Quotes About Self-respect

What's the sense of living if you're ashamed of yourself? Stella's father said almost to himself.

My father used to call me back from playtime in our giant yard, take me aside, and, putting his hand on my shoulder, say, "You are letting those boys beat you so that they will like you. Now, go out there and win, and they will respect you.

I opened the door to my own cage and freed myself. My illnesses ended. I demanded good medical care and got it. I respected myself and, with compassion for my whole self, got it. I learned that my anger was a beautiful thing. A powerful part of me, like my other valuable senses, like smell and taste and touch. That anger, when used properly, when controlled, when chosen appropriately, is a valuable action.

Now we find ourselves in the knowledge of what is cheating. It is cheating to treat oneself as an object, or as an image to tend to, or as an icon.

Don't lose everything over someone who doesn't matter.

You only find yourself bending over backwards when the bar is too low.

I haven't gone home with anybody who tried to pick me up in a long time.

If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing." ~ Margaret Thatcher

Stand up for who you are. Respect your Self and ignite the divine sparks in you. Access your powers. Choose your rights and work together with others to bring blessings into the lives.

Love him she might, but she was not foolish or degraded enough to want to resume a relationship in which she had been treated with such contempt.

it. And if you ever strike me, I shall hit back. If you ever use me in anger or out of a wish to punish, I shall leave you.

When you believe in yourself, Anna, when you are in command of yourself, when nothing derogatory anyone says of you or to you has the power to arouse your anger or any desire to retaliate, people seem to sense it and respect you.

the time has come for us to reclaim our bodies. Our bodies deserve more than to be war-torn and collateral, offering this fuckdom as a pathetic means to say: i only know how to exist when i'm wanted girls like us are hardly ever wanted, you know we're used up. and sad. and drunk. and perpetually waiting by the phone for someone to pick up and say "you did good." well, you did good.

something had been lost that was perhaps an essential ingredient - a man can live without self-respect, but a group shatters, dispersed by the ugliness it sees reflected in itself.

How useless to know the value of all things but to know nothing of one's own worth.

Which was precisely what I had to do. Go away. Get out of this house and his life while I still had a shred of dignity left.

I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men. I've always demanded a certain quality in the people I liked. I've always recognized it at once—and it's the only quality I respect in men. I chose my friends by that. Now I know what it is. A self-sufficient ego. Nothing else matters.

the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.

The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone. — Ayn Rand (The Virtue of Selfishness)

Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame.

What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me?

Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few thousands to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence—such easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence.

it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed. It is the unsacrificed self that we must respect in man above all.

People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one's reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one's master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person's view requires to be faked.