Top 161 Insecurity Quotes

I write with a sense of my future readers being ever on the verge of setting down the book and pronouncing it a bore. Fear and insecurity are great motivators.

Being abandoned by my mother gives me a sense of insecurity that I will never recover from. I have to try and recreate that balance by trying to create a sense of self-worth. And yes, being on stage is a part of that.

Fundamentally, the solution to economic insecurity is economic prosperity – an achievable goal. But for anyone who has grown up without financial security, there’s a shadow that lies over even those who move towards independence: lack of financial literacy.

It’s almost impossible to have security at the expense of insecurity of others. It’s almost impossible to have prosperity when there is a huge problem of poverty and backwardness all over the world.

If you don’t create a sense of order and stability, if people do not feel secure, then progressive politics is dead. That is a fact of history. The right has always emerged supreme when destabilisation and insecurity prevail.

Loneliness and rootlessness are just symptoms of an insecurity that assails us all when hitting this midlife moment. The world appears intent on blanking you out.

The quickest way to defuse fear or insecurity or anger is usually humor. I think comics figure that out quickly, and, once you figure it out, you think, ‘Hey, if I can do this and get paid, that would be kind of cool.’

Horror of any kind is dependent on a certain amount of insecurity and paranoia from the audience. And it feeds on that and works on that.

A lot of my career and my drive and my passion and my striving to be better and better was built on insecurity.

I’d read a lot about the psychology around rejection and insecurity, and I had noticed that when people feel insecure or rejected, they behave aggressively, erratically. Especially when you can hide behind a screen name or a profile picture.

A leader who is confused or confusing causes too much anxiety, and a leader who is too controlling is revealing more insecurity and a lack of leadership.

It’s a bit loose and the people in my group have got other groups. They don’t have to have a total allegiance to me. I think that’s really a bit weird and showing some weird insecurity.

I think we all have blocks between us and the best version of ourselves, whether it’s shyness, insecurity, anxiety, whether it’s a physical block, and the story of a person overcoming that block to their best self. It’s truly inspiring because I think all of us are engaged in that every day.

In religion, there’s a certain type of fear that if somebody believes differently from me, that it’s a threat. Because I’m right, and there cannot be two ways that are right, so if I’m right, anything different than this must be wrong; and we attack those things and it’s really due to insecurity, ego and fear.

It’s either feast or famine, and that’s the way it’s been for as long as I can remember. I’ve spent my whole career thinking I’ll never work again. Every actor lives with that insecurity. You just have to negotiate the rapids as they come.

It goes to establish a just and permanent principle of trade which puts an end to all serious fluctuations in prices and consequently, to all the insecurity and ruin which these fluctuations produce; and to build up those who are already ruined.

That’s the insecurity with our job, because you never know where the next role is coming from. No matter how successful you are, there’s always a fear of someone not wanting me to play something else.

Artistic self-indulgence is the mark of an amateur. The temptation to make scenes, to appear late, to call in sick, not to meet deadlines, not to be organized, is at heart a sign of your own insecurity and at worst the sign of an amateur.

I never went to acting school. I started in the circus, music hall, I was in a group, did kids’ bits. I’ve always had this kind of insecurity being uneducated.

It’s either feast or famine, and that’s the way it’s been for as long as I can remember. I’ve spent my whole career thinking I’ll never work again. Every actor lives with that insecurity. You just have to negotiate the rapids as they come.

There is no such thing as perfect security, only varying levels of insecurity.

I work from a deep sense of insecurity. I have the belief, and I can’t shake it, that there are endless reasons to turn the channel. There are hundreds of channels and entirely other things to do besides TV. And if you make a bad television show there’s no reason for the audience to come back the following week.

You need some insecurity if you’re an actor. It keeps the pot boiling. I haven’t yet started to think about retiring. I was shocked when I heard about Paul Newman retiring at age 82. Most actors just fade away like old soldiers.

I try as hard as I know how to keep my reader relating on a broad level so I don’t lead her someplace where she thinks that’s the only thing that could cause insecurity.

Changing much-cherished bank secrecy laws is worth the effort. Corruption, tax evasion, and the capture of natural resource revenues undermine the rule of law, weaken the social fabric, erode citizens’ trust in institutions, fuel conflict and insecurity, and hamper job creation.

The Tories have built a system defined by insecurity – from wages to job contracts to housing to the welfare state. If they want to understand why socialism – long dead, never coming back, or so they thought – has undergone a revival, this is why.

