Self Esteem Quotes

When I first went to kindergarten kids asked me what I was. I did not understand-I'm a person. They explained that I look a little different and it is not as easy to tell which color I am. -Janelle from Who I Am Not What I Am, Tara Michener

~ Tara Michener

As a basic step of self-esteem, learn to treat as the mark of a cannibal any man’s demand for your help. To demand it is to claim that your life is his property – and loathsome as such claim might be, there’s something still more loathsome: your agreement. Do you ask if it’s ever proper to help another man? No- if he claims it as his right or as a moral duty that you owe him. Yes- if such is your own desire based on your own selfish pleasure in the value of his person and his struggle. Suffering as such is not a value, only man’s fight against suffering is. If you choose to help a man who suffers, do it only on the ground of his virtues, of his fight to recover, of his rational record, or of the fact that he suffers unjustly; then your action is still trade, and his virtue is the payment for your help. But to help a man who has no virtues, to help him on the ground of his suffering as such, to accept his faults, his need, as a claim – is to accept the mortgage of a zero on your values. A man who has no virtues is a hater of existence who acts on the premise of death; to help him is to sanction his evil and to support his career of destruction. Be it only a penny you will miss or a kindly smile he has not earned, a tribute to a zero is treason to life and to all those who struggle to maintain it. It is of such pennies and smiles that the desolation of your world was made.

~ Ayn Rand

You are real! Everyone has to be different or the world would be really boring. If we all looked the same, then no one could tell us apart. -Janelle

~ Tara Michener

If you have realistic ideals and can generally live up to them, your self-esteem will not be threatened. If your ideals are exaggerated and you cannot reach them, your good feelings from successes may be short lived, and you may feel that you are never good enough.The continued hope for the impossible, the expectation that you will or can be unconditionally loved and adored, is not facing reality but rather holding onto an idealized image of yourself and an idealized version of what others can provide. If this is the case, your sense of self may be threatened by shame and its resulting depression, or by feelings of inadequacy for not living up to your unrealistic ideals. A better understanding of shame may help you recognize your tendency to hide what you feel from yourself and others.

~ Mary C. Lamia

She tried to remind herself that beauty was only skin deep, but that didn't offer any helpful excuses when she was berating herself for never knowing what to say to people. There was nothing more depressing than an ugly girl with no personality.It hurts, because deep inside, she knew who she was, and that person was smart and kind and often very funny, but somehow her personality always got lost somewhere between her heart and her mouth, and she found herself saying the wrong thing or, more often, nothing at all.

~ Julia Quinn

Mamma says if we stay so focused on our past failings, we won't be able to move beyond them and learn what we need to know.

~ Annette Bridges

No matter our size or shape, everyone deserves a safe place in this world. ~ from BIG SMALL DOG, a children's story about overcoming bullying and adversity, and discovering unity and friendship.

~ Suzanne V. Marshall

Be resilient until you complete a task. Challenge yourself and never limit yourself. Stay humble, hopeful, patient, but never quit!

~ Winsome Campbell-Green

Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart. Don't be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you. The chances are that they aren't paying any attention to you. It's your attention to yourself that is so stultifying. But you have to disregard yourself as completely as possible. If you fail the first time then you'll just have to try harder the second time. After all, there's no real reason why you should fail. Just stop thinking about yourself.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Are you what others say and think you are?  Or are you who you are regardless of what others say and think?

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

My sister said Mary Elizabeth is suffering from low self-esteem, but I told her that she said the same thing about Sam back in November when she started dating Craig, and Sam is completely different. Everything can't be low self-esteem, can it? My sister tried to clarify things. She said that by introducing me to all these great things, Mary Elizabeth gained a superior position that she wouldn't need if she was confident about herself. She also said that people who try to control situations all the time are afraid that if they don't, nothing will work out the way they want.

~ Stephen Chbosky

I'd been through so much, falling short again and again, and only recently had found a place where who I was, right now, was enough.

~ Sarah Dessen

Perhaps the most extraordinary popular delusion about violence of the past quarter-century is that it is caused by low self-esteem. That theory has been endorsed by dozens of prominent experts, has inspired school programs designed to get kids to feel better about themselves, and in the late 1980s led the California legislature to form a Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem. Yet Baumeister has shown that the theory could not be more spectacularly, hilariously, achingly wrong. Violence is a problem not of too little self-esteem but of too much, particularly when it is unearned.

~ Steven Pinker

I have known many true connoisseurs, with excellent tastes that range across the humanities and the culinary arts--and they never fail to have a fatal effect on my self-esteem. When I find myself sitting at dinner next to someone who knows just as much about novels as I do but has somehow also found the mental space to adore and be knowledgeable about the opera, have strong opinions about the relative rankings of Renaissance painters, an encyclopedic knowledge of the English civil war, of French wines--I feel an anxiety that nudges beyond the envious into the existential. How did she find the time?

~ Zadie Smith

Try not to be in a hurry to get older because youth happens once in your life. Thereafter, old age stays with you forever.

~ Chris Jirika

The only one that believes in you, is you. Don't lean on how others see you to find belief in yourself.

~ Anthony Liccione

It's all me. I'm not just one flavor. You're not, either. So it all comes down to which 'you' you want to show the world.

~ Cyn Balog

Being human makes us one. Be uniquely ourselves makes us individual. - Nancy S. Mure, Author of Unidentical Twins

~ Nancy S. Mure

Genuine self-acceptance is not derived from the power of positive thinking, mind games or pop psychology. IT IS AN ACT OF FAITH in the God of grace.

~ Brennan Manning

The most stable, and therefore, the most healthy self-esteem is based on deserved respect from others rather than on external fame or celebrity and unwarranted adulation.

~ Abraham H. Maslow

Stop spending so much time trying to prove what you already know to people who don't really matter. It just makes you look insecure and lacking self-confidence.

~ Karen E. Quinones Miller

I naively believe that self-love is 80 percent of the solution, that it helps beyond words to take yourself through the day as you would with your most beloved mental-patient relative, with great humor and lots of small treats.

~ Anne Lamott

You your own best thing, Sethe. You are.

~ Toni Morrison

I had to come to terms with the fact that I wouldn’t have peace with myself until I found a way to like myself.

~ Michael Barbarulo

That nice feeling when you look in the mirror, and your hair's right for the first time in your life? I don;t think we should base so much on weight, muscles, and a good hair day, but when it happens, it's nice. It really is.

~ Stephen Chbosky

I didn't despise myself for being who I was, and I never would. I wouldn't allow anyone to make me feel bad about that. That was a line I could draw in the sand.

~ Z.a. Maxfield

When it comes to your self-esteem, it is best not to value the opinions of deluded psychopaths.

~ Rosen Trevithick

Elizabeth scowled, feeling like a nobody, a nothing. She felt like her entire self had been made worthless. She could change her interests, but she couldn’t change her looks. She’d never be six feet tall. She’d never look like a supermodel.

~ Francine Pascal

Never let your desire for love override your sense of self and value.

~ Izey Victoria Odiase

Let your spirit be great.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Every individual is unique with unique talents.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Divine self is holy being.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Positive mindset, positive lifestyle.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

You are wonderful.You are beautiful.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Arise and pursue your dreams.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

You can posses what you desire.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Sing your own song. There are always some earnest listeners.

~ Amit Ray

To establish true self-esteem we must concentrate on our successes and forget about the failures and the negatives in our lives.

~ Denis Waitley

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

~ Alice S. Rossi