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The first love affair you must consummate is the love affair with yourself. Only then are you ready for a romantic relationship.

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
Relationship
Ready
Firsts
First
Must
Love
Consummate
Romantic
Affair

More quotes by Nathaniel Branden

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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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The stability we cannot find in the world, we must create within our own persons.
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Capitalism, by its nature, entails a constant process of motion, growth and progress.
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Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.
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For I to become we and yet remain I, is one of the great challenges of marriage.
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Self-esteem is not a luxury it is a profound spiritual need.
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Moved by a passion they do not understand for a goal they seldom reach, men and women are haunted by the vision of a distant possibility that refuses to be extinguished.
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Either you will make your life work, or your life will not work.
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Anyone who really loves you wants you to be authentic. And anyone who doesn't want you to be authentic doesn't really love you.
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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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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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A goal without an action plan is a daydream.
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An emotion is both a mental and a physical event.
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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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Doing more of what doesn't work doesn't work.
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Out of fear, out of the desire for approval, out of the 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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.'
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