Self-expression Quotes

No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.
Ansel Adams

When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life.
Greg Anderson

Find what makes your heart sing and create your own music.
Mac Anderson

Dance is one of the most powerful forms of magical ritual... It is an outer expression of the inner spirit.
Ted Andrews

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
Maya Angelou

I have two questions for you: What do you need to make your creativity shine through? Why do you keep ignoring it?
Lauren Artress

There is a need to find and sing our own song, to stretch our limbs and shake them in a dance so wild that nothing can roost there, that stirs the yearning for solitary wings.
Barbara Lazear Ascher

Some days there won't be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.
Emory Austin

Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself.
Richard Bach

Mortals must do what they are here to do creatively or they will become cranky.
Jill Badonsky

We find greatest joy, not in getting, but in expressing what we are... Men do not really live for honors or for pay; their gladness is not the taking and holding, but in doing, the striving, the building, the living. It is a higher joy to teach than to be taught. It is good to get justice, but better to do it; fun to have things but more to make them. The happy man is he who lives the life of love, not for the honors it may bring, but for the life itself.
R.J. Baughan

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.
Sir Cecil Beaton

There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation.
Henri Bergson

Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.
Napoleon Bonaparte

Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.
Robert Bresson

The easiest thing in the world to be is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position.
Leo Buscaglia

In dance, in composition, in sculpture, the experience is the same: we are more the conduit than the creator of what we express.
Julia Cameron

We don’t always know what makes us happy. We know, instead, what we think SHOULD. We are baffled and confused when our attempts at happiness fail…We are mute when it comes to naming accurately our own preferences, delights, gifts, talents. The voice of our original self is often muffled, overwhelmed, even strangled, by the voices of other people’s expectations. The tongue of the original self is the language of the heart.
Julia Cameron

If you are lucky, and if you live long enough, and if you trust your materials and you trust your instincts, you will see things of beauty growing up in front of you, without you having anything to do with it.
Michael Cardew

In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.
Coco Chanel

Each of us possesses a creative self. Claiming that is a transformational art. When you begin to act on your creativity,what you find inside may be more valuable than what you produce for the external world. The ultimate creative act is to express what is most authentic and individual about you.
Eileen M. Clegg

I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning. Every day I find something creative to do with my life.
Miles Davis

Sometimes you have to play for a long time to be able to play like yourself.
Miles Davis

Living with integrity means: Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values. Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe.
Barbara De Angelis

The truest expression of a people is in its dance and music.
Agnes de Mille

Don’t die with your music (stories/talents) still inside you. Listen to your intuitive inner voice and find what passion stirs your soul.
Wayne Dyer

Through drawing, you are make visible.
Betty Edwards

Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population.
Albert Einstein

The two terrors that discourage creativity and creative living are fear of public opinion and undue reverence for one's own consistency.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Stop being so impressed with what other people are doing and get impressed about yourself. You have a story that the world wants to hear. Go tell it!
Stone Evans

If a story is in you, it has got to come out.
William Faulkner

To fully be a human being is to take full responsibility for one’s part in the co-creation of the world.
Joel Federman

Over the years your bodies become walking autobiographies, telling friends and strangers alike of the minor and major stresses of your lives.
Marilyn Ferguson

All of our suffering in life is from saying we want one thing and doing another.
Debbie Ford

Our self-expression is meant to be a manifestation of the silence of our hearts.
Matthew Fox

When your life itself becomes the subject matter of the creative process, a very different experience of life opens to you.
Robert Fritz

Conditions for creativity are to be puzzled, to concentrate, to accept conflict and tension, to be born every day, to feel a sense of self.
Erich Fromm

There is nothing of which we are more ashamed than of not being ourselves. And there is nothing which brings us greater joy and happiness than to think, feel, and say what is ours.
Erich Fromm

I have found that it is the willingness to say what I feel and want that makes me feel whole.
Shakti Gawain

We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or other peoples’ models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open.
Shakti Gawain

Write about what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.
Natalie Goldberg

Children are not born empty vessels waiting to be filled, but vessels of infinite love and wisdom ready to be expressed.
Vince Gowmon

Movement never lies.  It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather.
Martha Graham

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.
Martha Graham

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear, which is inherent in a human condition.
Graham Greene

Never, for the sake of peace and quiet, deny your own experience or convictions.
Dag Hammarskjold

One person speaking up makes more noise than a thousand people who remain silent.
Thom Harnett

Everything we feel deeply must be expressed.
Han Hartung

Music is the soul of language.
Max Heindel

When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and opens ways for a better understanding.
Robert Henri

Most people are much more unusual and complicated and eccentric and playful and creative than they have time to express.
Oliver Herring

Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

The things that one most wants to do are the things that are probably most worth doing.
Winifred Holtby

A bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.
Lou Holtz

We hold these truths to be self-evident; All people are born creative; Endowed by our Creator with the inalienable right and responsibility to express our creativity for the sake of ourselves and our world.
Barbara Marx Hubbard

When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free.
Charles Evans Hughes

Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.
Victor Hugo

After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
Aldous Huxley

Be yourself. Above all. Let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.
John Jakes

Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.
Mae Jemison

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.
Jesus (The Gospel of Thomas/Gnostic Gospels)

Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.
Janis Joplin

Telling stories is as basic to human beings as eating. More so, in fact, for while food makes us live, stories are what make our lives worth living.
Richard Kearney

In the degree that we remember and retell our stories and create new ones we become the authors, the authorities, of our own lives.
Sam Keen

There can be no richer man or woman than the individual who has found his or her labor of love. Personal fulfillment through the virtue of work is the highest form of desire. Work is the conduit between the supply and the demand of all human needs, the forerunner of human progress, and the medium by which the imagination is given the wings of action. A labor of love is exalted because it provides joy and self-expression to those who perform it.
Dennis Kimbro

