117 Narcissism Quotes to Understand Toxic Behavior
Dealing with narcissism can be challenging, but the right words can bring clarity and understanding.
That’s why we’ve gathered all the best narcissism quotes to help you reflect and express your thoughts.
And if you’re looking for short narcissism sayings for Instagram, we also have you covered.
Now go ahead and browse through to find your favorite.
Short Narcissism Quotes
“The greater our own level of narcissism, the more we detest it in others.” – Steve Maraboli
“Narcissus does not fall in love with his reflection because it is beautiful, but because it is his. If it were his beauty that enthralled him, he would be set free in a few years by its fading.” – W.H. Auden
“The paradox about narcissism is that we all have this streak of egotism. Eighty percent of people think they’re better than average.” – Mark Leary
“Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have, so to speak, pawned a part of their narcissism.” – Sigmund Freud
“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.” — James Woods
“I am a recovering narcissist. I thought narcissism was about self-love till someone told me there is a flip side to it.” — Emily Levine
“Narcissus weeps to find that his image does not return his love.” — Mason Cooley
“Narcissists commonly cut people off and out of their lives due to their shallow emotional style of seeing others as either good or bad.” — Karyl McBride
“Self-love forever creeps out, like a snake, to sting anything which happens…to stumble upon it.” — George Gordon Noel Byron
“A sociopath is one who sees others as impersonal objects to be manipulated to fulfill their own narcissistic needs without any regard for the hurtful consequences of their selfish actions.” — R. Alan Woods
“I think writers are the most narcissistic people.” — Sylvia Plath
“A narcissist paints a picture of themselves as being the victim or innocent in all aspects.” — Karla Grimes
“Narcissism and self-deception are survival mechanisms without which many of us might just jump off a bridge.” – Todd Solondz
“No one has probably helped me more with my narcissism than my dog.” – Tucker Max
“A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.” – Gore Vidal
“He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Nobody can be kinder than the narcissist while you react to life in his own terms.” – Elizabeth Bowen
“It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because one’s own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care.” – George Eliot
“I don’t care what you think unless it is about me.” – Kurt Cobain
“There is a difference between supporting someone and feeding someone’s narcissism. One is support and the other is not.” – Fathom
“Loving yourself and being in love with yourself are two entirely different things. Differentiate.” – Fathom
“When narcissism is viewed as good; good is viewed as narcissism.” – Fathom
“Self-awareness is not self-centeredness, and spirituality is not narcissism. ‘Know thyself’ is not a narcissistic pursuit.” – Marianne Williamson
“Hate is the complement of fear and narcissists like being feared. It imbues them with an intoxicating sensation of omnipotence.” – Sam Vaknin
“Some narcissistic people end up believing their own lies.” – Unknown
“Narcissistic people are always struggling with the fact that the rest of the world doesn’t revolve around them.” – Unknown
“It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.” – Voltaire
“To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.” – Oscar Wilde
“Narcissists are great con-artists. After all, they succeed in deluding themselves! As a result, very few professionals see through them.” – Unknown
“This Narcissus of ours Can’t see his face in the mirror Because he has become the mirror.” — Antonio Machado
“I bet it gets pretty lonely with only your ego for company.” — Alexandra Bracken
“How starved you must have been that my heart became a meal for your ego.” — Amanda Torroni
“Imagining that you are deep and complex, but others are simple, is one of the primary signs of malignant selfishness.” — Stefan Molyneux
“If anybody studying psychology wants a concrete example of what a narcissist looks like, I advise them to consider any man who cheats on his wife.” — Julie Klausner
“The only crime is pride.” — Sophocles
“I have a very simple question to people…who seem to suffer from excessive narcissism: Please name three other persons who are smarter and more capable than you.” — Ingo Molnar
“A narcissist can’t be faithful. This is because—to a narcissist—’you’ don’t exist except as a mirror.” — Tigress Luv
“Love doesn’t die a natural death. Love has to be killed, either by neglect or narcissism.” — Frank Salvato
“It is especially painful when narcissists suffer memory loss because they are losing parts of the person they love most.” — David Brooks
“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important.” — T.S. Eliot
“Narcissists have poor self-esteem, but they are typically very successful. They feel entitled; they’re self-important; they crave admiration and lack empathy.” — Janet M. Tavakoli
“Withhold admiration from a narcissist and be disliked. Give it and be treated with indifference.” — Mason Cooley
“I love narcissists—even more than they love themselves.” — Patricia Marx
“The narcissist devours people, consumes their output, and casts the empty, writhing shells aside.” — Sam Vaknin
