Sidney Jourard Quotes

We camouflage our true being before others to protect ourselves against criticism or rejection. This protection comes at a steep price… we are misunderstood. When we are misunderstood, especially by family and friends, we join the ‘lonely crowd.’ Worse… we tend to lose touch with our real selves.

We encourage people to believe that there is only one identity, one role, one way for them to be, one value for them to fulfill, rather than a host of possible ‘incarnations’ to be lived in a lifetime.

You cannot collaborate with another person toward some common end unless you know him. How can you know him, and he you, unless you have engaged in enough mutual disclosure of self to be able anticipate how he will react and what part he will play?

Learning is not a task or a problem-it is a way to be in the world. Man learns as he pursues goals and projects that have meaning for him.

Actualization of self cannot be sought as a goal in its own right. . . . Rather, it seems to be a by-product of active commitment of one’s talents to some cause, outside the self, such as the quest for beauty, truth, or justice.

A choice which confronts every one of us at every moment is this: Shall we permit our fellow men to know us as we now are, or shall we seek instead to remain an enigma, an uncertain quantity , wishing to be seen as something we are not?

We learn to deceive ourselves while we are trying to deceive others.