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Confidence
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“Poise and indifference so often look the same.”
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“I am not so sure that an egocentric childhood—when combined with a strong will—is a bad beginning for one whom life has destined for a career. One at least does not start out in life with an inferiority complex, than which surely nothing can be more hampering. All careers are beset with disappointments, knock-down blows, failures, the persistent enmity of mean vestigial minds. To say nothing of one's own mistakes. But if one has that inner conviction, however illogical it may appear at the time, that one must succeed (i.e. have one's own way), that the reverse is unthinkable, pertinacity is as natural as confidence and the battle is half won.”
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“The unlived life is not worth examining. ... Self-awareness, self-examination, self-consciousness are for the quiet moments. In the arena they are paralyzing. The self must not be held out of the arena until living skills have been learned.”
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“If one burdens the future with one's worries, it cannot grow organically. I am filled with confidence, not that I shall succeed in worldly things, but that even when things go badly for me I shall still find life good and worth living.”
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“If I did not wear torn pants, orthopedic shoes, frantic disheveled hair, that is to say, if I did not tone down my beauty, people would go mad. Married men would run amuck.”
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“If you act like you know what you're doing, you can do anything you want — except neurosurgery.”
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“My parents ... always told me I could do anything but never told me how long it would take.”
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“ Putting the World to Rights.”
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“... the brother that gets me is going to get one hell of a fabulous woman.”
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“Great parts of our economy are directly dependent upon women having a weak self-concept. A multi-billion dollar fashion-cosmetic industry testifies to the validity of this approach. A woman who does not know who she is can be sold anything.”
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“My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.”
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“No man is defeated without until he has first been defeated within.”
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“ I am like a deeply built ship. I drive best under a strong wind.”
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“You reach a point in life where you realize that you might as well do what you need to do, because your being loved or not being loved is really a function of the people you encounter and not of yourself. That is an immensely liberating insight.”
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“Whatever you want to do, just do it. Don't worry about making a fool of yourself. Making a fool of yourself is absolutely essential.”
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“Though I be a woman, yet I have as good a courage, answerable to my place, as ever my father had ... I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am endued with such qualities, that if I were turned out of the realm in my petticoat, I were able to live in any place in Christendom.”
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“You could not help catching confidence off him, like a cold.”
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“I do not question what the years portend — / Of good or ill, whatever wind may blow; / It is enough, enough for me to know / I shall be given courage to the end.”
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“... once, when I was a young lady and on a night express ... I was awakened by a man coming in from the corridor and taking hold of my leg ... Quite as much to my own astonishment as his, I uttered the most appalling growl that ever came out of a tigress. He fled, poor man, without a word: and I lay there, trembling slightly, not at my escape but at my potentialities.”
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“No man ever distinguished himself who could not bear to be laughed at.”
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“Miss Gavin was emancipated, or believed herself to be, which amounts to the same thing. ”
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“Confidence is its own security.”
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“Beware of allowing a tactless word, a rebuttal, a rejection to obliterate the whole sky.”
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“I was thought to be 'stuck up.' I wasn't. I was just sure of myself. This is and always has been an unforgivable quality to the unsure.”
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“I felt so young, so strong, so sure of God!”
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“Can't nothin' make your life work if you ain't the architect.”
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“... I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me.”
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“To think we have the ability to do a thing is almost to accomplish it.”
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“I am iron butterfly ... / I am she/we / of flesh / and iron / and silk wings, / healing, flying / into a gentle blue sky.”
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“You are, right now, stronger, wiser, happier, and healthier than you think you are.”
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“... self-trust, we know, is the first secret of success ...”
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“Looks might enhance your sense of entitlement, but they do nothing to build your confidence in your ability to rule the realm.”
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“You can become anything you want to be ... It's a matter of authority. Whatever a man's confidence, that's his capacity.”
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“The world will provide you with every imaginable obstacle, but the one most difficult to overcome will be the lack of faith in yourself. Leave it to others to have doubts about you.”
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“We're all capable of climbing so much higher than we usually permit ourselves to suppose.”
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“It is the man who is sure of himself who disregards the opinion of the world. To be sure is to have power.”
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“Confidence is something one acquires. It can come early or late but it is impossible to write without it. Mine came late.”
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“I am the rock. / The hard rock. / You can't break me.”
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“I am my own heroine.”
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“Confidence is a plant of slow growth ...”
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“To lose confidence in one's body is to lose confidence in oneself.”
