Self Esteem Quotes

“Let me ask you something, in all the years that you have...undressed in front of a gentleman has he ever asked you to leave? Has he ever walked out and left? No? It's because he doesn't care! He's in a room with a naked girl, he just won the lottery. I am so tired of saying no, waking up in the morning and recalling every single thing I ate the day before, counting every calorie I consumed so I know just how much self loathing to take into the shower. I'm going for it. I have no interest in being obese, I'm just through with the guilt. So this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to finish this pizza, and then we are going to go watch the soccer game, and tomorrow we are going to go on a little date and buy ourselves some bigger jeans.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert

“If you want to find the real competition, just look in the mirror. After awhile you'll see your rivals scrambling for second place.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who holds a low opinion of himself.”
― Anthony Trollope, Orley Farm

“At every given moment we are absolutely perfect for what is required for our journey.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“She might be without country, without nation, but inside her there was still a being that could exist and be free, that could simply say I am without adding a this, or a that, without saying I am Indian, Guyanese, English, or anything else in the world.”
― Sharon Maas, Of Marriageable Age

“Don't belittle yourself. Be BIG yourself.”
― Corita Kent

“Never underestimate yourself”
― Carolyn Mackler, The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things

“Be patient. Your skin took a while to deteriorate. Give it some time to reflect a calmer inner state. As one of my friends states on his Facebook profile: "The true Losers in Life, are not those who Try and Fail, but those who Fail to Try.”
― Jess C. Scott, Clear: A Guide to Treating Acne Naturally

“You will act like the sort of person you conceive yourself to be.”
― Maxwell Maltz, Psycho-Cybernetics: A New Way to Get More Living Out of Life

“I’d learned to avoid mirrors. They never seemed to show me what I wanted to see.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“I've always been told my presence brightened up any room. One might think that went doubly for dank underground cell." (Jace)”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

“If the sound of happy children is grating on your ears, I don't think it's the children who need to be adjusted.”
― Stefan Molyneux

“Last time I talked to her she didn't sound like herself. She's depressed. It's awful what happens when people run out of money. They start thinking they're no good.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Pigs in Heaven

“Men who read it [beauty pornography] don't do so because they want women who look like that. The attraction of what they are holding is that it is not a woman, but a two-dimensional woman-shaped blank. The appeal of the material is not the fantasy that the model will come to life; it is precisely that she will not, ever. Her coming to life would ruin the vision. It is not about life.

Ideal beauty is ideal because it does not exist; The action lies in the gap between desire and gratification. Women are not perfect beauties without distance. That space, in a consumer culture, is a lucrative one. The beauty myth moves for men as a mirage, its power lies in its ever-receding nature. When the gap is closed, the lover embraces only his own disillusion.”
― Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth

“Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.”
― Nathaniel Branden, Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

“Is the beauty myth good to men? It hurts them by teaching them how to avoid loving women. It prevents men from actually seeing women. It does not, contrary to its own professed ideology, stimulate and gratify sexual longing. In suggesting a vision in place of a woman, it has a numbing effect, reducing all senses but the visual, and impairing even that.”
― Naomi Wolf

“What are other women really thinking, feeling, experiencing, when they slip away from the gaze and culture of men?”
― Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth

“When we start being too impressed by the results of our work, we slowly come to the erroneous conviction that life is one large scoreboard where someone is listing the points to measure our worth. And before we are fully aware of it, we have sold our soul to the many grade-givers. That means we are not only in the world, but also of the world. Then we become what the world makes us. We are intelligent because someone gives us a high grade. We are helpful because someone says thanks. We are likable because someone likes us. And we are important because someone considers us indispensable. In short, we are worthwhile because we have successes. And the more we allow our accomplishments — the results of our actions — to become the criteria of our self-esteem, the more we are going to walk on our mental and spiritual toes, never sure if we will be able to live up to the expectations which we created by our last successes. In many people’s lives, there is a nearly diabolic chain in which their anxieties grow according to their successes. This dark power has driven many of the greatest artists into self-destruction.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

“I have to admit it humbly, mon cher compatriote, I was always bursting with vanity. I, I, I is the refrain of my whole life, which could be heard in everything I said. I could never talk without boasting, especially if I did so with that shattering discretion that was my specialty. It is quite true that I always lived free and powerful. I simply felt released in the regard to all the for the excellent reason that I recognized no equals. I always considered myself more intelligent than everyone else, as I’ve told you, but also more sensitive and more skillful, a crack shot, an incomparable driver, a better lover. Even in the fields in which it was easy for me to verify my inferiority–like tennis, for instance, in which I was but a passable partner–it was hard for me not to think that, with a little time and practice, I would surpass the best players. I admitted only superiorities in me and this explained my good will and serenity. When I was concerned with others, I was so out of pure condescension, in utter freedom, and all the credit went to me: my self-esteem would go up a degree.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“Some people stand and move as if they have no right to the space they occupy. They wonder why others often fail to treat them with respect--not realizing that they have signalled others that it is not necessary to treat them with respect.”
― Nathaniel Branden, Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

“If you don't like yourself, you can't like other people. -- Lazarus Long.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“When people speak of great men, they think of men like Napoleon - men of violence. Rarely do they think of peaceful men. But contrast the reception they will receive when they return home from their battles. Napoleon will arrive in pomp and in power, a man who's achieved the very summit of earthly ambition. And yet his dreams will be haunted by the oppressions of war. William Wilberforce, however, will return to his family, lay his head on his pillow and remember: the slave trade is no more.”
― Charles Fox

“The image that concerns most people is the reflection they see in other people's minds.”
― Edward De Bono

“When admiring other people's gardens, don't forget to tend to your own flowers.”
― Sanober Khan

“The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“If the map doesn't agree with the ground the map is wrong”
― Gordon Livingston, Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now

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

“Even when it seems that there is no one else, always remember there's one person who never ceased to love you - yourself.”
― Sanhita Baruah

“The most stable, and therefore, the most healthy self-esteem is based on deserved respect from others rather than on external fame or celebrity and unwarranted adulation.”
― Abraham Maslow

“In the midst of this despondency, I’m not responsible for my feelings. I can’t talk myself out of irritability and apathy. But I am accountable for my behavior, for cracks in my facade.”
― Larry Godwin, Transcending Depression: Quest Without a Compass