Quote

Is devotion to others a cover for the hungers and the needs of the self, of which one is ashamed? I was always ashamed to take. So I gave. It was not virtue. It was a disguise.

Anais Nin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Anais Nin
Age: 73 †
Born: 1903
Born: February 21
Died: 1977
Died: January 14
Author
Autobiographer
Diarist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Neuilly
Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell
Anais Nin
Always
Ashamed
Hunger
Gave
Virtue
Others
Hungers
Self
Disguise
Take
Cover
Needs
Devotion

More quotes by Anais Nin

Image
You are the poet, you walk inside my dreams.
Anais Nin
Image
destruction is ultimately self-destruction.
Anais Nin
Image
We are never trapped unless we choose to be.
Anais Nin
Image
Houses turn to corpses overnight when we cease to live and love in them.
Anais Nin
Image
the cynic is a coward. He foresees all barrenness so that barrenness can never surprise him.
Anais Nin
Image
They courted the face on the screen, the face of translucence, the face of wax on which men found it possible to imprint the image of their fantasy.
Anais Nin
Image
The truly faithless one is the one who makes love to only a fraction of you. And denies the rest.
Anais Nin
Image
Someone told me the delightful story of the crusader who put a chastity belt on his wife and gave the key to his best friend for safekeeping, in case of his death. He had ridden only a few miles away when his friend, riding hard, caught up with him, saying 'You gave me the wrong key!
Anais Nin
Image
One always, sooner or later, comes upon a city which is an image of one's inner cities. Fez is an image of my inner self. ... The layers of the city of Fez are like the layers and secrecies of the inner life. One needs a guide. ... There were in Fez, as in my life, streets which led nowhere, impasses which remained a mystery.
Anais Nin
Image
When I cannot bear outer pressures anymore, I begin to put order in my belongings...As if unable to organize and control my life, I seek to exert this on the world of objects.
Anais Nin
Image
Worlds self made are so full of monsters and demons.
Anais Nin
Image
I spell 'god' with a small 'g' because I do not believe in him, but I love to swear by him.
Anais Nin
Image
Keeping a Diary all my life helped me to discover some basic elements essential to the vitality of writing.
Anais Nin
Image
I believe that in judging our actions we are more severe than professional judges. We judge not only our actions, but our thoughts, our intentions, our secret curses, our hidden hate.
Anais Nin
Image
..he made me understand something very important. Whether because I am a Latin, or because I am a neurotic, I have a need of gestures. I am myself expressive, demonstrative every feeling I have takes on expression: words, gestures, signs, letters, articulateness or action. I need this in others.
Anais Nin
Image
Self-destructive patterns cause as much suffering as outer catastrophes.
Anais Nin
Image
There is a fissure in my vision and madness will always rush through.
Anais Nin
Image
When I don't write, I feel my world shrinking. I feel I am in a prison. I feel I lose my fire and my color. It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it breathing.
Anais Nin
Image
The enemy of a love is never outside, it's not a man or woman, it's what we lack in ourselves.
Anais Nin
Image
The man who was once starved may revenge himself upon the world not by stealing just once, or by stealing only what he needs, but by taking from the world an endless toll in payment of something irreplaceable, which is the lost faith.
Anais Nin