Quotes About Self-worth

Anyway, I do not want you thinking that I or Addie or Joe or Skeezie feel sorry for ourselves. We do not. Other people may call us names or think we're weird or whatever, but that does not mean we believe them. We may be misfits, but we're okay. Leastwise, in our own eyes we are, and that's all that matters.

All work has dignity. No job, when done freely, is ignoble.

Guilt says, "I did a bad thing." Shame says, "I am a bad person.

I asked her if I was black or white. She replied "You are a human being. Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!

I come to the understanding that maybe what was on the inside was more important, and that your outer covering didn't count so much as folks thought it did, colored or white, man or woman.

If we defer to titled winners, it is only because we regard ourselves as losers. To do so is freely to take part in the theater of power.

Respect was a big word in Linc's vocabulary. It meant being selective and paying attention to things that mattered and people who made differences. And respect for oneself meant being valuable enough to make sure they would notice you. That was the key to doing better than just getting by and surviving, which was something even the rats in the sewers under the city managed.

I sell my time to get enough money to buy it back.

If you do more than your share you'd better want to: otherwise, you're paying yourself in a currency recognized nowhere else.

I'm useless. I quit everything I try.' 'That doesn't make you useless. It means you haven't quit on finding the thing that's right for you.

Self-respect --- I honor and love myself through my beautiful actions.

Find ways to save face.

A hundred things to do, but only one thing to be, he said, obstinately. But perhaps I don't feel myself worthy of such a wealth of opportunity?

If you choose to make an nonentity of yourself, do, but don't stick that label on me.

What deep insecurity, what inadequacy, does this insistence on other people's inferiority conceal?

I was no Cherokee. I was no warrior. I was nobody special. I was just a girl, scared and angry. When I saw myself in Daddy Glen's eyes, I wanted to die. No, I wanted to be already dead, cold and gone. Everything felt hopeless. He looked at me and I was ashamed of myself. It was like sliding down an endless hole, seeing myself at the bottom, dirty, ragged, poor, stupid.

You need to know that you are a real person, that this thing happening to you is not something you are making happen—because when I was a child I thought I was doing it. I thought that if only I were a little better, a little smarter, a little meaner, a little faster, or maybe even a better Christian, none of those terrible things would be happening.

that the biggest part of the struggle as a child is about trying to believe you are not the monster you are being told you are. You need to know that you are a real person, that this thing happening to you is not something you are making happen—because when I was a child I thought I was doing it. I thought that if only I were a little better, a little smarter, a little meaner, a little faster, or maybe even a better Christian, none of those terrible things would be happening.

that the biggest part of the struggle as a child is about trying to believe you are not the monster you are being told you are.

When the men at the counter weren't slipping quarters in her pocket they were bringing her things, souvenirs or friendship cards, once or twice a ring. Mama smiled, joked, slapped ass, and firmly passed back anything that looked like a down payment on something she didn't want to sell.

Richard, I am not worth anyone's heartache.' 'I know that,' Richard said. 'But she does not.' 'She will have to learn,' Lymond said.

To the devil with your pearldrops and your parroty manners. A filled mind and an apt wit will earn you all the respect any man has the means to deserve.

Bother the right man!" cried Miss Findlater, crossly. "I do hate that kind of talk. It makes one feel dreadful—like a prize cow or something. Surely, we have got beyond that point of view in these days.

If you looked for things to make you feel hurt and wretched and unnecessary, you were certain to find them, more easily each time, so easily, soon, that you did not even realize you had gone out searching.