Quotes About Values

We cannot teach people to withhold judgment; judgments are embedded in the way we view objects. I do not see a "tree"; I see a pleasant or an ugly tree. It is not possible without great, paralyzing effort to strip these small values we attach to matters. Likewise, it is not possible to hold a situation in one's head without some element of bias. Something in our dear human nature makes us want to believe

Frost wrote, "is that unless you are at home in the metaphor, unless you have had your proper poetical education in the metaphor, you are not safe anywhere. Because you are not at ease with figurative values: you don't know the metaphor in its strength and its weakness. . .

She wasn't hard-boiled. It was just that she put love on a special plane, where a man without money or looks couldn't move.

The challenge for people today--and it is not and easy one--is to maintain high personal standards even while feeling that one is living in a moral sewer.

Out of fear, out of the desire for approval, out of misguided notions of duty, people surrender themselves--their convictions and their aspirations--every day. There is nothing noble about it. It takes far more courage to fight for your values than to relinquish them.

To live consciously means to seek to be aware of everything that bears on our actions, purposes, values, and goals—to the best of our ability, whatever that ability may be—and to behave in accordance with that which we see and know.

self-esteem is: 1. confidence in our ability to think, confidence in our ability to cope with the basic challenges of life; and 2.   confidence in our right to be successful and happy, the feeling of being worthy, deserving, entitled to assert our needs and wants, achieve our values, and enjoy the fruits of our efforts.

Instead of seeking self-esteem through consciousness, responsibility, and integrity, we may seek it through popularity, material acquisitions, or sexual exploits.

While healthy self-assertiveness requires the ability to say no, it is ultimately tested not by what we are against but by what we are for.

At best, the responsible student may learn a new concept of human relationships that rejects the propriety of practicing human sacrifice.

When our behavior is congruent with our professed values, when ideals and practice match, we have integrity.

Most of the issues of integrity we face are not big issues but small ones, yet the accumulated weight of our choices has an impact on our sense of self.

What determines the level of self-esteem is what the individual does, within the context of his or her knowledge and values.

To honor the self—to honor mind, judgment, values, and convictions—is the ultimate act of courage.

Self-efficacy is not the certainty that we will be able to master any and every challenge that life presents. It is the conviction that we are capable in principle of learning what we need to learn and that we are committed to doing our rational and conscientious best to master the tasks and challenges entailed by our values.

We are the one species that can formulate a vision of what values are worth pursuing—and then pursue the opposite.

Once we see that living up to our standards appears to be leading us toward self-destruction, the time has come to question our standards rather than simply resigning ourselves to living without integrity.

I was acutely conscious of the pressure to adapt and to absorb the values of the tribe--family, community, and culture. It seemed to me that what was asked was the surrender of my judgement and also my conviction that my life and what I made of it was of the highest possible value. I saw my contemporaries surrendering and losing their fire--and, sometimes in painful, lonely bewilderment, I wanted to understand why. Why was growing up equated with giving up?

To live consciously means to seek to be aware of everything that bears on our actions, purposes, values, and goals-to the best of our ability...

So we can say that thinking independently—about our work, our relationships, the values that guide our life, the goals we set for ourselves—strengthens self-esteem. And healthy self-esteem results in a natural inclination to think independently.

We should not sacrifice self to others nor others to self; we should discard the idea of human sacrifice as a moral ideal. Relationships based on an exchange of values are superior to those based on the sacrifice of anyone to anyone.

If integrity is a source of self-esteem, then it is also, and never more so than today, an expression of self-esteem.

By this I mean that behaviors that generate good self-esteem are also expressions of good self-esteem.

That is true. The virtues that self-esteem asks of us are also ones that life asks of us.