50 Ego Quotes Examining Pride, Confidence and Purpose

Our latest collection of ego quotes that will help you stay balanced.

A huge ego is your worst enemy. An inflated ego can lead you astray and ruin your life. It can destroy your relationships, prevent you from recognizing opportunities, and inhibit true success.

Granted, we all need self-esteem and confidence to win in this world. But when confidence becomes arrogance, you risk ruining everything you’ve worked hard to build.

If you allow your ego to take over, it can get in the way of living your life to its fullest. The good news is, you can stop it from bringing you down by adopting the beginner’s mindset, focusing on doing your best, and choosing purpose over passion.

Instead of letting early pride lead you astray, remind yourself how much work is left to be done, not how much you have done. It’s okay to take pride in achievements or position but remember that nobody gets to the top alone.

To help you stay balanced, below is our collection of inspirational, wise, and thought-provoking ego quotes, ego sayings, and ego proverbs, collected from a variety of sources over the years.

Ego quotes examining pride, confidence and purpose

1. “If someone corrects you, and you feel offended, then you have an ego problem.” ― Nouman Ali Khan

2. “The weak are dominated by their ego, the wise dominate their ego, and the intelligent are in a constant struggle against their ego.” ― Hamza Yusuf

3. “You have no choice. You must leave your ego on the doorstep before you enter love.” ― Kamand Kojouri

4. “The first product of self-knowledge is humility,” Flannery O’Connor once said. This is how we fight the ego, by really knowing ourselves.” ― Ryan Holiday (see more humble quotes)

5. “The ego is the false self-born out of fear and defensiveness.” ― John O’Donohue

6. “Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.” ― Colin Powell

7. “I don’t know about your true form, but the weight of your ego sure is pushing the crust of the earth toward the breaking point.” ― Jim Butcher

8. “Being efficient is the easy part. Suppressing one’s ego completely for hours at a time is really hard.” ― Colin Clark

9. “Being a control freak is a weakness, not a strength. If you can’t allow others to shine, you’re exhibiting signs of narcissism and showing a lack of self-confidence. It is isolation through ego.” ― Stewart Stafford

10. “The more you can have control over your ego rather than let it run amuck, the more successful you’ll be in all areas of life.” ― Roy T. Bennett

Ego quotes to help you learn more and work harder

11. “The minute you start compromising for the sake of massaging somebody’s ego, that’s it, game over.” ― Gordon Ramsay

12. “Part of me suspects that I’m a loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.” ― John Lennon

13. “Food for the ego is poison for the soul.” ― Donna Goddard

14. “The ego relies on the familiar. It is reluctant to experience the unknown, which is the very essence of life.” ― Deepak Chopra

15. “She is pretending like she doesn’t miss you, you’re pretending you don’t give a damn, ego is a hell of a drug.” ― Nitya Prakash

15. “Chasing a person doesn’t give you value or build values in you. You earn your value by chasing morality and practicing dignity.” ― Shannon L. Alder

16. “A man’s spirit is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.” ― Ayn Rand

17. “Enlightenment is ego’s ultimate disappointment.” ― Chögyam Trungpa

18. “Bullying happens because weak people need to prop up their ego by beating up or humiliating others.” ― Bruce Dickinson

19. “How to get rid of ego as a dictator and turn it into messenger and servant and scout, to be in your service, is the trick.” ― Joseph Campbell

20. “A conscious human is driven by their conscience, not popular opinion.”― Suzy Kassem

Ego quotes to help you stay humble

21. “But us women, well, we like our egos stroked every once in a while and a boy mourning over us is a huge boost” ― J.L. Paul

22. “I am sufficiently proud of my knowing something to be modest about my not knowing all.” ― Vladimir Nabokov

23. “When I pass, speak freely of my shortcomings and my flaws. Learn from them, for I’ll have no ego to injure.” ― Aaron McGruder

24. “Never take advice about never taking advice. That is an old vice of men – to dish it out without being able to take it – the blind leading the blind into more blindness.” ― Criss Jami

25. “The Ego is a veil between humans and God. In prayer all are equal.” ― Rumi

26. “Besides, nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all.” ― Oscar Wilde

27. “The Divine Light is always in man, presenting itself to the senses and to the comprehension, but man rejects it.” ― Giordano Bruno

28. “If you’re jealous of someone else it simply means you have not come to a true acceptance and appreciation of yourself.” ― Rasheed Ogunlaru

29. “Why do you give way to your ego and pride. Where does it stand in the ocean of time.” ― Naveen Rajeev

30. “The Spirit is as much a jealous lover as the ego. Both guard their path with an uncompromising passion but for very different reasons.” ― Donna Goddard

Ego quotes to help you stay balanced

31. “Never allow your ego to diminish your ability to listen.” ― Gary Hopkins

32. “You bruised my ego, you see, and there’s just not enough money in the world to soothe my ego when it gets bruised” ― Jennifer Estep

33. “An exceedingly confident student would, in theory, make a terrible student. Why would he take school seriously when he feels that he can outwit his teachers?” ― Criss Jami

34. “No matter what we talk about, we are talking about ourselves” ― Hugh Prather

35. “The most beautiful women I have known had one thing in common apart from beauty: humility. It’s a shame that those with less to boast about doing it the most.” ― Donna Lynn Hope

36. “Midlife is the time to let go of an overdominant ego and to contemplate the deeper significance of human existence.” ― Carl Gustav Jung

37. “The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it’s egotism.” ― Robert Frost

38. “Whenever ego suffers from fear of death & your practice turns to seeing impermanence, ego settles down.” ― Tsoknyi Rinpoche

39. “The ego is like a clever monkey, which can co-opt anything, even the most spiritual practices, so as to expand itself.” ― Jean-Yves Leloup

40. “Great people have great egos; maybe that’s what makes them great.” ― Paul Arden

More ego quotes to inspire and teach

41. “The greatest win is walking away and choosing not to engage in drama and toxic energy at all.” ― Lalah Delia

42. “Some little pieces of sand are so full of ego that they see themselves as a giant rock! But then the wind blows, the big ego flies in the air!” ― Mehmet Murat ildan

43. “Marriage is the union of two ‘I’s to form a ‘V’. Both ‘I’s have to tilt equally to make a good ‘V’. ‘I’s standing tall can never make a ‘V’.” ― Ashok Kallarakkal

44. “You never really learn much from hearing yourself speak.” ― George Clooney

45. “Forget the self and you will fear nothing, in whatever level of awareness you find yourself to be.” ― Carlos Castaneda

46. “The ego hurts you like this: you become obsessed with the one person who does not love you. blind to the rest who do.” ― Warsan Shire

47. “Don’t allow the pride, ego, and insecurities of others stunt your growth.” ― Yvonne Pierre

48. “Being aware is being aware of one’s own mind and the games it plays on itself.” ― Robin Macnaughton

49. “The fool who thinks he’s god will rather quickly discover that he is not, which simply means that the person who was fooled by the fool is none other than the fool himself.” ― Craig D. Lounsbrough

50. “Not everybody has that non-self-humility, not everybody has that existence-self-ego.” ― Saroj Aryal

Which of these ego quotes was your favorite?

Ego can be a source of so much worry, anxiety and suffering. If left uncontrolled, it can bring you down like the law of gravity.

Don’t let ego tell you that you have arrived and figured it all out. Instead, remain humble and remind yourself how much you don’t know. We hope the ego quotes above will help you combat this darker side of our psyche.

Did you enjoy these ego quotes? Which of the quotes was your favorite? Let us know in the comment section below. Also, don’t forget to share with your friends and followers.