Quotes from Nathaniel Branden

It is also true that developing self-esteem diminishes anxiety and depression.

There is a continuous feedback loop between our actions in the world and our self-esteem.

If a self-concept cannot accommodate a given level of success, and if the self-concept does not change, it is predictable that the person will find ways to self-sabotage.

This earth is the distant star we must find a way to reach.

As a psychotherapist I see that nothing does as much for an individual's self-esteem as becoming aware of and accepting disowned parts of the self.

A disservice is done to people if they are offered "feel good" notions of self-esteem that divorce it from questions of consciousness, responsibility, and moral choice. There is great joy in self-esteem, and often joy in the process of building or strengthening it, but this should not obscure the fact that more is required than blowing oneself a kiss in the mirror (or numerous other strategies that have been proposed, of equal profundity).

The greatest crime we commit against ourselves is not that we may deny and disown our shortcomings but that we deny and disown our greatness—because it frightens us.

Self-destruction is an act best performed in the dark.

What is needed and demanded today, in the age of the knowledge worker, is not robotic obedience but persons who can think.

The dread and disorientation that persons with poor self-esteem experience when life goes well in ways that conflict with their deepest view of themselves and of what is appropriate to them.

The healthier our self-esteem, the more inclined we are to treat others with respect, benevolence, goodwill, and fairness—since we do not tend to perceive them as a threat, and since self-respect is the foundation of respect for others.

What is needed and demanded today, in the age of the knowledge worker, is not robotic obedience but persons who can think; who can innovate, originate, and function self-responsibly; who are capable of self-management; who can remain individuals while working effectively as members of teams; who are confident of their powers and their ability to contribute. What the workplace needs today is self-esteem.

It is poor self-esteem that places us in an adversarial relationship to our well-being.

I naively imagined that marriage could solve all the problems between us.

There's a lot of work, a lot of writing, to be done, and there's no telling when the results will begin to show. But if Atlas Shrugged sells 50,000 copies, this culture's cooked.

It is not what "they" think; it is what I know. What I know is more important to me than a mistaken belief in someone else's mind.

Desires and emotions as such are involuntary; they are not subject to direct and immediate volitional control; they are the automatic result of subconscious integrations. (...) It is impossible to compute the magnitude of the disaster, the wreckage of human lives, produced by the belief that desires and emotions can be commanded in and out of existence by an act of will.

Sometimes people who feel fear in the human realm drop to a very low level of consciousness in their relationships and seek the safety and security of competence in the impersonal world of machines, mathematics, or abstract thought. No matter what heights they may attain professionally, their self esteem remains flawed. We cannot with impunity run from so important an aspect of life

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

The level of our self-esteem influences how we act, and how we act influences the level of our self-esteem.

A man whose notion of "power" is stuck at the level of "sexual domination" is a man frightened of women, frightened of ability or self-assurance, frightened of life.

In the world of the future, children will be taught the basic dynamics of self-esteem and the power of living consciously and self-responsibly.

When self-esteem is low, our resilience in the face of life's adversities is diminished.

My happiness and self-realization are noble purposes.