“If people are really narcissistic or have a need to be seen as more than they really are, then they cannot be followed and trusted by others.” — Henry Cloud
“Whether with a narcissist a week, a month, a year, a decade, or a half of a century, one thing is for sure…one day you will wake up to the revelation that it was all just a figment of your imagination.” — Tigress Luv
“The most uninteresting thing in the world is watching narcissists fuck each other.” — Jarett Kobek
“Narcissists are consumed with maintaining a shallow false self to others. They’re emotionally crippled souls that are addicted to attention.” — Shannon L. Alder
“I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity.” — Diana Vreeland
“I think a lot of self-importance is a product of fear.” — Moby
“I am least proud of my narcissism.” — Ben Affleck
“Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.” — Frank Leahy
“Big egos are big shields for lots of empty space.” — Diane Black
“The only changes a narcissist makes are masks and victims.” — Unknown
“The narcissist, cut off from her spirituality, is one who spends unquantifiable energy supporting and maintaining and utterly and completely fake self.” — Stacey Scott Mae
“When a toxic person can no longer control you, they will try to control how others see you.” — Jill Blakeway
“Vanity and narcissism — the compulsive need to be admired and praised — undermine one’s courage.” — Rollo May
“The ultimate obscenity is not caring, not doing something about what you feel, not feeling! Just drawing back and drawing in; becoming narcissistic.” — Rod Serling
“There’s nothing that makes you more miserable (or less interesting) than self-absorption.” — Timothy Keller
“I wonder if the course of narcissism through the ages would have been any different had Narcissus first peered into a cesspool.” — Frank O’Hara
“We’re stronger and braver together. Do not let this world and this narcissistic culture make competitors out of the very people who are meant to be your comrades in arms.” — Beth Moore
“Narcissism really spreads its wings and soars on Twitter.” — Dave Anthony
“I have no confidence. I have terrible self-esteem, along with boundless narcissism.” — Anne Lamott
“For the most part people are not curious except about themselves.” — John Steinbeck
“That’s what modern narcissism really is—a pernicious mix of qualities defined by three words that start with self: selfishness, self-absorption, and self-importance.” — David Sirota
“Leave your pride, ego, and narcissism somewhere else.” — Henry Cloud
“When narcissists ask ‘how do you feel’, they are actually saying, ‘I am not feeling good, and now listen to me.'” — Emma Xu
“He is the Narcissus of the inkpot…” — Jean Lorrain
“But by most measures, narcissism is one of the worst, if only because the narcissists themselves are so clueless.” — Jeffrey Kluger
“Narcissism is a reflexive turning towards the self because your childhood experiences taught you that others would not provide for your needs.” — Unknown
“Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind; it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persuades us that they escape the notice of others.” – Samuel Johnson
“Self-love depressed becomes self-loathing.” – Sally Kempton
“Self-love seems so often unrequited.” – Anthony Powell
“If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.” – Michel de Montaigne
“All of nationalism can be understood as a kind of collective narcissism.” – Geoff Mulgan
“You give up your narcissism, your egotism. That’s how you achieve chemistry.” – Nick Nolte
“If I had it to do all over again . . . I wouldn’t change a thing.’. . . the final expression of narcissism, the last gesture of self-congratulation.” – Steve Erickson
“The main condition for the achievement of love is the overcoming of one’s narcissism.” — Erich Fromm
“The problem in narcissism is not the high ideals and ambitions, it’s the difficulty one encounters when trying to give them body.” – Thomas Moore
“If you’re a nobody, just imagine a lot of celebrities are in love with you. Narcissism is the best cure for attention deficit disorder.” – Bauvard
“Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people.” – Andre Dubus
“It is not selfish or narcissistic to love yourself. It is your first and foremost responsibility.” – Alan Cohen
“A victim of circumstance is a casualty. A victim of convenience is a narcissist.” – Alan Robert Neal
“Narcissists often appear to be very confident, but a key feature of narcissism is low self-esteem. Narcissists display arrogance and exaggerate their achievements to hide this low self-esteem.” — Emily Guarnotta, PsyD
“There’s a reason narcissists don’t learn from mistakes and that’s because they never get past the first step which is admitting that they made one.” — Jeffrey Kluger
“The lion is most handsome when looking for food.” — Rumi
“You can teach a narcissist to show up on time, but you can’t train them to listen once they get there.” — Dr. Ramani Durvasula
“People, no matter the economic class, find ways to feed their narcissism.” — Lynne Tillman
“Please repair your narcissism before you start loving your neighbor as yourself.” — Charles F. Glassman
“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
“A narcissist doesn’t trust that others will be there for them so they have to be there for themselves. This doesn’t leave much room for anyone else.” — Krista Jordan, PhD
“What are narcissists looking for, after all? Just someone at their level that they can feel superior to.” — Luigina Sgarro