I’d been around women who put me down, made me feel bad, or said things to fuel my insecurity.

Every member of the Congress has access to the top leadership. It is not a question of proximity but if somebody shares a personal equation with any of the leaders it is really no reason for concern or insecurity as long as it is not at the cost of merit and performance.

I have a very positive attitude in life. My insecurity, fear and need to know about tomorrow has fortunately eased. What is going to happen will happen anyway. So why break my head over it?

A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.

My childhood was quite turbulent and there was sometimes great insecurity about money.

I always felt like my value was much more in my intellect than it was in my appearance, and so that’s what I spent time cultivating. And some of that I get from my mother, some of that comes from the schools that I went to, and some of that comes from probably insecurity.

Actors, by very definition, we want people to pay attention to us, and so usually, that comes in the package of insecurity. So if we’re not comfortable, we don’t really show you a lot.

The creative people I admire seem to share many characteristics: A fierce restlessness. Healthy cynicism. A real world perspective. An ability to simplify. Restraint. Patience. A genuine balance of confidence and insecurity. And most importantly, humanity.

I think anybody with an insecurity, which is everyone, appreciates the fact that it’s much easier to be a predator than it is to be prey.

It’s an old adage that the way to be safe is never to be secure… Each one of us requires the spur of insecurity to force us to do our best.

I’m comfortably asocial – a hermit in the middle of a large city, a pessimist if I’m not careful, a feminist, a black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty and drive.

I think we are all insecure, and there is nothing wrong in accepting that. But the problem arises when we try to counter this insecurity by cultivating this illusion of control, and we start taking ourselves and everything we know too seriously.

When people are crass or loudmouthed, it’s not because they don’t give a damn. It’s from fear and insecurity.

People without fathers tend to have two predominant characteristics. They tend to believe anything is possible. At the same time there’s an anxiety and an unending insecurity. It’s a very American thing because back in the past, we lost our fathers or father. The king.

We must learn the correct lessons from the U.S. war on terror, which, far from making the U.S., its citizens and interests safe across the world has only increased insecurity worldwide and has led to many more terror attacks on U.S. interests and citizens across the world.

I am not an insecure person. For me, insecurity comes when something I do does not come across the way I thought it would. It would come if I had nothing more to say as an actor. I have a long way to go!

I felt shaky, then ‘Hungama’ worked, and I signed films left, right and centre to kill my insecurity.

It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man’s insecurity before himself and before nature.

I was working three jobs and going to school full time. I was really unhappy and I told myself, You are not this girl. This sounds corny but I would tell myself, You are an Icy Girl. I’m a confident person, but that was the first time I experienced insecurity and low self-esteem.

I do have, at different times, a certain kind of self-consciousness in the world, an insecurity.

I have made plenty of mistakes. The key to life is to learn from them. I have been a little too introspective, but I think that stemmed from insecurity or shyness. I took a long time to grow up.

I am a bit of a fundamentalist when it comes to black women’s hair. Hair is hair – yet also about larger questions: self-acceptance, insecurity and what the world tells you is beautiful. For many black women, the idea of wearing their hair naturally is unbearable.

Many new lovers and spouses struggle to reconcile themselves with their partners’ relationship history, but it’s an insecurity I left behind in my 20s.

You need some insecurity if you’re an actor. It keeps the pot boiling. I haven’t yet started to think about retiring. I was shocked when I heard about Paul Newman retiring at age 82. Most actors just fade away like old soldiers.

I think there are specific times where film noir is a natural concomitant of the mood. When there’s insecurity, collapse of financial systems – that’s where film noir always hits fertile ground.

Labour allowed ourselves to be painted as anti-business for talking about insecurity, when in reality, the opposite was true.

Why is the feeling of insecurity so prevalent in this field? Because the actor is such a dependent person on other people. If I am a painter, poet, composer, I am not really dependent on others.

I have my moments of insecurity and figuring out what’s going on and what I’m supposed to do, but if you don’t push yourself, you’re not growing, so where do you go?

I think my biggest flaw is my insecurity. I’m terribly insecure. I’m plagued with insecurities 24/7.

I used to be very scared of silence because I felt it was my responsibility to keep people occupied. That definitely spawns from an insecurity in myself. When people aren’t enjoying themselves, when I’m involved, it somehow comes back to it being my fault. But I do want people to have a good time.

