Quotes About Self-worth

If you want to be respected, start by respecting yourself.

When someone is properly grounded in life, they shouldn't have to look outside themselves for approval.

Since I can get greatness of soul and nobility from myself, why should I look to get a farm, or money, or some office, from you? I will not be so insensible of what I already own.

Consider at what price you sell your integrity; but please, for God's sake, don't sell it cheap.

There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day; we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.

The individual's most vital need is to prove his worth, and this usually means an insatiable hunger for action. For it is only the few who can acquire a sense of worth by developing and employing their capacities and talents. The majority prove their worth by keeping busy.

No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments. We need people to bear witness against our inner judge, who keeps book on our shortcomings and transgressions. We need people to convince us that we are not as bad as we think we are.

The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race, or his own holy cause.

One thing I know beyond doubt. Had [Babbage] overheard someone he respected praise him highly it would have sweetened life for him for more than a day. We are starved for praise. It reconciles us with life. . . . Self-doubt is at the core of our being. We need people who by their attitude and words will convince us that we are not as bad as we think we are. Hence the vital role of judicious praise.

jealously lives with insecurity!

I deserved to find pleasure that surpassed my imagination, better than any I had experienced.

Losing your job is like having your identity stolen, like having what defined you run through a paper shredder. After a while the despair gets you, and it gets you good.

I told Chiquita if a man hadn't made a date with her for a Saturday night before Saturday night, he didn't want to be bothered with her on a Saturday night.

I read this book, it said a woman should think of her virginity like it's a window. And every time you sleep with a guy, it's like letting him put his fingerprints on your window. Staining your glass.

I looked at him, at the debonair man in the suit of all suits . . . . I wasn't in clothes on the level of his, but I wanted the hotel staff to regard me with respect. I grabbed my bag, hoping he wouldn't say anything about me carrying so much, but. I wanted it to look like I was arriving as a guest, not as rented coochie.

The worst thing about jealousy is how low it makes you reach.

People don't complete us. We complete ourselves. If we haven't the power to complete ourselves, the search for love becomes a search for self-annihilation; and then we try to convince ourselves that self-annihilation is love.

Women in America read 'lifestyle' pages which are really glorifications of shopping. They teach us we must veil ourselves in make-up to be loved. And we willingly take the veil, thinking ourselves freed by it. Make-up is no more optional for us than the veil is for Arab women: it is our Western version of the chador.

It was clear to me that thinking yourself superior was a sure sign of being inferior and that thinking yourself extraordinary was a sure sign of being ordinary.

Invidiosul nu-l ponegreÈ™te decât pe cel care e mai bun decât el.

If I am what I have and if what I have is lost, who then am I? Nobody but a defeated, deflated, pathetic testimony to a wrong way of living.

People do not see that the main question is not : Am I loved? which is to a large extent the question : Am I approved of? Am I protected? Am I admired? The main question is: Can I love?

To be loved because of one's merit, because one deserves it, always leaves doubt; maybe I did not please the person whom I want to love me, maybe this, or that - there is always a fear that love could disappear.

Why should anyone be so grateful for acceptance unless he doubts that he is acceptable, and why should a young, educated and successful couple have such doubts, if not due to the fact that they cannot accept themselves because they are not themselves.