Quotes About Self-esteem

There is no way to make a human being accept the role of a sacrificial animal except by destroying his self-esteem. There is no way to destroy his self-esteem except by making him reject his own consciousness. There is no way to make him reject his own consciousness except by convincing him of its impotence.

Barre a un lado a esos místicos corrompidos por el odio, que se presentan como amigos de la humanidad y predican que la más alta virtud que un hombre puede practicar es considerar que su propia vida carece de valor.

Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep—virtue is the act by which one gains and/or keeps it. The three cardinal values of the Objectivist ethics—the three values which, together, are the means to and the realization of one's ultimate value, one's own life—are: Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem, with their three corresponding virtues: Rationality, Productiveness, Pride.

So after centuries of being pounded with the doctrine that altruism is the ultimate ideal, men have accepted it in the only way it could be accepted. By seeking self-esteem through others. By living second-hand. And it has opened the way for every kind of horror. It has become the dreadful form of selfishness which a truly selfish man couldn't have conceived. And now, to cure a world perishing from selflessness, we're asked to destroy the self.

The man-worshipers, in my sense of the term, are those who see man's highest potential and strive to actualize it. . . . [Man-worshipers are] those dedicated to the exaltation of man's self-esteem and the sacredness of his happiness on earth.

The self you have betrayed is your mind; self-esteem is reliance on one's power to think. The ego you seek, that essential 'you' which you cannot express or define, is not your emotions or inarticulate dreams, but your intellect, that judge of your supreme tribunal whom you've impeached in order to drift at the mercy of any stray shyster you describe as your 'feeling.

No hay valor más alto que la propia estima, pero lo habéis invertido en obligaciones falsificadas y ahora vuestra moralidad os tiene en una trampa en la que os veis obligados a proteger la propia estima, luchando por el credo de la autodestrucción.

the proof of an achieved self-esteem is your soul's shudder of contempt and rebellion against the role of a sacrificial animal, against the vile impertinence of any creed that proposes to immolate the irreplaceable value which is your consciousness and the incomparable glory which is your existence

Love and friendship are profoundly personal, selfish values: love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to one's own values in the person of another. One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one's own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns and derives from love.

With fear come the lies and the justifications that, no matter how convincing, lower our self-esteem.

If you're going to do this work, Barack, you've got to stop worrying about whether people like you. They won't." Patronage

don't live a smaller life than you deserve.

man equate their self-esteem with accomplishment

but Sun Wolf found, a little to his surprise, that what they thought of him concerned him far less than it had. He hadn't been aware how much it had concerned him before.

The illusion that each person can have the body that he or she wants is especially painful for women, and especially in societies, like ours, in which the "ideal" body is extremely thin.

Always accept all compliments. Ignore any other remarks."     —Kay Oss

I think only your mother can truly make you feel lower than whale shit.

I can see your dirtypillows.

Productivity is the only path to confidence.

Because their identity and sense of self-worth are wrapped up in their work, their security is vulnerable to anything that happens to prevent them from continuing in it.

Ironically, you'll find that as you care less about what others think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves and their worlds, including their relationship with you. You'll no longer build your emotional life on other people's weaknesses. In addition, you'll find it easier and more desirable to change because there is something—some core deep within—that is essentially changeless.

if you don't know yourself, if you don't control yourself, if you don't have mastery over yourself, it's very hard to like yourself

If I were emotionally dependent, my sense of worth and security would come from your opinion of me.

Some people say that you have to like yourself before you can like others. I think that idea has merit, but if you don't know yourself, if you don't control yourself, if you don't have mastery over yourself, it's very hard to like yourself, except in some short-term, psych-up, superficial way.