If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance, I'll tell you what you are.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that a person's sense of self-worth and importance is intrinsically linked to their values and actions.
Dale Carnegie's quote reflects the idea that understanding how individuals derive their feelings of importance can reveal much about their character and priorities. It implies that everyone's self-esteem originates from different sources—some may find it through their achievements, relationships, or contributions to others. Therefore, by examining what elevates one’s sense of importance, we can gain insight into their true nature and motivations.
In practice
In a motivational speech about self-esteem, you might say, 'If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance, I'll tell you what you are, which highlights the role of personal values in shaping our identity.'
When I asked him -Mr.Henry Ford- if he ever worried, he replied: "No. I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn't need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe that every-thing will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about?
Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.
By talking to yourself about the things you have to be grateful for you can fill your mind with thoughts that soar and sing.
It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.
I can look back at my own life and see where a few words of praise have sharply changed my entire future. Can't you say the same thing about your life?
Instead of worrying about what people say of you, why not spend time trying to accomplish something they will admire.
Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is, I dunno. If The Eiffel Tower were now to represent the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; and anybody would perceive that the skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno.
An 'impersonal God'-well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads-better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap-best of all. But God himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, King, husband-that is quite another matter.
Though builders may build, in the main they follow the plans of architects. Teachers teach, but they must have a text. Politicians govern, but only upon the flow of commentary that raises them up or casts them down.
Exact knowledge is the enemy of vitalism.
Across planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things can be simultaneously true.
No religion is responsible for terrorism. People are responsible for violence and terrorism.
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