People confuse ego, lust, insecurity with true love.

Anger is a manifestation of a deeper issue… and that, for me, is based on insecurity, self-esteem and loneliness.

Every writer, no matter published, unpublished, award-winning, or bestselling, faces insecurity. It crops up everywhere and, in my personal experience, nearly every day. It’s just a part of the process.

I guess I had that insecurity of missing out on the normal things that everybody else does. With all the traveling I was doing I felt I was leaving something behind.

Place and displacement have always been central for me. A type of insecurity goes with that: you are always following the cues, like learning the dance steps when the dance is already under way.

You can be more productive, confident, comfortable with insecurity.

I think I have a degree of confidence, but I also have terrible insecurity, like anybody does.

I think everybody, especially every woman that you speak to, has gone through periods of their life where they feel uncertain or insecure. But I’ve been fortunate in my own life never to have gone through extended periods of crippling insecurity.

You always feel a degree of insecurity about getting through a film.

Many of the ethnic and other parochial tensions that have tended to create insecurity and outright conflict, time and time again, are largely as a result of failure to deliberately undertake nation-building efforts.

Despite my confidence and self-belief, I’ve always wrestled with feelings of insecurity. To be honest, I think most people in show business are insecure.

An exciting and inspiring future awaits you beyond the noise in your mind, beyond the guilt, doubt, fear, shame, insecurity and heaviness of the past you carry around.

I had a great deal of arrogance and a great deal of bravado, but I think the bravado was brought on by a huge insecurity.

Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity.

For me, every day is a new thing. I approach each project with a new insecurity, almost like the first project I ever did. And I get the sweats. I go in and start working, I’m not sure where I’m going. If I knew where I was going I wouldn’t do it.

I related to ‘Sierra’ in the fact that I tend to come off as pretty confident in who I am, but definitely in high school I had a lot of insecurity and was unsure if I should be changing myself to fit in more.

I’m not that worried about war. Insecurity is the word I would use – insecurity and tension and conflict. I thought civilized people had abandoned wars. Sometimes people don’t make rational decisions.

It is equally demonstrable that so far as Texas is concerned, there have been equal confusion, insecurity and injustice in the administration of the State governments.

My parents, products of the Great Depression, were successful people, but lived in a state of constant fear that my sister and I, and they, would sink into the kind of economic insecurity that their generation knew so well.

However beautiful a woman may be, she gets cold feet, she gets angry, she fears, she has insecurity – she is a human being.

We’re all our own worst critics and so hard on ourselves, but for me, my biggest insecurity is my arms. I just hate the tops of them. I work out and they still never look good enough for me. So, over the years I’ve learned to dress to make myself feel better.

Singaporeans generally feel more secure these days. One of our tasks is to remind them that this, a result of a continuing act of will and an appropriate sense of insecurity, is very helpful.

I find the female tragedy of insecurity to be hilarious. We get obsessed over issues like the tiny skin tags on our backs or that we’re fat. You read one line in a magazine and it sends you into a tailspin.

I think that promoting insecurity in the form of plastic surgery is infinitely more harmful than an artistic expression related to body modification.

It’s often out of my own insecurity. If I’m picky, it’s for that reason. I want to be able to bring my best to the table. So if I’m not connecting to something, then I’m not gonna hold up my end of the bargain, and that’s really embarrassing.

I have self-doubt. I have insecurity. I have fear of failure. I have nights when I show up at the arena and I’m like, ‘My back hurts, my feet hurt, my knees hurt. I don’t have it. I just want to chill.’ We all have self-doubt. You don’t deny it, but you also don’t capitulate to it. You embrace it.

My very addictive personality and all sorts of strongholds are a thing of the past for me. Yet at the root of every single one of those issues was insecurity, something I had battled since childhood.

People think I’m goofy. I don’t have that Angelina Jolie air to me. I wish that I did, and that’s an insecurity of mine.

People confuse ego, lust, insecurity with true love.

I think we are all insecure, and there is nothing wrong in accepting that. But the problem arises when we try to counter this insecurity by cultivating this illusion of control, and we start taking ourselves and everything we know too seriously.

The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.

Each project, I suffer like I’m starting over again in life. There’s a lot of healthy insecurity that fuels this stuff.

I like living on that edge, musically. I like a bit of insecurity and that feeling of not really knowing what’s going to happen.

It is when we all play safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity.

It is playing safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity.

