Self Doubt Quotes

“...wanting soul life without the dark, warming intelligence of personal doubt is like expecting an egg without the brooding heat of the mother hen.”
― David Whyte

“You do not need to pay attention to those voices within you that create pain, or make you feel less competent, smart or able.”
― Sanaya Roman, Living with Joy: Keys to Personal Power and Spiritual Transformation

“I could keep going forever, listing all my flaws in order from the most innocuous to the least. I am afraid of spiders... I fall in love too easily... I have fierce spells of self-doubt.”
― Nina LaCour, Everything Leads to You

“Self-doubt is a persuasive mistress; careful not to shag her or you’ll never get your balls back.” - Simon Hunt”
― Dannika Dark, Twist

“Erase self-doubt by working to build your strengths instead of focusing on your weaknesses.”
― Rodolfo Costa, Advice My Parents Gave Me: and Other Lessons I Learned from My Mistakes

“The writer who loses his self-doubt, who gives way as he grows old to a sudden euphoria, to prolixity, should stop writing immediately: the time has come for him to lay aside his pen.”
― Colette, Earthly Paradise

“A Jewish man with his parents alive is half the time a helpless infant!”
― Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint

“Trapped. Sinking. Can't be myself. Made into what other people expect. Is that everyone's fate? Were the great individualists the products of their friends who wanted a great individualist as a friend?”
― Michael Moorcock, Behold the Man: A Time Traveler’s Quest to Become the Messiah—The Nebula-Winning New Wave Science Fiction Classic

“Nothing restricts your success more than your limiting self-beliefs and fears.”
― Maddy Malhotra, How to Build Self-Esteem and Be Confident: Overcome Fears, Break Habits, Be Successful and Happy

“What unites us is our despair. Do other people wish to know that someone else walked this earth with a similar batch of questions and frustration? Am I alone trussed with a long suppressed scream lodged within my breast shouting out in the vacant darkness of night, “Who am I, where am I, and where shall I go with this dreaded case of hopelessness, self-doubt, and self-loathing that is weighing me down, making me crazy, and blindsiding any chance to discover personal happiness?” On many occasions, I felt like surrendering to life, no longer willing to endure the physical aches and devastating emotional blows that human life requires. Lost, exiled, and living in alienation from the entire world I searched for a reentry port to a meaningful life. I must work; honest toil is good for the body, mind, and spiritual health of human beings. I shall go to the grave utterly spent from living an authentic life of giving the better part of oneself to the world.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“I have challenged fate to chess and am now attempting to keep all my confidence from puddling in my boots. What if I’m the only one betting on myself because everyone but me can see I am not suited to play at all?”
― Mackenzi Lee, The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy

“Que sais je? [What do I know?]”
― Montaigne, Michel de

“Despair, self-doubt, and desire cripple human beings.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“I do not know when I am being what they want me to be and when I am myself.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Borne

“Remember that time you “accidentally” climbed Mount Everest or won an Olympic gold medal? Or maybe “mistakenly” performed brain surgery? No? That’s because success doesn’t happen by accident, no matter what your Inner Critic tries to tell you. And deep down, you know this.”
― Tempest Jemison, How to Break Free from Imposter Syndrome: A Hilarious Journey from Self-Doubt to Self-Love: A Quick, No-BS Guide to Stop Overthinking, Overcome ... Your Life With Fun Exercises and Extra Giggle

“Do you know the difference between healthy self-doubt and imposter syndrome? Compare this: a GPS recalculating your route—calm, collected, and ready to guide you back on track. Now, contrast that with your Inner Chaotic Passenger who’s simultaneously giving you wrong directions, insisting that you got your license from a garage sale, and yelling that you’re trying to scam them. Whatever happens—they’re definitely giving you one star and writing a detailed complaint about it.”
― Tempest Jemison, How to Break Free from Imposter Syndrome: A Hilarious Journey from Self-Doubt to Self-Love: A Quick, No-BS Guide to Stop Overthinking, Overcome ... Your Life With Fun Exercises and Extra Giggle

“See, I was right. Was?
You didn't even believe yourself.”
― Jayant Chopra

“[...]there are these times in my life when it's difficult for me to separate logic from emotion. My brain and my heart battle each other sometimes. As much as I hate that it happens, my emotions overpower any sort of logic in those moments. And well... you were on the receiving end of what that looks like. My insecurities skyrocket, my self-doubt explodes, and I'm left questioning anything and everything.”
― Chip Pons, You & I, Rewritten

“Many years have passed while I’ve been trying to rise again… until I began to wonder: did I ever truly rise at all?”
― Khaled Ibrahim

“I am the teacher of athletes,
He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own,
He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“This story is for
 anyone who has ever doubted themselves because of their outward appearance or their imperfect talents;
 anyone who has hit rock bottom and does not know how to get back up again;
 anyone who has faced loss and loneliness;
 anyone who never gave up on their faith and resilience amidst unstable circumstances; or
 anyone who desires to experience the warmth of sisterhood.”
― Kotoba Clan, Moon Face Witch

“These people couldn’t possibly doubt or worry or sulk. These people couldn’t possibly feel insecurity and shame and pain. These people liked to have fun, and so they did.
Was it really that simple? Could she too reduce herself to such shallow waters and escape the depths that plagued her active mind?
She was so intoxicated by the thought, that she’d convinced herself she could be like them.”
― Molly Collier, The Paragon

“I know you could be the man for Mari, if you wanted."
My dearest wish, which felt as impossible as the sky turning neon pink.”
― Sarah Chamberlain, Love Walked In

“Just last week all was calm. I was no one and nothing and I think that’s how things were meant to be. And now . . . I don’t know how to do this.”
― Molly Collier, The Paragon

“I stand with my creativity; fear can crawl with the worms.”
― Oneal Walters

“Our greatest enemy lives within us.”
― Saad Jatoi

“It’s funny how you doubt yourself through and through, when the sun and the moon are parabolically on a pilgrimage, encircling the Mecca of you.”
― Curtis Tyrone Jones, Mirrors Of The Sun: Finding Reflections Of Light In The Shittiness Of Life

“A breath beside mine, a soft chain of fear.
“Don’t move,” the whisper says—it is very safe here.
Each caution makes me frailer;
Self-doubt my own jailer.”
― Shon Mehta, The Uncharted Mind

“Interviewing T.S. Eliot, I saved my cheekiest question for last. “Do you know you’re any good?” His revised and printed response was formal, but in person he was abrupt: “Heavens no! Do you? Nobody intelligent knows if he’s any good.”
― Donald Hall, Essays After Eighty

“At sixteen, poets think that if they publish in a magazine that will be it. When it happens, it is not it. Then they think it will be it when they publish in Poetry. No. The New Yorker? No. A book? Good reviews? The Something Prize? A Guggenheim? The National Book Award? The Nobel? No, no, no, no, no, no. Flying back from Stockholm, the Laureate knows that nothing will make it certain. The Laureate sighs.”
― Donald Hall, Essays After Eighty