Self Doubt Quotes

“Our doubts are traitors,
and make us lose the good we oft might win,
by fearing to attempt.”
― William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”
― Vincent Willem van Gogh

“Don’t let others tell you what you can’t do. Don't let the limitations of others limit your vision. If you can remove your self-doubt and believe in yourself, you can achieve what you never thought possible.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

“The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize."

[Modernism's Patriarch (Time Magazine, June 10, 1996)]”
― Robert Hughes

“I seek strength, not to be greater than other, but to fight my greatest enemy, the doubts within myself”
― P.C. Cast

“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.”
― Suzy Kassem

“Believe in your infinite potential. Your only limitations are those you set upon yourself.
Believe in yourself, your abilities and your own potential. Never let self-doubt hold you captive. You are worthy of all that you dream of and hope for.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

“Most haters are stuck in a poisonous mental prison of jealousy and self-doubt that blinds them to their own potentiality.”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

“Never let fear hold you captive.
Never let self-doubt hold you captive.
Never let frustration hold you captive.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

“I want to drag knives over my skin, just to feel something other than shame, but I'm not even brave enough for that”
― Paula Hawkins , The Girl on the Train

“I couldn’t trust my own emotions. Which emotional reactions were justified, if any? And which ones were tainted by the mental illness of BPD? I found myself fiercely guarding and limiting my emotional reactions, chastising myself for possible distortions and motivations. People who had known me years ago would barely recognize me now. I had become quiet and withdrawn in social settings, no longer the life of the party. After all, how could I know if my boisterous humor were spontaneous or just a borderline desire to be the center of attention? I could no longer trust any of my heart felt beliefs and opinions on politics, religion, or life. The debate queen had withered. I found myself looking at every single side of an issue unable to come to any conclusions for fear they might be tainted. My lifelong ability to be assertive had turned into a constant state of passivity.”
― Rachel Reiland, Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder

“Writing is finally about one thing: going into a room alone and doing it. Putting words on paper that have never been there in quite that way before. And although you are physically by yourself, the haunting Demon never leaves you, that Demon being the knowledge of your own terrible limitations, your hopeless inadequacy, the impossibility of ever getting it right. No matter how diamond-bright your ideas are dancing in your brain, on paper they are earthbound.”
― William Goldman, Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting

“With emotional abuse, the insults, insinuations, criticism, and accusations slowly eat away at the victim’s self-esteem until he or she is incapable of judging a situation realistically. He or she may begin to believe that there is something wrong with them or even fear they are losing their mind. They have become so beaten down emotionally that they blame themselves for the abuse.”
― Beverly Engel, The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing

“Speed eliminates all doubt. Am I smart enough? Will people like me? Do I really look all right in this plastic jumpsuit?”
― David Sedaris

“GLOBAL TEMPERATURES HAVE LOWERED BY ONE DEGREE. GLOBEWIDE NATURAL INGREDIENT SHORTAGE IN EFFECT AS OF THIS MESSAGE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE ”
― Adam Scott Huerta, Motive Black

“To Cassidy, the panopticon wasn't a metaphor. It was the greatest failing on everything she was, a prison she had built for herself out of an inability to appear anything less than perfect. And so she ghosted on, in relentless pursuit of escape, not from society, but from herself. She would always be confined by what everyone expected of her because she was too afraid and too unwilling to correct our imperfect imaginings.”
― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything

“Who hasn't asked himself, am I a monster or is this what it means to be human?”
― Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star

“It doesn’t matter if I’m off the beat. It doesn’t matter if I’m snapping to the rhythm. It doesn’t matter if I look like a complete goon when I dance. It is my dance. It is my moment. It is mine. And dance I will. Try and stop me. You’ll probably get kicked in the face.”
― Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing: The Best of Year One

“I had some ambition. I meant everything to be different with me. I thought I had more strength and mastery. But the most terrible obstacles are such as nobody can see except oneself.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“Criticism is just someone else’s opinion. Even people who are experts in their fields are sometimes wrong. It is up to you to choose whether to believe some of it, none of it, or all of it. What you think is what counts.”
― Rodolfo Costa, Advice My Parents Gave Me: and Other Lessons I Learned from My Mistakes

“I don't believe anyone ever suspects how completely unsure I am of my work and myself and what tortures of self-doubting the doubt of others has always given me.”
― Tennessee Williams

“Believe in yourself, your abilities and your own potential. Never let self-doubt hold you captive. You are worthy of all that you dream of and hope for.”
― Roy Bennett

“Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence.”
― Rebecca Solnit

“I bought you something" Willows blurts out.
"You bought...What?"
Willow closes her eyes for a second. She's a little surprised she's going to give it to him after all, but there's no going back now. She has to.

"At the bookstore." She reaches into her bag again, and pushes the package across the table towards him.
Guy takes the book out of the bag slowly, Willow waits for him to look disappointed, to look confused that she would buy him such a battered, old-

"I love it when used books have notes in the margins, it's the best," Guy says as he flips through the pages. "I always imagine who read it before me." He pauses and looks at one of Prospero's speeches. "I have way too much homework to read this now, but you know what? Screw it. I want to know why it's your favorite Shakespeare. Thank you, that was really nice of you. I mean, you really didn't have to."

"But I did anyway," Willow says so quietly she's not even sure hears her.

Hey," Guy frowns for a second. "You didn't write anything in here."

"Oh, I didn't even think...I, well, I wouldn't even know what to write," Willow says shyly.

"Well, maybe you'll think of something later," he says.

Willow watches Guy read the opening. There's no mistaking it. His smile is genuine, and she can't help thinking that if she can't make David look like this, at least she can do it for someone.”
― Julia Hoban, Willow

“I like you so much," she says between kisses. And I can tell she wants to say love instead of like, not because she really does love me but because she just wants to say it. Of course, she can't, though. Not when I haven't said it first.”
― Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now

“I made mistakes like this all the time, seeking affirmation from the very worst people, so that what I must have been after deep down was confirmation of the fears instead of their dismissals”
― Megan Nolan, Acts of Desperation

“Always have faith in yourself and the universe, for one will not get you anywhere without the other. Both must be equally strong to reach your desires, for they are the wings that will lift you to your dreams.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“When our commitment is wavering, the best way to stay on track is to consider the progress we've already made. As we recognize what we've invested and attained, it seems like a waste to give up, and our confidence and commitment surge.”
― Adam M. Grant, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

“Technology has solved old economic problems by giving us new psychological problems. The internet has not just open-sourced information, it has also open-sourced insecurity, self-doubt, and shame.”
― Mark Manson