Welcome to our compilation of Narcissism Quotes, where we delve into the intriguing facets of human psychology and behavior. Narcissism, a term derived from Greek mythology, embodies the concept of excessive self-admiration and an inflated sense of one’s own importance. It’s a trait that has fascinated scholars, psychologists, and individuals alike, shaping discussions on personality disorders and societal dynamics. Through the lens of these quotes, we explore the complexities of narcissism, its manifestations, and its impact on relationships, society, and the self.
Narcissism isn’t merely a clinical diagnosis but a pervasive element of human nature that spans across cultures and generations. From ancient myths to modern psychological studies, the theme of narcissism has been a recurring motif, shedding light on the intricacies of human ego and identity. Through the words of philosophers, authors, and psychologists, we gain insight into the various dimensions of narcissism, from its origins in childhood development to its role in interpersonal dynamics and leadership. As we navigate this exploration, we invite you to contemplate the significance of these quotes and their relevance in understanding the human psyche and society. Stay tuned below for a collection of thought-provoking quotes on narcissism that you can use for reflection, inspiration, or creative expression.
When you’re an actor, you can be hindered by your own narcissism. Amanda Peet
Trump’s narcissism deadens any ability he might otherwise have had to carry out the duties of a president in the manner the Constitution requires. He’s so self-obsessed, he can only act for himself, not for the nation. It’s why he was impeached, and why he should have been removed from office. George T. Conway III
There’s a definition of narcissism that when a parent is narcissistic, instead of the child seeing himself reflected in the mother’s face and the mother’s joy, the child of the narcissistic parent feels like, ‘What can I do to make her okay, to make her happy?’ Susan Sullivan
It’s also that comedians don’t have the kind of narcissism that actors have. They’re writers who perform their own material. It’s more interesting. And they’re sexy because they risk more. Stand-up comedians risk more than anyone. Rachel Weisz
Individualism. Narcissism. Value-free choices. These are all key elements in the decline of the practice of mutual accountability in Western churches, among clergy and laity alike. David Augsburger
The act of founding a company is its own act of narcissism: ‘I alone can do this.’ Andy Dunn
Donald Trump has got unlimited number of insecurities. But the No. 1 one thing, I would say, is his insecurity with his intellect. There’s a reason why he always refers to where he went to college and, you know, that, ‘I’m a smart person.’ You know, it may be narcissism. But I think it really reflects an insecurity. Mark Cuban
Politics, after all, is largely about power. And power goes to the core of our issues of control and narcissism and need to be right and tendency to divide the human race into ‘us’ vs. ‘them.’ John Ortberg
Many Republicans knew that Trump’s anti-media attacks were damaging, and they cringed when his White House was consumed by his own narcissism. They knew that the country deserved better. Brian Stelter
There’s a degree of narcissism involved in anything in show business. I mean, you can’t do it without a healthy ego. Why would you want anybody to listen to you? Stephen Colbert
This may sound a little harsh, but I don’t care about my career. Really, I don’t like actors who are always planning what they’re going to do next or always worrying about doing something that will go against the image they’ve created. To me, that’s almost like an attack of narcissism. Antonio Banderas
Everyone says Oscar Wilde was a dandy, but he wasn’t – he was an aesthete. He took pleasure in food and stuff like that. Dandyism is much more austere – much more Calvinistic, more neurotic – it oscillates between narcissism and neurosis. Sebastian Horsley
I’m quite a shy person, and I dislike narcissism intensely. Sandi Toksvig
Narcissism is the result of longstanding behavioral patterns that reflect fixed brain functioning. It requires a lot of motivation to change these patterns. Drew Pinsky
Narcissism in moderate amounts is not harmful to health. Massimiliano Allegri
Since narcissism is fueled by a greater need to be admired than to be liked, psychologists might use that fact as a therapeutic lever – stressing to patients that being known as a narcissist will actually cause them to lose the respect and social status they crave. Jeffrey Kluger
I love Twitter! At first I made fun of it, because it is very narcissistic, and there’s already so much narcissism flowing in this industry, I was like, ‘Really, one more?’ So I was against it at first. But I really love the idea of the direct connection – there’s no middle man muddling it up. Kelly Clarkson
‘Empire of Self’ is a loving portrait of a very difficult man. Jay Parini, himself a gifted novelist, poet and biographer, has gone very deep into the ‘black energy’ of Gore Vidal’s relentless narcissism and megalomania. Parini envisions an epic battle between Vidal’s angelic and demonic sides, yet there’s very little of the angel in Vidal. Jerome Charyn