Never, never, be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.
Barbara Kingsolver

We are, each of us, our own prisoner. We are locked up in our own story.
Maxine Kumin

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.
D. H. Lawrence

My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.
John Lennon

Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another.
Madonna

I will not die an unlived life…I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me…I choose to risk my significance.
Dawna Markova

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization.
Abraham Maslow

Art is like singing. Some do it better than others, but everyone can and should be doing it for their soul.
Barbara Mason

Trust the process of the subtle push toward art and creative expression from inside you – it is the gentle call of your heart and renewed search for soul. It is an opening to expansion of your expressive abilities and the discovery of hidden limitations ready to be challenged. Be open to what it means, it has many possibilities for action in every part of your life. Ultimately it will lead to significant personal changes – to living life in a new way with new tools of creative expression.
Donald William Mathews

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
Somerset Maugham

The only important thing in a book is the meaning it has for you.
Somerset Maugham

If you do not listen to your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. Also, you will have betrayed our community in failing to make your contribution to the whole.
Rollo May

We cannot will to have insights. We cannot will to have creativity, but we can will to give ourselves to the creative experience with intensity of dedication and commitment.
Rollo May

Creative expression requires an ability to work with feelings and channel them. Frustration, dissatisfaction, and even a sense of desperation may help you access an eloquence you never knew existed.
Shaun McNiff

Laughter is man’s most distinctive emotional expression. Man shares the capacity for love and hate, anger and fear, loyalty and grief, with other living creatures. But humor, which has an intellectual as well as an emotional element, belongs to man.
Margaret Mead

Use those talents you have. You will make it. You will give joy to the world. Take this tip from nature: The woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except those who sang best.
Bernard Meltzer

Paint as you like and die happy.
Henry Miller

All progress occurs because people dare to be different.
Harry Milner

You've got to keep the child alive; you can't create without it.
Joni Mitchell

Relief from boredom, anxiety, depression, and addictions are the pleasant side effects of engaging the imagination, and of restoring the soul.
Bruce L. Moon

The noun of self becomes a verb. This flashpoint of creation in the present moment is where work and play merge.
Stephen Nachmanovitch

The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak.
Friedrich Nietzsche

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Creativity is the process of expressing and applying imagination.
Marta Davidovich Ockuly

Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.
Ben Okri

Creativity is the mother of all energies, nurturer of your most alive self. It charges up every part of you. When you’re plugged in, a spontaneous combustion occurs that ‘artists’ don’t have a monopoly on.
Judith Orloff

Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom while discouragement often nips it at the bud. Creativity is now something we can turn on and off like a faucet. It is an experience and expression in our lives that must be nurtured. This nurturing process means that creativity is at once a skill, an art, and a life-style.
Alex Osborn

As you express joy, you draw it out of those you meet, creating joyful people and joyful events. The greater the joy you express, the more joy you experience.
Arnold Patent

Creativity pervades human life. It is the mark of individuality. The vehicle of self-expression. The engine of progress in every human endeavor.
Elliot Samuel Paul

I do my thing and you do yours. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, then it is beautiful. If not, it can’t be helped.
Frederick Perls

Champion the right to be yourself; dare to be different and to set your own pattern, live your own life, and follow your own star.
Wilfred Peterson

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.
Anna Quindlen

Serving others helps strengthen your creativity by providing low-risk avenues of self-expression while making a difference in the lives of others. The joy of giving, the joy of creating, and the joy of helping come from service.
Salli Rasberry

Creativity when not used turns to depression.
Henri Reiman

You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born.
Rainer Maria Rilke

You must love yourself before you love another. By accepting yourself and fully being what you are…your simple presence can make others happy.
Jane Roberts

Fostering creativity within yourself and others revitalizes the ability to feel, express, and act constructively – crucial competencies for our world.
Natalie Rogers

Anger is an integrity-producing response to the invasion of your personal boundaries.
Gabrielle Roth

Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive – the risk to be alive and express what we really are.
Miguel Ángel Ruiz

I want to sing like birds sing, not worrying who listens or what they think
Rumi

The key is to trust your heart to move where your talents can flourish. This old world will really spin when work becomes a joyous expression of the soul.
Al Sacharov

To live creatively free, do what you know how to do now, then ‘act as if’ you know how to do the rest.
SARK

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression.
Isaac Bashevis Singer

To freely bloom - that is my definition of success.
Gerry Spence

Music is the purest form of art... therefore true poets, they who are seers, seek to express the universe in terms of music... The singer has everything within him. The notes come out from his very life. They are not materials gathered from outside.
Rabindranath Tagore

I feel like tiny bird with a big song!
Jerry Van Amerongen

Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
Henry Van Dyke

How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?
Vincent van Gogh

Go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You wil get an an enormous reward. You will have created something.
Kurt Vonnegut

No person is your friend who demands silence, or denies your right to grow.
Alice Walker

Creativity is a rare part of living. It's fundamental. None of us can squelch our creativity without feeling less than whole, incomplete and depressed.
Lynn Weiss

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.
Walt Whitman

When you die and go to heaven, our maker is not going to ask, Why didn’t you discover the cure for such and such? The only question we will be asked in that precious moment is, Why didn’t you become you?
Elie Wiesel

Conscious awareness is the source of our healing…Only when you say the truth can the truth set you free. This is not a negative process, but at times it is a difficult process.
Marianne Williamson

You can’t base your life on other people’s expectations.
Stevie Wonder

Sing songs that none have sung.
Paramahansa Yogananda

If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you: I am here to live out loud.
Emile Zola