Quotes About Self-esteem

I need to know what you think of me so I can form an opinion about myself.

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

A man who does not love praise is not a full man.

Self esteem,' said Levin, cut to the quick by his brother's words, 'is something I do not understand. If I had been told at the university that others understood integral calculus and I did not — there you have self esteem. But here one should first be convinced that one needs to have a certain ability in these matters and, chiefly, that they are all very important.

Be indifferent to other people's opinions about you. Without indifference, you cannot be a free man.

You do the best you can and try not to think about the opinion of others.

I was shy by nature, and rendered worse in that respect by a consciousness of my own ugliness. I am certain that nothing so much influences the development of a man as his exterior—though the exterior itself less than his belief in its plainness or beauty.

It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It is hard to show a pimple

Most offensive is what he imagines a person thinks about himself.

People have a basic desire to feel good about themselves, and we therefore have a tendency to be unconsciously biased in favor of traits similiar to our won, even such seemingly meaningless traits as our names. Scientists have even identified a discrete area of the brain, called the dorsal striatum, as the structure that mediates much of this bias.

By exempting your child from all chores, as many affluent American families now do, you are sending the message, "Your time is too valuable to be spent on menial tasks," which easily morphs into the unintended message "You are too important to do menial tasks." And that unintended message puffs up the bloated self-esteem that now characterizes many American kids.

When Aaron came home from the tryout, why didn't he take up the coach's challenge to return, to try harder? When Julia discovered that she wasn't as smart as she thought, why did she collapse? The answer in both cases is that these kids are fragile. It doesn't take much for them to give up and retreat, as Aaron did, or to fall apart, as Julia did. Fragility has become a characteristic of American children and teenagers to an extent unknown 25 years ago. That

Don't trust anyone who keep telling you what's wrong with you,

If I had been armed with a feminist understanding that no girl deserves to be called a slut, perhaps I would have fought back by reporting the harassment to my school's headmistress or another school authority, or at least I might have had the strength to tell of the name-callers on my own. But at the time, all I knew was that if I avoided eye contact, it was a hell of a lot easier to get through my days.

If you're married to an entrenched non-apologizer, it won't help to doggedly demand one. Some folks lack the self-esteem required to take responsibility for their less than honorable behaviors, feel remorse, and offer a heartfelt apology. And many people are so hard on themselves for the mistakes they make, they don't have the emotional room to admit vulnerability and apologize to a partner.

Feeling essentially superior to other people is as sure a sign of poor self-esteem as feeling essentially inferior.

Your children are not little mirrors reflecting back the good or bad job you've done.

Never build a case against yourself." 

Don't let someone else's opinion of you become your reality

If somebody tells us it's rubbish, then our attitude is that the person's misguided, rather than that we are rubbish.

Jane did believe she was all that,

God," she said, "by the time we're old enough to have sex, we're already too ashamed to be touched. Ain't that a crime?

Have you ever tried to hold the gaze of someone who's just complimented you? It's hard as hell. At least I think it was a compliment.

When you give another person the power to define you, then you also give them the power to control you.