find oneself


Also found in: Thesaurus, Idioms.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Verb1.find oneself - accept and make use of one's personality, abilities, and situation; "My son went to Berkeley to find himself"
maturate, mature, grow - develop and reach maturity; undergo maturation; "He matured fast"; "The child grew fast"
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
References in classic literature ?
"So I see," said Sancho, "and God grant we may not light upon our graves; it is no good sign to find oneself wandering in a graveyard at this time of night; and that, after my telling your worship, if I don't mistake, that the house of this lady will be in an alley without an outlet."
It's always a comfort to find oneself in good company."
To wake and find oneself left alone with one was also slightly disconcerting.
'But there is a thing such as reading for pleasure, reading to find oneself, reading to understand other people, reading to change your life.
How rare it is, in our high-tech world, to find oneself completely off the track, bewildered in the wild, and then find the path home by sight and scent and memory.
But to discover that the artist is there to fix his workfor the third time in one weekis to find oneself inside an exhibit of a whole new order, where the old rules, separating the untouchable art, invisible artists, and audience, no longer apply.
Admittedly, the non-TV critics among you might disagree, claiming there are PLENTY of less favourable situations to find oneself in - being trapped in a hot car alongside someone with trimethylaminuria (fish odour syndrome), for example.
Stevens shows the courage it often takes to find oneself and then to be true to that.
It is then that the reader may grow frustrated; pulled along by the authors artful current, one may find oneself finishing a section and surprised at how little has been understood.
The French thinker Jean-Paul Sartre provided the most pressing case for human freedom, arguing that under the stare of another, the individual may find oneself rejected by the world around one.
There is the problem of servants, knives and forks, social mores of a very strange kind, to say nothing of the occasional passed-over senior officer whose inflamed eyes and haughty demeanour present the young recruit with the dismaying feeling of having gone to the zoo as a visitor, only to find oneself in the cage with the oldest and most unwanted inhabitant.