of the sharp point in the northern hemisphere or the flat area on the bottom). Your neighbor finally notes similarities between her stone and yours and you nod with relief and acknowledge that your stones indeed share reasonable commonalities. Over the course of your discussion, you and your neighbor finally conclude, without bothering to open your hands, that the stones you hold must indeed be quite similar.

Are they? It is only suitable to say that they are.

At the same time, and in spite of your desire not to offend, there is no doubt in your mind that the stone you hold bespeaks a greater prominence than that of your neighbor. You are not sure how you know this to be true, but it must be so! And I do not mean that this stone simply holds a greater subjective prominence. It has something of the universal, for it is, indeed, an auspicious stone! Silently, you hypothesize in what ways it must be special. It is possibly different in shape, color, weight, size and texture from the other, but you cannot confirm this. Perhaps, it is special by substance? Still, you are unsure. The very fact of your uncertainty begins to bother you and unleashes within you a deep insecurity. What if you are wrong and your stone is actually inferior to the other…or inferior even to some third stone not yet encountered?

Meanwhile, your neighbor is silently suffering in the same agony. Both of you tacitly understand that, without comparing the two visually, it is absurd to proclaim the two stones similar. Yet, your fist remains clenched, as does your neighbor’s and so you find yourselves unable to hold out the stones before you and compare them side-by-side. Of course, this is possible, but the mutual curiosity is outstripped by an inveterate pride, and so you both become afraid of showing (and even seeing) what you have, for fear that your respective stones will be different in appearance from the model that you have each conceptualized in mind. Meekly your eyes meet and you smile to one another at your new comradeship, but, all the while, remain paralyzed by a simultaneous shame and vanity.”
― Ashim Shanker

“This is not a "guilty pleasure" of mine, simply because I don't believe in "guilty" pleasures. Snobbery is just the public face of insecurity.”
― James Kakalios, The Physics of Superheroes: Spectacular Second Edition

“Selfishness comes from too little self-love, not too much, as we compensate for our lack. There's no such thing as caring for the self too much, just as there's no such thing as too much genuine affection for others. Our world suffers from too little self-love and too much judgment, insecurity, fear, and mistrust. If we all cared about ourselves more, most of these ills would disappear.”
― Anita Moorjani, Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing

“We spend most of our lives looking for reassurance from others until we find that others are looking for reassurance from us. And somebody has to stop this.”
― Luigina Sgarro

“These fits of jealousy, which of late had been more and more frequent, horrified him and, however much he tried to disguise the fact, estranged him from her, although he knew the cause of her jealousy was her love for him. How often he had told himself that to be loved by her was happiness; and now that she loved him only as a woman can for whom love outweighs all that is good in life, he was much farther from happiness than when he had followed her from Moscow.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“The insecure people enjoy bad mouthing the others. They indulge in the continuous havoc and they tangle themselves in this spider web of plots and conflicts. I really wonder what it is about their inner life that make them so insecure. #Justmyobservation.”
― Euginia Herlihy

“We both keep quiet.
Again.
Today just seems like a day for it. It’s easier that way. You don’t have to say things you don’t want to say because once the words are out, you’ll have to confront them.
Confront your insecurities.
Confront your fears.
Confront yourself.
I think that one, the last one, is the hardest.”
― Anna B. Doe, Lost & Found: Anabel & William #1

“Why did you run away last time?” William asks quietly, so quietly that at first, I think I’m imagining it...
“Because you are dangerous for me,” I say in the same tone so that he is the only one who can hear me...
“Because,” I say, but then I stop, my throat suddenly too dry.
7…6…
My tongue darts out to wet my lips before continuing in a hurry. “Because…”
5…
“You could be everything I ever wanted.”
4…3…
“Everything and so much more.”
― Anna B. Doe, Lost & Found: Anabel & William #1

“Writing was a defeat, it was a humiliation, it was coming face-to-face with yourself and seeing you weren't good enough.”
― Karl Ove Knausgård, Min kamp 5

“Il est très vaniteux ou très peu sûr de lui, comme vous voulez.”
― Françoise Sagan, Bonjour tristesse

“The dominant social force that drives our thinking and our actions is the unconscious search and need for social proof.”
― Dragos Bratasanu, The Pursuit of Dreams: Claim Your Power, Follow Your Heart, and Fulfill Your Destiny

“Naked fear dons a cloak of anger.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman

“There was once a man named Joe... Joe was insecure because he had no ears. Joe couldn’t hear a goddamn peep. And so he worked hard and saved up some money until eventually he was able to buy himself a pair of ears. And, for the first time in his life, he was able to hear the music of Beethoven and rejoice in the sound of a child’s laughter. So Joe was no longer insecure about not having ears... although now he’s a little insecure about his speech impediment.”
― David Michael Miller, The Becomer

“I hadn't even solved the mystery of my own body.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“You know what would be fun,” our school’s administration likely thought, huffing glue out of an old sock. “What if we make our cruellest eleven-year-olds assess each other in wet spandex for an hour every day for a week in the dead of winter?”
― Scaachi Koul, One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter

“Give me your hand," Alice said, barely a whisper.
Bones held out his hand tentatively. She took it and placed it on her heart over her left breast. So small. So delicate. She didn't move. He didn't move. Alice was his life. How could he make her his eternal?
"Kiss me," she said.
Bones let his hand linger, and then slowly slip away, not wanting her to think he was greedy. He touched her cheek, careful not to poke her in the eye. He wasn't sure what to do with his other hand, so he put it in his pocket. Classic move.
He felt stupid for worrying about his breath, knowing it was gross from the wine--and he worried Alice was about to find out how little he knew about kissing--and he wondered if she had condoms in the bag--and imagined himself unrolling one, all suave-like--and realized he was wasting the most amazing moment of his life--and wished his brain would just shut the fuck up.
Alice leaned forward. "Now."
Bones shuddered. "Okay.”
― Sherry Shahan, Skin and Bones

“Stále neviem, či som prvý človek, alebo posledný pes.
..
Práve som poskakoval s jednou nohou zamotanou
v nohavici, keď do hudby vkročil rázny mužský hlas. "Hlásenie pre vodičov," oznámil. "Na dvadsiatom siedmom kilometri diaľnice D1 medzi Bratislavou a Trnavou zvýšte pozornosť. Po ceste pobehuje zúfalý pes." Mal pravdu, svojím spôsobom. Sám by som to nevedel povedať lepšie.”
― Pavel Vilikovský, Pes na ceste

“Anger comes from insecurity, not from hate or love.”
― Debasish Mridha