There’s a kind of journalistic narcissism that New York-based journalists are guilty of. Bernard Goldberg
There’s a thin line between narcissism, even if it’s a healthy narcissism, and entertainment. Richard Lewis
Narcissism is the part of my personality that I am the least proud of, and I certainly don’t like to see it highlighted in everybody else I meet. Ben Affleck
Narcissism has existed for a long time; social media is just a new outlet to express it. Anybody who is going to record themselves and put that on the Internet, hoping people will watch, there is a degree to which that exists, yeah. I don’t know if I would call myself a narcissist. I don’t necessarily identify with that label. Tyler Oakley
Narcissism is just self-confidence. Mirai Nagasu
My father was Donald Trump in many ways. His narcissism. I grew up with that generation of guys from New York, a generation of New York phony snake-oil-salesmen kind of energy. Randy Rainbow
Parents are destined to sin against their kids; it’s inevitable. As is narcissism and the human condition. Everyone has their ego and their ambitions. Life happens in between. Alice Ripley
If a novelist had concocted a villain like Trump – a larger-than-life, over-the-top avatar of narcissism, mendacity, ignorance, prejudice, boorishness, demagoguery, and tyrannical impulses, she or he would likely be accused of extreme contrivance and implausibility. Michiko Kakutani
All of nationalism can be understood as a kind of collective narcissism. Geoff Mulgan
There’s like a little bit of a narcissism – I think there’s more than a little bit of narcissism about it, but it’s just that you can become so anxious and self-obsessive about whether this thing that I’m writing is good; is this joke that I’m making good? Patti Harrison
White guilt morally and culturally disarms the West. It makes the First World apologetic. And this, of course, only inflames the narcissism of the ineffectual. Shelby Steele
As for Twitter, I’ve found that you have to learn how to make it add value rather than subtract hours from one’s day. Certainly, it affords narcissism and distraction. Howard Rheingold
Definitely for me, my personality, having children was a definite sea change. I found it very, very hard to balance show business and being a dad. The narcissism of show business and the complete, total focus of it was very difficult. Dana Carvey
Twitter is the marriage of full-tilt narcissism and full-tilt voyeurism that has finally collided in 140 words. Adam Goldberg
Without medical records that he hasn’t released, we can’t know whether Gingrich may have inherited his mother’s manic depression. Nevertheless, one observes in the former House Speaker certain symptoms – bouts of grandiosity, megalomania, irritability, racing thoughts, spending sprees – that go beyond the ordinary politician’s normal narcissism. Jacob Weisberg
A little narcissism is good. At least that’s what I am telling myself. Andy Dunn
Modern football tends to bring out the narcissism of those who sit on the bench. Roberto Baggio
If we weren’t born with anti-social passions – narcissism, envy, lust, meanness, greed, hunger for power, just to name the more obvious – why the need for so many laws, whether religious or secular, that govern behavior? Dennis Prager
The fact is, for years, I had been trapped in a certain narcissism and a desire to have a certain body and look sexy. David Harbour
I write with a sort of grim determination to deal with things that are hidden and difficult, and this means, I think, that pleasure is out of the question. I would associate this with narcissism anyway, and I would disapprove of it. Colm Toibin
Self-awareness is not self-centeredness, and spirituality is not narcissism. ‘Know thyself’ is not a narcissistic pursuit. Marianne Williamson
I am a recovering narcissist. I thought narcissism was about self-love till someone told me there is a flip side to it. It is actually drearier than self-love; it is unrequited self-love. Emily Levine
Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people. Andre Dubus III
No one has probably helped me more with my narcissism than my dog. Tucker Max
Narcissism and the Confederate dead cannot be connected logically, or even historically; even were the connection an historical fact, they would not stand connected as art, for no one experiences raw history. Allen Tate
Narcissism is a trait universally unappreciated by human beings, and NFL players fall into this human bucket. Gabe Kapler
Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have, so to speak, pawned a part of their narcissism. Sigmund Freud
Service is the only thing that’s important about love. Everybody is worried about ‘losing yourself’ – all this narcissism. Duty. We can’t stand that idea now either… But duty might be a suit of armor you put on to fight for your love. Meryl Streep
I doubt there’s anything you could say to Donald Rumsfeld that would puncture the armor of his narcissism. Phil Klay
I’m someone very comfortable airing out the stories of my own life. Some people call it narcissism, but for me, the intention is that it will positively affect other people. Leandra Medine
The idea that a story has to be ‘exceptional’ in order to be worth telling is curious to me. What if we looked at every single person’s story as a site of possibly infinite meaning? What if we came to believe that there isn’t hubris or narcissism in thinking your story might be worth sharing – only a sense of curiosity and offering? Leslie Jamison
