"How can one's source, which can be experienced only after the ego-self has been completely annihilated, be thought of, via the ego, as "I am That"? To remain silent in one's "I" [the Self], with the ego destroyed, is the proper course."

~ Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai (740)

Unless you make tremendous efforts, you will not be convinced that effort will take you nowhere. The self is so self-confident that unless it is totally discouraged it will not give up. Mere verbal conviction is not enough. Hard facts alone can show the absolute nothingness of the self-image.

~ Sri Nisargadatta

To describe the ego as "little" and the personality as "petty" is to look at it from outside, where it is lost among such a multitude of others; but to look at it from within the man himself is to find it vastly important, dominating his consciousness, a giant holding him down. It is there, and after all the verbal analyses which reduce it to nothing, its presence reasserts itself.

~ Paul Brunton

It is the presence of the physical ego in the wakeful state that paralyses all spiritual awareness therein. It is the absence of the personal and physical ego in the deep sleep state that paralyses all material awareness therein, too. By keeping it out and yet keeping in wakefulness, the transcendental consciousness is able to provide the requisite condition for an unbroken spiritual awareness that is not only superior to the three states but continues its own existence behind theirs.

~ Paul Brunton

When we get irritated or annoyed in the midst of work, for any reason, it is to be taken as a caution that our personality has entered into it, and the ‘unselfishness’ of the work has been adulterated with that undesirable and vitiating factor, the ego. When the work is ‘not mine’, there is no reason for internal disturbance.

~ Swami Krishnananda

When we are empty of ego we, too, can carry on in calm acceptance of life's varying events. When we cease making prejudicial distinctions - gentle or harsh, beautiful or ugly, good or bad - a peaceful stillness will permeate our mind. If there is no ego, there is no agitation.

~ Master Han Shan

Whoever wants the "I" to yield up its mysterious and tremendous secret must stop it from looking perpetually in the mirror, must stop the little ego's fascination with its own image.

~ Paul Brunton

[Notebooks> Category 8: The Ego > Chapter 2: I-thought: 17]

The source of wisdom and power, of love and beauty, is within ourselves, but not within our egos. It is within our consciousness. Indeed, its presence provides us with a conscious contrast which enables us to speak of the ego as if it were something different and apart: it is the true Self whereas the ego is only an illusion of the mind.

~ Paul Brunton

[Notebooks Category 8: The Ego > Chapter 1: What Am I? > # 2]

In controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.

~ Buddha

Since cleverness is your pride
and fills you with wind,
become a simpleton so that
your heart may remain healthy.
Not a simpleton warped by buffoonery,
but one distraught and bewildered in God.

~ Rumi

The moralist is the person who tells people that they ought to be unselfish, when they still feel like egos, and his efforts are always and invariably futile.

~ Alan Watts

Discard every self-seeking motive
as soon as it is seen and you need
not search for truth; truth will find
you.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj

The ego isn't wrong; it's just unconscious.
When you observe the ego in yourself,
you are beginning to go beyond it.
Don't take the ego too seriously.

~ Eckhart Tolle

For thousands of years, myths and legends have existed - a
popular wisdom, a camouflaged truth, a reality that kept us in
balance with the cosmos. As a result, our education was more
effective and not like it is nowadays, via books which fill
our brains but only our brains. So it is that the personality is
limited and rebellious, always constituting the real obstacle
to our advancement.

~ Nina Soncco

Vain, boastful talk repels acts of
kindness and tears the branch of
mercy from the trunk of the tree.
Speak honestly or else be silent,
and then behold grace and delight
in it.
- Rumi

Fighting the ego, the mind, is precisely
what the ego wants. You cannot fight the
mind. You cannot suppress the ego.
Fighting, resisting, controlling it is an im-
possible action. What is really needed is a
negative or feminine action. That is to yield,
to allow things to be as they are.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar

Standing on the bare ground, a mean egoism
vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I
am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal
Being circulate through me; I am part or particle
of God.
- Emerson

To the extent your ego is reduced, you open
from within and receive the Light.
- Swami Amar Jyoti