Self-pity is the real enemy and the source of man's misery. Without a degree of pity for himself, man could not afford to be as self-important as he is. However, once the force of self-importance is engaged, it develops its own momentum. And it is this seemingly independent nature of self-importance which gives it its fake sense of worth.

It is possible to move through the drama of our lives without believing so earnestly in the character that we play. That we take ourselves so seriously, that we are so absurdly important in our own minds, is a problem for us. We feel justified in being annoyed with everything. We feel justified in denigrating ourselves or in feeling that we are more clever than other people. Self-importance hurts us, limiting us to the narrow world of our likes and dislikes. We end up bored to death with ourselves and our world. We end up never satisfied.

At this point, my greatest enemy was myself. Self-doubt can be crushing, and sometimes it is hard to see outside the black bubble.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything good in the world.

Each of us is the enemy [...] to the other and to himself. That's what I mean: I'm the enemy within myself. Unless I master that enemy, I always lose.

The enemy of the moment is not as important as our own inner weakness. If this is not mended we are already defeated, though no foreign conqueror stands within our walls.

Ego is a powerful enemy when it comes to better understanding reality.

You are your own worst enemy. If you can learn to stop expecting impossible perfection, in yourself and others, you may find the happiness that has always eluded you.

Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the greatest art of all.

He was thoroughly convinced that this is indispensable for
everything sorcerers do, and for this reason he put an enormous emphasis on guiding all
his students to fulfill this requirement. He was of the opinion that self-importance is not
only the sorcerers' supreme enemy but the nemesis of mankind.
Don Juan's argument was that most of our energy goes into upholding our importance.
This is most obvious in our endless worry about the presentation of the self, about
whether or not we are admired or liked or acknowledged. He reasoned that if we were
capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary things would happen to us.
One, we would free our energy from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur;
and, two, we would provide ourselves with enough energy to enter into the second
attention to catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe.

The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

Very often we are our own worst enemy as we foolishly build stumbling blocks on the path that leads to success and happiness.

The greatest adversary of the ego is change, because the ego arises out of the craving to survive, which means it will attempt to control and keep things the same.

It is time we recognized that all reasonable men and women have a common enemy. It is an enemy so near to us, and so deceptive, that we keep its counsel even as it threatens to destroy the very possibility of human happiness. Our enemy is nothing other than faith itself.