Quotes About Self-esteem

The owner was this very thin woman who looked sort of bitchy, which, think about it, most very thin women do-even when they smile, it's like grimacing. Fat people are often miserable too, but at least they LOOK jolly even though it's really mostly them apologizing, like, Sorry, sorry, sorry I'm offending your idea of bodily aesthetics, Sorry I'm clogging my arteries and giving the thumbs-up to diabetes.

She doesn't exactly know why kids don't like her. She's good-looking enough. She has a sense of humor. She's not dumb. She guesses it's because they can sense how much she needs them. They are like kids in a circle holding sticks, picking on the weak thing. It is in people, to be entertained by cruelty.

Never explain yourself, Alma. It makes you appear weak.

Lastly, remember what W. C. Fields had to say on this point: "It ain't what they call you; it's what you answer to.

remember what W. C. Fields had to say on this point: "It ain't what they call you; it's what you answer to.

Be careful of your dignity, is what I am saying. It is not always your friend.

Either way, the vulnerable human ego is protected. Protected from the corrupting influence of praise. Protected from the corrosive effects of shame.

Shyness, as I have told you many times, is simply another species of vanity. Banish it.

No more verbal tap-dancing for pennies of affirmation.

There is something magnificent about encouraging someone to step forward into his own self-respect

This time I felt my own face redden. Talking with this woman was like sitting still for a series of slaps, delivered arhythmically so you couldn't know when the next one was coming.

You women are all the same. You worry about the wrinkles and the half stone and your boobs dropping, but you don't worry about the sparkle, and that's the best bit. You shouldn't let that go.

She did not like her name. It was a mean, small name, with a kind of facetious twist, she thought, about its end like the upward curve of a pug dog's tail.

For girls who've been pressured into sex they didn't want, growing into a woman's body can be terrifying. Anorexia and bulimia can be an attempt to say no, to assert control over their changing bodies. Compulsive overeating is another way.

You have intellect, and courage, and command. Play your own game, and don't worry about what anyone else is doing. That is what's going to give you a shot at making it. Comparing yourself to anyone else will just drive you crazy.

Now, I'm not the sort to find fault in myself just because others do;

If you're treading quicksand in the swamp of what-might- have-been, you can be sure that's the message your child gets. You're a rare person if being constantly reminded of your shortcomings spurs you to improve. For the rest of us, it's a self-esteem squasher. Time to grab for that overhead vine and realize that only a pencil dot separates "bitter" and "better.

Not to have a thing is less humiliating than to beg it.

Contempt is the weapon of the weak and a defense against one's own despised and unwanted feelings.

For one is free from it only when self-esteem is based on the authenticity of ones own feelings and not on the possession of certain qualities.

Demands for equality for women are threats to men's self-esteem and sense of sexual turf.

It's hard to pinpoint the precise moment when we internalize others' assessments; it's usually not just a single experience but rather a series of moments that bruise the spirit and lead us to distrust ourselves and those around us. And then we wake up at age seventeen or twenty-five or thirty-seven and realize we don't know the last time we've lived life only to please ourselves

you don't value me, then I must not be valuable.

If you don't value me, then I must not be valuable.