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If we do have realistic confidence in our mind and value, if we feel secure within ourselves, we tend to experience the world as open to us and to respond appropriately to challenges and opportunities.

Nathaniel Branden

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Nathaniel Branden
Age: 84 †
Born: 1930
Born: April 9
Died: 2014
Died: December 3
Academic
Non-Fiction Writer
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
Feels
Challenges
Secure
Mind
Open
Tend
World
Pleasure
Achievement
Appropriately
Within
Inspire
Empowering
Opportunity
Confidence
Realistic
Experience
Pride
Respond
Self
Value
Esteem
Feel
Achieve
Opportunities

More quotes by Nathaniel Branden

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The stability we cannot find in the world, we must create within our own persons.
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Doing more of what doesn't work doesn't work.
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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.
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The world belongs to those who persevere.
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Respect starts with ourselves.
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When we bury our feelings, we also bury ourselves. It means we exist in a state of alienation. We rarely know it, but we are lonely for ourselves.
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Taking on responsibilities that properly belong to someone else means behaving irresponsibly toward yourself. You need to know where you end and someone else begins. You need to understand boundaries. You need to know what is and is not up to you, what is and is not in your control, what is and is not your responsibility.
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If we attach more importance to what other people believe than to what we know to be true - if we value belonging over being - we will not attain authenticity.
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The higher our self-esteem, the stronger the drive to express ourselves, reflecting the sense of richness within. The lower our self-esteem, the more urgent the need to prove ourselves or to forget ourselves by living mechanically and unconsciously.
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Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves.
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To exist without purpose is to be at the mercy of the chance encounter, the chance invitation, the chance phone call, the chance event- always being controlled by forces external to oneself.
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If my aim is to prove I am 'enough,' the project goes on to infinity-because the battle was already lost on the day I conceded the issue was debatable.
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A depression is a large-scale decline in production and trade...there is nothing in the nature of a free-market economy to cause such an event.
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Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.
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If you feel inadequate to face challenges, unworthy of love or respect, untitled to happiness, and fear assertive thought, wants, or needs- if you lack basic self trust, self-respect, and self-confidence- your self-esteem deficiency will limit you, no matter what other assets you possess.
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For the rational, psychologically healthy man, the desire for pleasure is the desire to celebrate his control over reality. For the neurotic, the desire for pleasure is the desire to escape from reality.
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Self-esteem is a powerful force within each of us... Self-esteem is the experience that we are appropriate to life and to the requirements of life.
Nathaniel Branden
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If we do not believe in ourselves- neither in our efficacy nor in our goodness- the universe is a frightening place.
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As you grow in self-esteem, your face, manner, way of talking and moving will tend naturally to project the pleasure you take in being alive.
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Accepting does not necessarily mean liking, enjoying, condoning. I can accept what is-and be determined to evolve from there. It is not acceptance but denial that leaves me stuck.
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