Nathaniel Branden Quotes

I am responsible for my own existence and happiness.

~ Nathaniel Branden

All positive interactions with other human beings involve, to some degree, the experience of visibility-- that is, the experience of being seen and understood.

~ Nathaniel Branden

Fear and pain should be treated as signals not to close our eyes but to open them wider.

~ Nathaniel Branden

Self-discipline is the ability to organize your behavior over time in the service of specific goals.

~ Nathaniel Branden

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.

~ Nathaniel Branden

A mind that trusts itself is light on its feet.

~ Nathaniel Branden

We are parts of one universe, true enough. We stand within an almost infinite network of relationships. Yet each of us is a single point of consciousness, a unique event, a private, unrepeatable world. This is the essence of our aloneness.

~ Nathaniel Branden

Never marry a person who is not a friend of your excitement.

~ Nathaniel Branden

It is naive to think that self-assertiveness is easy. To live self-assertively--which means to live authentically--is an act of high courage. That is why so many people spend the better part of their lives in hiding--from others and also from themselves.

~ Nathaniel Branden

Integrity is congruence between what you know, what you profess, and what you do.

~ Nathaniel Branden

Self-esteem is not a luxury, it is a profound spiritual need.

~ Nathaniel Branden

It is painful to face the self we know we have never had the integrity to honor and assert.

~ Nathaniel Branden

Genuine self esteem – please understand this – genuine self esteem is not competitive or comparative. Genuine self esteem isn’t expressed by self-glorification at the expense of others, or by trying to make yourself superior to everyone else, or diminishing others in order to elevate yourself. Arrogance, boastfulness, the overestimation of your abilities, reflect low self esteem, even though we’re often encouraged to believe the opposite. In human beings, joy in the simple fact of existence is a core meaning of healthy self esteem. Thus understood, how can you possibly have too much of it?

~ Nathaniel Branden

One of the hardest expressions of self-assertiveness is challenging your limiting beliefs.

~ Nathaniel Branden

It is a mistake to look at someone who is self assertive and say, It's easy for her, she has good self-esteem. One of the ways you build self-esteem is by being self-assertive when it is not easy to do so. There are always times when self-assertiveness requires courage, no matter how high your self-esteem.

~ Nathaniel Branden

The opposite of self-assertiveness is self-abnegation--abandoning or submerging your personal values, judgment, and interests. Some people tell themselves this is a virtue. It is a virtue that corrodes self-esteem.

~ Nathaniel Branden

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.

~ Nathaniel Branden

If you choose not to live self-responsibly, you count on others to make up your default. No one abjures self-responsibility on a desert island.

~ Nathaniel Branden

A bully hides his fears with fake bravado. That is the opposite of self-assertiveness.

~ Nathaniel Branden

Suffering is just about the easiest of all human activities; being happy is just about the hardest. And happiness requires, not surrender to guilt, but emancipation from guilt.

~ Nathaniel Branden

It is not only negative feelings that become blocked. The repression extends to more and more of his emotional capacity.When one is given an anesthetic in preparation for surgery, it is not merely the capacity to experience pain that is suspended; the capacity to experience pleasure goes also - because what is blocked is the capacity to experience *feeling*. The same principle applies to the repression of emotions.Chapter 1: Discovering the Unknown Self, pg. 9, Bantam Edition, 1984

~ Nathaniel Branden

One of the great self-deceptions--and one of the great foolishnesses--is to tell yourself, Only I will know. Only you will know that you are a liar; only you will know you deal unethically with people who trust you; only you will know you have no intention of honoring your promise. Whose knowledge or judgment do you imagine is more important? It is precisely your own ego from which there is no escape.

~ Nathaniel Branden

Most people do not erode their self-esteem over big issues but over small ones, little acts of betrayal and hypocrisy forgotten (repressed) very quickly. But the computer in your subconscious mind forgets nothing. It records your spiritual profit and loss. The balance sheet reflects your present level of self-esteem--and sends you the information via your emotions.

~ Nathaniel Branden

The idea of original sin--of guilt with no possibility of innocence, no freedom of choice, no alternatives--inherently militates against self-esteem. The very notion of guilt without volition or responsibility is an assault on reason as well as on morality. Sin is not original, it is originated--like virtue.

~ Nathaniel Branden

Anyone who engages in the practice of psychotherapy confronts every day the devastation wrought by the teachings of religion.

~ Nathaniel Branden

In any culture, subculture, or family in which belief is valued above thought, and self-surrender is valued above self-expression, and conformity is valued above integrity, those who preserve their self-esteem are likely to be heroic exceptions.

~ Nathaniel Branden

Some people stand and move as if they have no right to the space they occupy. They wonder why others often fail to treat them with respect--not realizing that they have signalled others that it is not necessary to treat them with respect.

~ Nathaniel Branden

It is humiliating to realize that when you drive yourself underground, when you fake who you are, often you do so for people you do not even like or respect.

~ Nathaniel Branden

Chances are, when you were young, you were told, in effect, Listen, kid, here is the news: life is not about you. Life is not about what you want. What you want is not important. Life is about doing what others expect of you. If you accepted this idea, later on you wondered what had happened to your fire. Where had your enthusiasm for living gone?

~ Nathaniel Branden

We must become what we wish to teach.

~ Nathaniel Branden

Everyone who has any familiarity with psychology knows about the danger of disowning the murderer within. Far fewer people understand the tragedy of disowning the hero within.

~ Nathaniel Branden

The greater a child’s terror, and the earlier it is experienced, the harder it becomes to develop a strong and healthy sense of self.

~ Nathaniel Branden

Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.

~ Nathaniel Branden

In the inner courtroom of my mind, mine is the only judgment that counts.

~ Nathaniel Branden

Sometimes the path to higher self-esteem is lonely and frightening. We cannot fully know in advance how much more satisfying our lives will be. But the more we are willing to experience and accept the many aspects of who we are, the richer our inner worlds, the greater our resources, the more appropriate we feel to the challenges and opportunities of life. Also, it is more likely that we will find - or create - a style of existence that will meet our individual needs.

~ Nathaniel Branden

Our liabilities pose the problem of inadequacy; our our assets, the challenge of responsibility. Our strengths or virtues can make us feel alone, alienated, cut off from the common herd, a target for envy and hostility, and our desire to belong can overcome any desire to actualise our highest potential.

~ Nathaniel Branden

The higher our self-esteem, the more likely we are to be creative in our work, which means the more successful we are likely to be. The higher our self-esteem, the more ambitious we tend to be, not necessarily in a career or financial sense, but in terms of what we hope to experience in life - emotionally, creatively and spiritually.

~ Nathaniel Branden

Of all the judgements we pass, none is as important as the one we pass on ourselves.

~ Nathaniel Branden

It sounded, I told him, as if he had never learned to balance projecting goals into the future with appreciating and living in the present....To the extent that our goal is to prove ourselves or ward off the fear of failure, this balance is difficult to achieve. We are too driven. Not joy but anxiety is our motor.But if our aim is self-expression rather than self-justification, the balance tends to come more naturally. We will still need to think about its daily implementation, but the anxiety of wounded self-esteem will not make the task nearly impossible.

~ Nathaniel Branden

To persevere with the will to understand in the face of obstacles is the heroism of consciousness.

~ Nathaniel Branden