Narcissism falls along the axis of what psychologists call personality disorders, one of a group that includes antisocial, dependent, histrionic, avoidant and borderline personalities. But by most measures, narcissism is one of the worst, if only because the narcissists themselves are so clueless. Jeffrey Kluger
L’Oreal’s slogan ‘because you’re worth it’ has come to epitomise banal narcissism of early 21st century capitalism; easy indulgence and effortless self-love all available at a flick of the credit card. Geoff Mulgan
People often think that looking in the mirror is about narcissism. Children look at their reflection to see who they are. And they want to see what they can do with it, how plastic they can be, if they can touch their nose with their tongue, or what it looks like when they cross their eyes. Anjelica Huston
Politicians generally act as if there is no cost to reconnecting with voters by building new New Deals. But the whole exercise of writing law out of New Deal nostalgia is a form of national narcissism. Call it New Deal narcissism. Amity Shlaes
I would like to see sexiness sort of embodied in people’s real bodies, as opposed to those bodies that are just full of narcissism. David Harbour
Narcissism and self-deception are survival mechanisms without which many of us might just jump off a bridge. Todd Solondz
The two pillars of feminism are narcissism and entitlement. Mike Cernovich
The American lionization of the entrepreneur is to ignore its foibles – the narcissism, the workaholism, the neglect of family, the imbalance, the obsession. These are not universally good things, though they are frequently universal to building great companies. Andy Dunn
I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity. Diana Vreeland
When I was really young, I wanted to grow up and be the sun. Which shows an early penchant for ambition or narcissism or grandiosity or delusion – all of which are bellwethers for becoming a writer. Gayle Forman
I went from being a senator, a young senator, to being considered for vice president, running for president, being a vice presidential candidate, and becoming a national public figure. All of which fed a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want. John Edwards
We’re making far too big a deal out of our sexual preferences. It’s just another form of narcissism, and I think it can be a big problem and a tremendous obstacle. Andrew Cohen
Parents are supposed to give the child back to herself with love. If they’ve got duct tape over their eyes because of narcissism, it doesn’t happen. Jane Fonda
I’m battling with keeping my narcissism at bay as it is, so Twitter was not a good thing for that. Joel Kinnaman
I’m in a business that invites narcissism, self-involvement, and egos being blown out of proportion. Michael Keaton
I don’t know why people do not read ‘Mein Kampf’ more regularly. It tells you first-hand about all the narcissism; you see that collapse in German culture. There is no chance that anyone could become a Nazi by reading that book. Karl Ove Knausgard
Millennials in particular get a lot of flack for their supposed entitlement and narcissism, but these evaluations have never matched my experience with hiring young people at Warby Parker. Neil Blumenthal
As individuals and as a nation, we now suffer from social narcissism. The beloved Echo of our ancestors, the virgin America, has been abandoned. We have fallen in love with our own image, with images of our making, which turn out to be images of ourselves. Daniel J. Boorstin
Technology is causing a set of seemingly disconnected things – shortening of attention spans, polarization, outrage-ification of culture, mass narcissism, election engineering, addiction to technology. Tristan Harris
Narcissism is not about self love. It’s a clinical trait that belies a deep sense of emptiness, low self-esteem, emotional detachment, self-loathing, extreme problems with intimacy. Drew Pinsky
Narcissism is a strong word, but it is narcissistic to expect everybody in a culture to reflect your own image back at you. Indya Moore
It’s a shame how a lot of actors use theater as a stepping stone to film and television work; I think it shouldn’t be treated that way. Maybe it’s narcissism or something. I think we should always go back to it. I try and do a play a year, and I think that’s really helped me. Peter Dinklage
What I’m trying to achieve with my surgery is my own personal satisfaction. It’s narcissism. Pete Burns
The silent killer of all great men and women of achievement – particularly men, I don’t know why, maybe it’s the testosterone – I think it’s narcissism. Even more than hubris. And for women, too. Narcissism is the killer. James Woods
Painters who do self-portraits are engaging in a form of narcissism. But it doesn’t work like that in movies. A truly narcissistic person wouldn’t go into filmmaking because it’s just too tiring. Jiang Wen
Making movies is about control. You need to control your narcissism in the first place, and you need to be disciplined enough to understand the reason for the film. You need to follow the agenda of the film, not a personal agenda or that of the studio. Or, worst of all, of the actors. Luca Guadagnino
