Quote

We are anxious when there is a dissonance between our knowledge and the perceivable facts. Since our knowledge is not to be doubted or questioned, it is the facts that have to be altered.

Nathaniel Branden

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Nathaniel Branden
Age: 84 †
Born: 1930
Born: April 9
Died: 2014
Died: December 3
Academic
Non-Fiction Writer
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
Anxious
Since
Knowledge
Facts
Truth
Dissonance
Questioned
Doubted
Altered

More quotes by Nathaniel Branden

Image
Integrity is the integration of ideals, convictions, standards, beliefs-and behavior. When our behavior is congruent with our professed values, when ideals and practice match up, we have integrity.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
If you face life without confidence in your own powers, you succumb too easily to setbacks and adversity you lack the will to persevere.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
The reputation you have with yourself - your self-esteem - is the single most important factor for a fulfilling life.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
A woman in love will do almost anything for a man, except give up the desire to improve him.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
Fear and pain should be treated as signals not to close our eyes but to open them wider.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
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.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
The stability we cannot find in the world, we must create within our own persons.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
A commitment to lifelong learning is a natural expression of the practice of living consciously.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
We tend to feel most comfortable, most at home, with people whose self esteem level resembles our own.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
To attain success without attaining positive self-esteem is to be condemned to feeling like an imposter anxiously awaiting exposure.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
Either you will make your life work, or your life will not work.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
A productive purpose to which you give yourself fully and joyfully is one of the great adventures of life. It is a uniquely human source of happiness.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
The natural inclination of a child is to take pleasure in the use of the mind no less than of the body. The child's primary business is learning. It is also the primary entertainment. To retain that orientation into adulthood, so that consciousness is not a burden but a joy, is the mark of the successfully developed human being.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
What is guilt? It is moral self-reproach-I did wrong when it was possible to have done otherwise.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
There is only one reality - the reality knowable to reason. And if man does not choose to perceive it, there is nothing else for him to perceive if it is not of this world that he is conscious, then he is not conscious at all
Nathaniel Branden
Image
The highest compliment one can be paid by another human being is to be told: 'Because of what you are, you are essential to my happiness.'
Nathaniel Branden
Image
There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will be to treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
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.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
The practice of assertiveness: being authentic in our dealings with others treating our values and persons with decent respect in social contexts refusing to fake the reality of who we are or what we esteem in order to avoid disapproval the willingness to stand up for ourselves and our ideas in appropriate ways in appropriate contexts.
Nathaniel Branden