Many people dedicate their lives to actualizing a concept of what they should be like, rather than actualizing themselves.
This difference between self-actualization and self-image actualization is very important. Most people live only for their image

To make astute people believe one is what one is not is, in most cases, harder than actually to become what one wishes to appear.

A person is nothing but his image. Philosophers can tell us that it doesn't matter what the world thinks of us, that nothing matters but what we really are. But philosophers don't understand anything. As long as we live with other people, we are only what other people consider us to be. Thinking about how others see us and trying to make our image as attractive as possible is considered a kind of dissembling or cheating. But does there exist another kind of direct contact between my self and their selves except through the mediation of the eyes? Can we possibly imagine love without anxiously following our image in the mind of the beloved? When we are no longer interested in how we are seen by the person we love, it means we no longer love.

What seems is not what is. People are not what they appear to be.

.من المستحيل ألا ينتهي المرء إلى أن يكون مثلما يظنه الآخرون

To make clever people believe we are what we are not is in most instances harder than really to become what we want to seem to be.

The image is a dream. The beauty is real. Can you see the difference?

Image is what people think we are; integrity is whar we really are.

We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream.

The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very different from the image which I try to create in the minds of others in order that they may love me.

It is very hard to show up as the person you want to be when you are surrounded by an environment that makes you feel like a person you aren’t.

It is dangerous not to conform with people's image of us, because they do not readily retract their opinions.

If the image one holds of one's self contains elements that don't square with reality, one is best advised to let go of them, however difficult that may be.

It is unrealistic to expect people to see you as you see yourself.