Quotes About Self-worth

Pride is a dangerous indulgence.

He had an opinion of himself, I think, that was too high for his own good. Or maybe it was the reverse. Maybe it was a low opinion that he kept trying to erase.

Hugh Auld was wise to fear slave literacy. Reading could kindle in a slave a desire for learning and for a personal future, thus undermining slavery's consistent effort to stamp out any sense of self-worth.

sometimes, you had to let people go for your own sanity, especially when they got so comfortable, they failed to appreciate your worth.

The best way to achieve self-esteem is to do something worthy of esteem.

A desire for recognition emerges at the same time as a sense of inferiority.

people who feel themselves inferior have a pathological desire to disprove their own perceptions.

Jack, the world is full of people who can only feel big by making other people look small, and the bigger the target, the better they feel about it.

All good things must come to an end,' said Flosshilde, 'and I don't suppose he'll ever be interested in me even if he does get rid of her. Which is funny, really,' she said bitterly. 'After all, he's nothing special and I am, Heaven knows. But there you are.

It's a matter of dignity," the Chief explained. "At a certain point, that's all you have left.

The thing was to wear a bathing suit and look good in it, to somehow make yourself worthy of the scenario you were volunteering for.

Doesn't settle for less than she deserves, or apologize unless it's absolutely necessary.

The rougher the world gets around me, the sweeter I seem to myself.

Claude believed that only smart, attractive people had the right to fuck, and it sincerely hurt him when he discovered evidence to the contrary.

The trouble is, I can't find a part of myself where you're not important. I write in order to be worth your while and to finance the way I want to live with you. Not the way you want to live. The way I want to live with you. Without you I wouldn't care. I'd eat tinned spaghetti and put on yesterday's clothes. But as it is I change my socks, and make money, and tart up Brodie's unspeakable drivel into speakable drivel so he can be an author too, like me.

Beauty was not simply something to behold; it was something one could do.

You don't have to love me but you damn well have to respect me.

You your best thing, Sethe. You are.

Jealousy we understood and thought natural... But envy was a strange, new feeling for us. And all the time we knew that Maureen Peal was not the Enemy and not worthy of such intense hatred. The Thing to fear was the Thing that made her beautiful, and not us.

Where do you get the right to decide our lives? I'll tell you where. From that little hog's gut that hangs between your legs. Well, let me tell you something... you will need more than that. I don't know where you will get it or who will give it to you, but mark my words, you will need more than that.... You are a sad, pitiful, stupid, selfish, hateful man. I hope your little hog's gut stands you in good stead, and you take good care of it, because you don't have anything else.

He can't value you more than you value yourself.

You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right- that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Hagar, don't. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that.

Mister was allowed to be and stay what he was. But I wasn't allowed to be and stay what I was [...] School teacher changed me. I was something else and that something else was less than a chicken sitting in the sun on a tub. (Paul D.)

Sethe, he says, me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow. He leans over and takes her hand. With the other he touches her face. You your best thing, Sethe, You are. His holding fingers are holding hers. Me? Me?