Having a child makes you realize the importance of life – narcissism goes out the window. Heaven on earth is looking at my little boy. The minute he was born, I knew if I never did anything other than being a mom, I’d be fine. Jenny McCarthy
All tyrannies are virtuoso displays, over many years, of cunning, risk-taking, terror, delusion, narcissism, showmanship, and charm, distilled into a spectacle of total personal control. Simon Sebag Montefiore
Being a founder is about being so driven to distraction by the world that you want to put something new in it. It’s an act of creation, of irreverence, of defiance, of hope, and arguably one of narcissism. Andy Dunn
When I get online, there’s this cycle of anxiety and narcissism that takes over, which is the part of me that I like the least. Garth Risk Hallberg
I think media has lost its way. We must recognize that the proprietors of these organizations have put on a form of censorship. Basically, they’re more interested in celebrity, narcissism, rich people, good-looking people, and successful sportsmen. Don McCullin
I don’t know if it’s naivete or just narcissism, but I start out with this notion that I can do anything. It’s not until I get into it that I realize what I’ve thrown myself into, and then I will do anything not to humiliate myself. And that, I think, is the secret to my success. Michelle Pfeiffer
Narcissism is a fact of life – it’s a natural part of growing older, right? It’s a part of your development. So being angry about the younger generation being ‘narcissistic,’ that’s like saying ‘Oh, this young generation only wants to poop in their diaper! They don’t want to use the bathroom!’ Adam Conover
The days of the Pentagon Papers debates seem long past, when a sudden transparency yielded insight into fights over war and peace and freedom and security; the transparency afforded by Twitter and Facebook yields insights that extend no further than a lawmaker’s boundless narcissism and a culture’s pitiless prurience. Nancy Gibbs
Selfishness, narcissism, being uncomfortable in your own skin, not feeling connected to the world around you, feeling dislocated from family and youth, having a strange relationship with your childhood – all those things feel really true to me. Jason Reitman
I think a lot of self-importance is a product of fear. And fear, living in sort of an un-self-examined fear-based life, tends to lead to narcissism and self-importance. Moby
When you are 18, 19, 20, you’re used to being photographed all the time, in a certain way. So, the narcissism becomes almost out of control. And the way that young women are photographed, they become addicted to this feedback of the image. Marianne Faithfull
Trump lies when confronted with the truth, since any crack in his narcissism might spread like an Ebola of the soul, and he would deflate like one of Macy’s balloons on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Richard Cohen
I tend to approach giving interviews with the same sense of circumspection and restraint as I approach my writing. That is to say, virtually none. When asked what I made of blogs like my own, blogs written by parents about their children, I said, ‘A blog like this is narcissism in its most obscene flowering.’ Ayelet Waldman
It would have been convenient to be gay. Just because of the grooming, the narcissism, stuff like that. But I have this kind of roaring heterosexuality. Traditional, uncomplicated heterosexuality, an almost cliched Robin Askwith thing. Russell Brand
The great accomplishment of Jobs’s life is how effectively he put his idiosyncrasies – his petulance, his narcissism, and his rudeness – in the service of perfection. Malcolm Gladwell
Politics has become infused with narcissism in America. John Oliver
Modern football is increasingly dominated by the coaches – their narcissism to put themselves above the team and their players. Roberto Baggio
Writing is taking a risk, and it is actually fighting invisible and invincible enemies. They are over-confidence, stupidity, expectation and narcissism. Andrea Hirata
You give up your narcissism, your egotism. That’s how you achieve chemistry. Nick Nolte
Teens have a sensational narcissism and genuinely believe that their experiences are unique and can’t be explained to adults. But we forgive them for their mistakes and naivete. Stephanie Savage
I was a young, new, hot star, and I had this unbelievable arrogance. As time went on, the strident narcissism and arrogance slowly diminished. But I was definitely there. I’m older now. And a big crybaby. Chevy Chase
I need theatre for my equilibrium, because in theatre the actors don’t care so much about image, about celebrity – you are more independent. There is not the narcissism, maybe, that you find in cinema. Clotilde Hesme
This is far beyond garden-variety narcissism; Donald is not simply weak, his ego is a fragile thing that must be bolstered every moment because he knows deep down that he is nothing of what he claims to be. Mary L. Trump
This is not a slow movement of change. It’s a shift in the consciousness of each of us. It is a collective shift. It involves facing grief and trauma and undoing our numbness and our narcissism and our indulgence that we have in this privileged western society. Gail Bradbrook