Guys have a level of insecurity and vulnerability that’s exponentially bigger than you think. With the primal urge to be alpha comes extreme heartbreak. The harder we fight, the harder we fall.

The financial instability and sometimes insecurity that families feel, deeply motivates how they respond politically.

I don’t even know where to start in terms of people having such an issue about color, especially being dark. I just think on different levels it’s ignorance; it’s no belief, no confidence, it’s insecurity, so you want to inflict it on somebody else.

We can appear to be tough as nails, but guys have a level of insecurity and vulnerability that’s exponentially bigger than you think. With the primal urge to be alpha comes extreme heartbreak. The harder we fight, the harder we fall.

I was wracked with insecurity.

Insecurity and resignation mingle with the hope for a better order.

Many times, people who are self-involved or bullies, it stems from a place of hurt and insecurity within oneself.

Obsession with the market seem to prevent ministers looking at the huge problem and all its ramifications in health, education and employment that come from the housing insecurity that too many face.

I mainly read non-fiction, and that’s probably because I have a huge amount of insecurity about my lack of education and the things I don’t know.

I’m comfortably asocial – a hermit in the middle of a large city, a pessimist if I’m not careful, a feminist, a black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty and drive.

Acting has given me a way to channel my angst. I feel like an overweight, pimply faced kid a lot of the time – and finding a way to access that insecurity, and put it toward something creative is incredibly rewarding. I feel very lucky.

I used to say to myself, ‘Well, in the old days everybody danced because they loved to dance, and there was none of this professional garbage going on about how much can you get for this or that or the other, or any of the kinds of things that insecurity can sometimes promote. Sometimes it’s for the wrong reasons.’

Me not finishing school – in my head, I still have this insecurity when I’m talking to someone educated.

Anybody who is in freelance work, especially artistically, knows that it comes with all the insecurity and the ups and downs. It’s a really frightening life.

I always think the insecurity is going to go away, but it’s always there. Only bad writers think they’re good.

With all singers, insecurity is your best security. That’s why we’re such loud people and why we walk all funny. You think, ‘Are people interested?’ But I think our band has something and they know we don’t just put albums out. We do think about it.

Vanity can apply to both insecurity and egotism.

We live in a culture where we’re bombarded with so much noise and so much insecurity.

We all need to be a part of the fight against injustice, insecurity and irresponsibility towards children and the world.

I have fear, always, on the set. Insecurity to the point where the first week I always think I could be fired. I think that’s a fear most actors have.

I’m just propelled by insecurity; that’s what really leads me to want to do better.

I couldn’t help feeling people thought I was a moron, and my self-imposed insecurity constantly bedeviled me.

I really had a problem with being ‘the man.’ I’m past it now, but that was my insecurity. I ran from that. I was cool with being No. 3 on the call sheet or No. 2.

Insecurity is a natural part of human nature, and there are times we feel our stories are not worth telling, so we turn to the people we admire for strength. If we dress like someone everyone thinks is cool, perhaps we’ll be seen as cool.

That’s why you find a lot of entertainers are insecure, because it’s the perfect camouflage for insecurity.

Anger is a manifestation of a deeper issue… and that, for me, is based on insecurity, self-esteem and loneliness.

The insecurity that comes from being behind bars with, at best, imperfect oversight makes us all feel responsible only for ourselves. We end up either docile, apathetic, and unwilling to engage with each other, or hostile, angry, violent, and resentful.

I started out at Procter & Gamble marketing panty liners, so basically selling women insecurity. I thought there must be more to life than this. Then I was on set for a Dr. Scholl’s commercial, and I asked one of the execs, ‘How do you get a job behind the camera?’ and he said, ‘Film school.’ So I quit and applied to NYU.

Most bad behavior comes from insecurity.

Aleta St. James is an internationally renowned energy healer, life coach, best selling author, and more. Aleta does private sessions to release old resistance and shift out of anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, trauma, addictions, infertility, and insecurity at a cellular level.

Insecurity, commonly regarded as a weakness in normal people, is the basic tool of the actor’s trade.

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.

It’s always my biggest insecurity – disappointing myself or my partner.

I think my father had a certain degree of insecurity and need to achieve.

Don’t let fear or insecurity stop you from trying new things. Believe in yourself. Do what you love. And most importantly, be kind to others, even if you don’t like them.

I think there’s nothing about evolution in the Bible; I think this is a statement of religious insecurity. But people have their beliefs.

