Self Quotes by Nathaniel Branden

What is guilt? It is moral self-reproach-I did wrong when it was possible to have done otherwise.

— Nathaniel Branden

One of the hardest expressions of self-assertiveness is challenging your limiting beliefs.

— Nathaniel Branden

Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.

— Nathaniel Branden

Self-esteem is not a luxury; it is a profound spiritual need.

— Nathaniel Branden

To trust one's mind and to know that one is worthy of happiness is the essence of self-esteem.

— Nathaniel Branden

“Self-discipline is the ability to organize your behavior over time in the service of specific goals.”

— Nathaniel Branden

It is painful to face the self we know we have never had the integrity to honor and assert.

— Nathaniel Branden

We tend to feel most comfortable, "most at home", with people whose self esteem level resembles our own.

— Nathaniel Branden

One of the most significant characteristics of healthy self esteem is that it is the state of one who is not at…

— Nathaniel Branden

If we do have realistic confidence in our mind and value, if we feel secure within ourselves, we tend to experience the…

— Nathaniel Branden

High self esteem people can surely be knocked down by an excess of troubles, but they are quickerto pick themselves up again.

— Nathaniel Branden

The greater a child’s terror, and the earlier it is experienced, the harder it becomes to develop a strong and healthy sense…

— Nathaniel Branden

To love is to see myself in you and to wish to celebrate myself with you. What I love is the embodiment…

— Nathaniel Branden

Self-esteem is a powerful force within each of us... Self-esteem is the experience that we are appropriate to life and to the…

— Nathaniel Branden

To attain "success" without attaining positive self-esteem is to be condemned to feeling like an imposter anxiously awaiting exposure.

— Nathaniel Branden

If you choose not to live self-responsibly, you count on others to make up your default. No one abjures self-responsibility on a…

— Nathaniel Branden

It is naive to think that self-assertiveness is easy. To live self-assertively--which means to live authentically--is an act of high courage. That…

— Nathaniel Branden

If you feel inadequate to face challenges, unworthy of love or respect, untitled to happiness, and fear assertive thought, wants, or needs-…

— Nathaniel Branden

It is impressive to see a person who has been battered by life in many ways, who is torn by a variety…

— Nathaniel Branden

Some people have a view of self and of the universe that obliges them to struggle for happiness, to yearn for happiness-"some…

— Nathaniel Branden

Persons of high self-esteem are not driven to make themselves superior to others; they do not seek to prove their value by…

— Nathaniel Branden

The feeling that "I am enough" does not mean that I have nothing to learn, nothing further to achieve, and nowhere to…

— Nathaniel Branden

Living consciously is seeking to be aware of everything that bears on our interests, actions, values, purposes, and goals. It is the…

— Nathaniel Branden

If you are an adult, you are responsible for your life and well-being. No one owes you the fulfillment of your needs…

— Nathaniel Branden

The more you surrender to the fear of someone's disapproval, the more you lose face in your own eyes, and the more…

— Nathaniel Branden

Stressing the practice of living purposefully as essential to fully realized self-esteem is not equivalent to measuring an individual's worth by his…

— Nathaniel Branden

Positive self-esteem operates as, in effect, the immune system of the consciousness, providing resistance, strength, and a capacity for regeneration. When self-esteem…

— Nathaniel Branden

To accept struggle as part of life, to accept all of it, even the darkest moments of anguish; to be motivated by…

— Nathaniel Branden

We do not hear the term compassionate applied to business executives or entrepreneurs, certainly not when they are engaged in their normal…

— Nathaniel Branden

In a world in which we are exposed to more information, more options, more philosophies, more perspectives than ever before, in which…

— Nathaniel Branden

It is easy enough to say, Be true to your values. But what if your values are irrational? Or what if the…

— Nathaniel Branden

Our motive is not to prove our self-worth, but to live up to our possibilities.

— Nathaniel Branden

Self esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.

— Nathaniel Branden

A bully hides his fears with fake bravado. That is the opposite of self-assertiveness.

— Nathaniel Branden

The lies most devastating to our self-esteem are not so much the lies we tell as the lies we live.

— Nathaniel Branden

Self-respecting men and women think about the consequences of their actions-and are willing to take responsibility for them.

— Nathaniel Branden

One of the characteristics of love relationships that flower is a relatively high degree of mutual self-disclosure

— Nathaniel Branden

A well-developed sense of self is a necessary if not sufficient condition of your well-being. Its presence does not guarantee fulfillment, but…

— Nathaniel Branden

The desire for self-esteem without integrity is like the desire for wealth without effort-a longing for the unearned.

— Nathaniel Branden

If you overcome your fear to ask someone for a date, a raise, or help with a project, that is an act…

— Nathaniel Branden