“The unconscious compulsion to enhance one's identity through association with an object is the very structure of the egoic mind."

"The stronger the ego in you, the more likely it is that in your perception other people are the main source of problems in your life. It is also more than likely that you will make life difficult for others."

"All that is required to become free of the ego is to be aware of it, since awareness and ego are incompatible"

“What you react to in another, you strengthen in yourself"

"Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists"

"Is it wrong to proud of one’s possessions or to feel resentful toward people who have more than you? Not at all. That sense of price, of needing to stand out, the apparent enhancement of one's self through "more than" and diminishment through "less than" is neither right nor wrong—it is the ego. The ego isn't wrong; it's just unconscious. When you observe the ego in yourself, you are beginning to go beyond it. Don't take the ego too seriously. When you detect egoic behavior in yourself, smile. At times you may even laugh. How could humanity have been taken in by this for so long? Above all, know that the ego isn't personal. It isn't who you are. If you consider the ego to be your personal problem, that's just more ego"

"Some churches, sects, cults, or religious movements are basically collective egoic entities, as rigidly identified with their mental positions as the followers of any political ideology that is closed to any alternative interpretation of reality"

"The people in the advertising industry know very well that in order to sell things that people don’t really need, they must convince them that those things will add something to how they see themselves or are seen by others; in other words, add something to their sense of self. They do this, for example, by telling you that you will stand out from the crowd by using this product and so by implication be more fully yourself"

"What a liberation to realize that the 'voice in my head' is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that."

"An essential part of the awakening is the recognition of the unawakened you, the ego as it thinks, speaks, and acts, as well as the recognition of the collectively conditioned mental processes that perpetuate the unawakened state"

Eckhart Tolle - A New Earth