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Self-Esteem
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“... lack of self-esteem is what causes wars because people who really love themselves don't go out and try to fight other people ... It's the root of all the problems.”
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“I have a sense of greatness, which comes from feeling that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing on the planet — empowering people, especially women.”
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“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
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“... self-esteem isn't everything; it's just that there's nothing without it.”
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“The need to treat ourselves as well as we treat others. It's women's version of the Golden Rule.”
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“You can be pleased with nothing when you are not pleased with yourself.”
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“But that is one great difference between us. Compliments always take you by surprise, and me never. ”
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“I have always known that being very poor, which we were, had nothing to do with lovingness or familyness, or character or any of that ... We were quite clear that what we didn't have didn't have anything to do with what we were.”
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“Self-affection is the real dwelling to which we must always return with a view to a faithfulness to ourselves and an ability to welcome the other as different.”
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“This sentiment of self-contempt is a frequent one in young people of both sexes. Their valuation of themselves varies as much as the barometer, and is as much affected by outward causes.”
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“Between the combination of Judeo-Christian religious 'be good be good be good' and Capitalist 'something's wrong with you, buy this' and the parental upbringing, which is 'you're wrong, you're not thin enough, you're not smart enough' I mean, hello! We don't have a shot.”
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“It is curious how believable I can be when I criticize myself, how unconvincing when I give myself praise.”
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“Self-love, so sensitive in its own cause, has rarely any sympathy to spare for others.”
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“We cease loving ourselves when no one loves us.”
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“The things we hate about ourselves ... aren't more real than things we like about ourselves.”
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“You cannot be successful and continue to be a victim.”
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“There is an applause superior to that of the multitude — one's own.”
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“Self-love is so monogamous that no one is going to take the trouble to break the affair up for you.”
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“For instance, in group therapy, I'll have people stand up, show off, give a speech about themselves as though they've just died and have to give a eulogy. Even with this explicit permission — even an order — to say something nice about themselves, this is the hardest thing in the world for people to do. They'd rather take their clothes off.”
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“The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others.”
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“The only person you will live your entire life with is yourself.”
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“Most people who make movies are in real life a bitter disappointment. I, on the other hand, am so much better in real life.”
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“The sudden desire to look beautiful made her straighten her back. 'Beautiful! For whom? Why for myself, of course.'”
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“Walls protect and walls limit. It is in the nature of walls that they should fall. That walls should fall is the consequence of blowing your own trumpet.”
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“Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.”
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“I feel so small I could sit on a dime an' my legs wouldn't even hang over ...”
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“Nothing can be so bad as to be displeased with one's self ...”
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“[Wishing she could take back self-deprecating remarks like 'I'm as thick as a plank' and 'Brain the size of a pea, I've got,' the latter made to a 16-year-old in an orphanage who was worried about his exams:] This was just a jokey way of putting a nervous youngster at ease, but it lingered in the public's mind.”
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“... innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself.”
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“... at this point I meet Me face to face. I am Mary MacLane: of no importance to the wide bright world and dearly and damnably important to Me.”
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“The man who doesn't love me / I love twice: / once for his beauty, again / for his sound sense.”
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“I see nothing to fear in inner space.”
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“Until kids decide, 'I am a miracle. I am unique. There is no one else exactly like me,' they can never draw the conclusion, 'Because I'm a miracle, I will never harm another person who's a miracle like me.' In this slippery world, they all need something to hang on to.”
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“... nothing enhances self-esteem so much as the ability to do something well.”
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“... she'd been so programmed by Julian to think of herself as inferior material that if a man threw himself at her feet, her immediate reaction would be to call an ambulance.”
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“... and he said: you pretty full of yourself ain't chu / so she replied: show me someone not full of herself / and i'll show you a hungry person ...”
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“Self-love is always the mainspring, more or less concealed, of our actions; it is the wind which swells the sails, without which the ship could not go.”
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“People take you at your own valuation; might as well set it high.”
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“... the world is terribly apt to take people at their own valuation ...”
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“Nurtured, nourished people, who love themselves and care for themselves, are the delight of the Universe.”
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“If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.”
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“Self-esteem is something you have to give to yourself. That's why it's called self-esteem. What you get from others is something else entirely.”
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“I have always regarded myself as the pillar of my life.”
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“God didn't have time to create a nobody ...”
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“All men seek esteem; the best by lifting themselves, which is hard to do, the rest by shoving others down, which is much easier.”
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“... it follows that if you aren't happy with yourself, you won't be happy with others.”
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“Remember that nothing is so damaging to self-esteem as waiting for a telephone or door-bell that doesn't ring.”
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“... the world never puts a price on you higher than the one you put on yourself.”
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“I should coldly, clinically think of myself and stop worrying about other people, as though I'm a necessary woman, indispensable to their happiness and well-being. Self-preservation is the first law. I must start trying to obey the law.”
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“Miss Owen and Miss Burney asked me if I had never been in love; 'with myself,' said I, 'and most passionately.' When any man likes me I never am surprised, for I think how should he help it? When any man does not like me, I think him a blockhead, and there's an end of the matter.”
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“People who succeed speak well of themselves to themselves.”
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“The happiest and most fulfilled women are those who listen to themselves.”
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“Learn more about yourself! Make a self-esteem collage using pictures of other people you wish you were.”
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“I'm just a loudmouthed middle-age colored lady ... and a lot of people think I'm crazy. Maybe you do too, but I never stop to wonder why I'm not like other people. The mystery to me is why more people aren't like me.”
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“... I think I'm just as good as anyone. That's the way I was brought up. I'll tell you a secret: I think I'm better! Ha! I remember being aware that colored people were supposed to feel inferior. I knew I was a smart little thing, a personality, an individual — a human being! I couldn't understand how people could look at me and not see that, because it sure was obvious to me.”
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“In those days I was a slip of a thing with a divine figure and a face I was certain drove men wild. There is no doubt that I was the most conceited thing that ever lived. I simply adored Dagmar Godowsky and it was a passion that has withstood the test of time.”
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“If I could stand beside my body / and really see the woman I am, / then I would understand at last how envy feels.”
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“No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.”