“A narcissist is someone who has a grandiose sense of self-importance, harbors obsessive fantasies of unbounded glory, feels rage or intense shame when criticized, expects special favors, and lacks empathy.” — Daniel Goleman
“Narcissistic abuse is not just that someone dumped you or who you had a little tiff with them. NA is psychological abuse and brainwashing using intermittent reward and punishment, coercive control and withholding normal empathetic, emotional reactions to lower your self esteem.” — Alice Little
“My father was a textbook narcissist. If he didn’t like the narrative he’d start gaslighting you. He threatened the democracy of our family.” — Randy Rainbow
“There was nothing more unattractive than narcissism, she thought: nothing could transform beauty into a cloying, unattractive quality than that self-conscious appreciation of self.” — Alexander McCall Smith
“For some, life may be a playground to undermine the brainwaves of others or simply a vainglorious game with an armory of theatrics, illustrating only bleak self-deception, haughty narcissism, and dim deficiency in empathy.” — Erik Pevernagie
“The narcissist is like a bucket with a hole in the bottom: No matter how much you put in, you can never fill it up.” — Dr. Ramani Durvasula
“If you want to go from being adored to devalued in the blink of an eye, simply insult the narcissist.” — Tigress Luv
“I think narcissists are endlessly watchable. The way they view the world and the way they interact within the world. They have no concept of their behavior or how it might be affecting other people. So comedically, it’s a very fun type of character to play. They are bulls in a china shop, twenty-four seven.” — Michael Showalter
“I love narcissists — even more than they love themselves. You don’t have to buoy them up. They are their own razzle-dazzle show and you are the blessed, favored with a front-row seat.” — Patricia Marx
“You might as well bang your head into a brick wall if you expect the narcissist to be reasonable, empathetic or human in any way. If you sense or witness any of these traits, there is an ulterior motive. When the narcissist is being nice, it’s because they have something to gain.” — Tina Swithin
“That which he projects ahead of him as his ideal, is merely his substitute for the lost narcissism of his childhood ― the time when he was his own ideal.” — Sigmund Freud
“Americans are experiencing an epidemic in narcissistic behavior in a culture that is intrinsically self-conscious and selfish, and citizens are encouraged to pursue happiness and instant gratification of their personal desires.” — Kilroy J. Oldster
“People often discounted narcissism as relatively harmless because the term sometimes conjured the clichéd image of a vain man staring longingly at his reflection in a pool of water or a mirror.” — David Baldacci
“Narcissists are said to be in love with themselves. But this is a fallacy. Narcissus is not in love with himself. He is in love with his reflection. There is a major difference between one’s True Self and reflected-self.” — Sam Vaknin
“Even when he seems to be interacting with someone else, the narcissist is actually engaged in a self-referential discourse. To the narcissist, all other people are cardboard cutouts, two-dimensional animated cartoon characters, or symbols. They exist only in his inner universe. He is startled when they deviate from the script and prove to be complex and autonomous.” — Sam Vaknin
“The narcissist enjoys being looked at and not looking back.” — Mason Cooley
“When dealing with a narcissist, don’t defend yourself against attacks. Instead say, ‘Your attempt to portray me in a negative light is noted.'” — Tina Swithin
“Relationship with a narcissist in a nutshell: You will go from being the perfect love of their life, to nothing you do is ever good enough. You will give your everything and they will take it all and give you less and less in return. You will end up depleted, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and probably financially, and then get blamed for it.” — Bree Bonchay
“Narcissists install a mental filter in our heads a little bit at a time. . . . ‘Will he get upset if I do/say/think this? Will he approve/disapprove? Will he feel hurt by this?’ Until we can uninstall the narcissist-filter, our actions are controlled by narcissists to some degree.” — Sam Vaknin
“I have always been suspicious of romantic love. It looks too much like a narcissism shared by two.” — Rita Mae Brown
“You’re human. You’ll screw up. Denying that is crazy. Forgiving yourself has all the benefits of self-esteem without making you a narcissist that’s out of touch with reality.” — David D. Burns
“It is no wonder that narcissists — both men and women — are chauvinistic and conservative. They depend to such an extent on the opinions of people around them that, with time, they are transformed into ultra-sensitive seismographs of public opinion, barometers of prevailing fads and fashions, and guardians of conformity.” — Sam Vaknin
“Underneath the so-called narcissistic personality is definitely shame and the paralyzing fear of being ordinary.” — Brené Brown
“Narcissists look for new victims for the same reason that tigers look for new prey: they are hungry, constantly starved for adoration, admiration, acceptance, approval.” — Sam Vaknin
“A narcissist wants you to adopt his version of himself.” — Hart Pomerantz
