60 Be Yourself Quotes to Embrace Who You Are
Updated: Sep. 08, 2023
Sometimes we all need a little encouragement that being ourselves is the best thing we can be.
There is no one in the world quite like you—you are special and unique just for being born! We rounded up some be yourself quotes from famous figures in media and throughout history that will inspire you to truly embrace the beauty that is you. Read on to find the perfect positive affirmation that will remind you to love who you are.
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Short Quotes About Being Yourself
“Existence wants you to be you.” —Osho
“Spontaneity is total sincerity.” —Alan Watts
“You are you. Now, isn’t that pleasant?” —Dr. Seuss
“You change the world by being yourself.” —Yoko Ono
“I’d rather be a freak than a clone.” —Joanne Harris
“I’m not confused. I’m just well mixed.” —Robert Frost
“You eliminate competition by being yourself.” —Dan Go
“Be the person your dog thinks you are.” —Ricky Gervais
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” —Oscar Wilde
“You are who you are when nobody’s watching.” —Stephen Fry
“It’s hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.” —Dolly Parton
“When you are in your own lane there is no traffic.” —Ashley France
“If you don’t set your own values, other people will.” —Shane Parrish
“Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.” —Allen Ginsberg
Quotes on the Journey to Becoming Your Best Self
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” —Carl Jung
“The worst thing that can happen to a man is to become civilized.” —David Goggins
“The most important consequence of self-sufficiency is freedom.” —Epicurus
“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.” —Coco Chanel
“I would rather die having spoken in my manner, than speak in your manner and live.” —Socrates
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” —André Gide
“I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.” —Rita Mae Brown
“They laugh at me because I’m different; I laugh at them because they’re all the same.” —Kurt Cobain
“I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.” —Mozart
“The tighter you cling to your current identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it.” —James Clear
“Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else.” —Judy Garland
“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.” —Bertrand Russell
“So whatever you want to do, just do it…Making a damn fool of yourself is absolutely essential.” —Gloria Steinem
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Your harshest critic is always going to be yourself. Don’t ignore that critic but don’t give it more attention than it deserves.” —Michael Ian Black
“To help yourself, you must be yourself. Be the best that you can be. When you make a mistake, learn from it, pick yourself up and move on.” —Dave Pelzer
“The effect of life in society is to complicate and confuse our existence, making us forget who we really are by causing us to become obsessed with what we are not.” —Zhuangzi
“There’s a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.” —Ursula K. Le Guin
“When I was a child my mother said to me, ‘If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general. If you become a monk, you’ll be the pope.’ Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.” —Picasso
“Don’t let others box you into their idea of what they think you should be. A confined identity is a miserable way to exist. Be you and live free. Trust that in living true to yourself, you will attract people that support and love you, just as you are.” —Jaeda deWalt
“’Finding yourself’ is not really how it works. You aren’t a ten-dollar bill in last winter’s coat pocket. You are also not lost. Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people’s opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are. ‘Finding yourself’ is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you.” —Emily McDowell
Quotes on Being You
“Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.” —Alan Watts
“No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else.” —Buckminster Fuller
“You, being yourself, unknowingly inspire others to be themselves.” —Mooji
“God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.” —William Shakespeare
“Find your place on the planet. Dig in and take responsibility from there.” —Gary Snyder
“Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?” —Charles Bukowski
“It sounds so simple, but if you just be yourself, you’re different than anyone else.” —Tony Bennett
“If you desire to make a difference in the world, you must be different from the world.” —Elaine S. Dalton
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” —Bernard M. Maruch
“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” —Marilyn Monroe
“Accept right now that you are magnificent. Being your real, true, authentic self is what’s most awesome about you.” —Gabby Bernstein
“Be nobody’s darling; Be an outcast. Take the contradictions of your life and wrap around you like a shawl, to parry stones, to keep you warm.” —Alice Walker
“Always be yourself. At the end of the day, that’s all you’ve really got; when you strip everything down, that’s all you’ve got, so always be yourself.” —Al Roker
“Don’t be into trends. Don’t make fashion own you, but you decide what you are, what you want to express by the way you dress and the way to live.” —Gianni Versace
“Being confident is the key to life. Don’t be afraid to be you! I’m super different from a lot of kids my age with style and personality, and I’m OK with it. And if you are OK with it, everyone else will be, too. Just be yourself.” —Leo Howard
Quotes That Encourage Uniqueness
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” —Oscar Wilde
“I find the best way to love someone is not to change them, but instead, help them reveal the greatest version of themselves.” —Steve Maraboli
“Don’t chase people. Be yourself, do your own thing and work hard. The right people—the ones who really belong in your life—will come to you, and stay.” —Will Smith
“About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won’t like you at all.” —Rita Mae Brown
“How many more of us are faking the facade? How many more of us are pretending to be something we’re not? Even better, how many of us will have the courage to be ourselves regardless of what others think?” —Katie McGarry
“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself-and especially to feel, or not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at any moment is fine with them. That’s what real love amounts to—letting a person be what he really is.” —Jim Morrison
“The truth is that we don’t need everyone to like us; we need a few people to love us. Because what’s better than being roundly liked is being fully known – an impossibility both professionally and personally if you’re so busy being likable that you forget to be yourself.” —Jessica Valenti
“When someone is properly grounded in life, they shouldn’t have to look outside themselves for approval.” —Epictetus
“When you see a mob doing something, it should make you less likely to do it yourself, not more likely.” —Paul Graham
“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” —Bindi Irwin
Originally Published: September 10, 2021