She’s probably in denial that she’s a great big ball of insecurity and I’m quite well aware that I am one.

We are in an era of chronic insecurity and growing inequalities. In that context, we need to have new mechanisms for income distribution which give people a sense of security.

A leader who is confused or confusing causes too much anxiety, and a leader who is too controlling is revealing more insecurity and a lack of leadership.

Change is always tough. Even for those who see themselves as agents of change, the process of starting a new thing can cause times of disorientation, uncertainty and insecurity.

I just have this inner insecurity that I’m never good enough.

I see my role as a scholar announcing that women’s feelings of unworthiness and insecurity often may be traced to training in a male-oriented religion, and I’m trying to investigate a richer spiritual life for both sexes.

But the world is ever more interdependent. Stock markets and economies rise and fall together. Confidence is the key to prosperity. Insecurity spreads like contagion. So people crave stability and order.

It’s really hard not to fall into that trap of insecurity when you’re a model. Beforehand, I never looked at myself in a huge monitor with 30 people around it every day.

For good and evil, man is a free creative spirit. This produces the very queer world we live in, a world in continuous creation and therefore continuous change and insecurity.

The surface of American life looks smooth, prosperous, peaceful. But underneath, fault-line shifts in family and work life have led us into what some have called ‘advanced insecurity.’

A bedrock of insecurity made me want to impress and want to be the center of attention.

I think one thing that’s important to maintain is a sense of fear, always doubting yourself… a good dose of insecurity helps your work in some ways.

Becoming the new feminine ideal requires just the right combination of insecurity, exercise, bulimia and surgery.

Throughout my childhood, a heavy cloud of pain and disappointment and insecurity hovered over my home, my little street, my neighborhood, Jewish Jerusalem, Jewish Israel.

I’m not a good photographer, not a good writer. I’m a pretty regular person whose insecurity is so pervasive that it makes me always feel vulnerable.

It is when we all play safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity.

Sometimes I’m on a TV set, and I can’t feel what I’m supposed to feel as that character because I’ve not worked my way up to that point. I think there’s a bit more insecurity on a set – you’ve got to blag it, or you’ve got to do what you’ve been paid a lot of money to do in a very short space of time.

Each one of us requires the spur of insecurity to force us to do our best.

I used to have insecurity about my finances, then I announced that I had debt, and now I don’t have any insecurities.

We actors have a big problem. We have a lot of insecurity and we are fragile. We surround ourselves with people who praise our ego and lie to us… till that moment you realise that these people are not helping you get ahead.

Unhealthy eating habits cause major health problems, such as diabetes and heart disease, and can also lead to food insecurity, disrupted eating patterns, and low self-esteem.

I’m still conscious of whether people really accept me, but that insecurity makes me stronger.

It’s my insecurity that makes me want to be a comic, that makes me need the audience.

To rush to throw away your magazine business and move it on the iPad is just sheer insanity and insecurity and fear.

Like everybody in show business, you think you’re going to wake up one day, and it’s all going to be taken away from you. I think we all share an insecurity in that way, everybody in show business – the ones I talk to, anyway.

There is a deep camaraderie of insecurity between us actors. You rehash choices you’ve made among those who are close to you and inevitably bang your head against the wall when you finally figure out the scene… a day after you shot it!

Insecurity has been my lifelong thing.

One of the most beautiful ways for spiritual formation to take place is to let your insecurity lead you closer to the Lord. Natural hypersensitivity can become an asset; it makes you aware of your need to be with people and it allows you to be more willing to look at their needs.

The feeling of insecurity is inimical to our sense of wellbeing, as it causes anxiety and stress, which harms our physical and mental health. It is no surprise then that, according to some surveys, workers across the world value job security more highly than wages.

I purposefully did not want to watch anything I’ve done so far; I actually don’t like looking at my face, so I don’t like watching myself on the screen. It’s an insecurity thing I have.

I don’t think there’s any space for any negativity or insecurity on the set of ‘Housefull 4.’ It feels like a big, crazy family.

Political and economic insecurity inevitably translates into insecurity in people’s everyday lives, from lack of access to welfare to the increasing lack of security in the workplace.

I’d never put much thought into writing an autobiography before, because while I have this public persona of being extremely confident, I also am extremely filled with self-doubt, worry and insecurity. This book came about because I was trying to sell another book, unsuccessfully, about health and wellness.

All artists have insecurity.