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“If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.”
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“Let nothing disturb thee; / Let nothing dismay thee: / All things pass; / God never changes. / Patience attains / All that it strives for. / He who has God / Finds he lacks nothing: / God alone suffices.”
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“Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
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“Leap and the net will appear.”
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“The greatest possession is Self-possession.”
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“I may not overcome the inevitable, but O, it is mine to see that the inevitable does not overcome me.”
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“By some fluke, my folks forgot to ask me the question most crucial to ensuring a lifetime of self-doubt: 'What if you fail?'”
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“All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: act as if it were impossible to fail. That is the talisman, the formula, the command of right-about-face which turns us from failure towards success.”
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“If I ever felt inclined to be scared going into a room full of people I would say to myself, 'You're the cleverest member of one of the cleverest families in the cleverest class of the cleverest nation of the world, so what have you got to be frightened of?”
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“... you know me and my adoration complex. I always assume everyone is crazy about me, and somehow they are then, and so I'm always happy.”
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“When we consistently suppress and distrust our intuitive knowingness, looking instead for authority, validation, and approval from others, we give our personal power away.”
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“We is terrific.”
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“Success breeds confidence.”
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“I don't believe in making contingency plans, because I don't have time. If I spend too much time playing 'What if it fails?' then that can take on a life of its own. So I never consider, 'What if this doesn't work?' I focus, instead, on 'This can work!'”
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“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.”
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“'I can't' are two words that have never been in my vocabulary. I believe in me more than anything in the world.”
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“The knowledge that you can handle anything that comes your way is the key to allowing yourself to take risks. ... security is not having things; it's handling things.”
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“I don't think you can make a contribution until you've moved beyond wondering if you're good enough.”
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“To lose faith in oneself is to cease to create; to cease to create is to cease to exist.”
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“We must believe in ourselves or no one will believe in us.”
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“... if you don't believe in yourself, you'll have some difficulty in making other people believe in you.”
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“Faith is that bridge between wanting and having. Actually, it's not only the bridge, it's the car and the map, too.”
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“I believe I am unusually brave for a woman. Some girls might have felt downcast over the fact that their patron had declared their work was not as good as some of the others. I am so confoundly confident! It almost scares me at times. ... When I strike the earth, like the giant of old, I rise more violently than before.”
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“Never allow yourself to say, 'I can't do this or that, I am too old.' If you do, your convictions will engrave themselves on your face and bring stiffness to your limbs.”
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“Confidence, to my way of thinking, generally is all the magic needed to work miracles.”
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“I've gone through life believing in the strength and competence of others; never in my own. Now, dazzled, I discovered that my capacities were real. It was like finding a fortune in the lining of an old coat.”
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“... confidence is a feeling we acquire after trying a task and succeeding at it. It is not a quality we can have before we try the task. Just because you lack confidence doesn't mean you lack competence. If you don't know what you're doing — do it. It's the best way to find out how to do it.”
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“Any blocks you have can be reduced to one cause: You don't think enough of yourself. Go to a mirror, say 'I love you.' Mean it. You'll be fine.”
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“I have always regarded myself as the pillar of my life.”
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“Especially in business, if you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right.”
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“... self-possession is the ability to face without fear life in all its contradictions.”
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“... in this curious world there are certain beings to whom it is given to say of all things with naïve faith, not 'I shall seek,' but 'I shall find.'”
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“I am a woman / who understands / the necessity of an impulse whose goal or origin / still lie beyond me.”
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“If you believe, then you hang on. If you believe, it means you've got imagination, you don't need stuff drawn out for you in a blueprint, you don't face facts — what can stop you? If I don't make it today, I'll come in tomorrow.”
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“There is nothing gutsier to me than a person announcing that their story is one that deserves to be told, especially if that person is a woman.”
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“... we found that success correlates more closely with confidence than it does with competence. Yes, there is evidence that confidence is more important than ability when it comes to getting ahead. This came as particularly unsettling news to us, having spent our own lives striving toward competence.”
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“Having talent isn’t merely about being competent; confidence is actually a part of that talent.”
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“...confidence is a choice ... to act, or to do, or to decide.”
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“I believe in doing the thing you feel is right. If it looks right, it is right.”
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“... the most socially important discovery which anyone ever made — only few people made it early enough to save them unhappiness in youth — was that behind every else's self-assurance, lay diffidence and uncertainty as alarming as one's own.”