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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.

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
Men
Celebrate
Escape
Rational
Healthy
Control
Pleasure
Desire
Psychologically
Reality
Neurotic

More quotes by Nathaniel Branden

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It is painful to face the self we know we have never had the integrity to honor and assert.
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If you overcome your fear to ask someone for a date, a raise, or help with a project, that is an act of self-assertiveness. You are moving out into life rather than contracting and withdrawing.
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Fear and pain should be treated as signals not to close our eyes but to open them wider.
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Sometimes pain is easier to bear alone than happiness.
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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.
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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 bully hides his fears with fake bravado. That is the opposite of self-assertiveness.
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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.
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Integrity is congruence between what you know, what you profess, and what you do.
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Loving consciously does not mean subjecting your relationship to endless analysis. It means something much simpler: paying attention. Noticing. This requires presence.
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There is no value-judgment more important to a man--no factor more decisive in his psychological development and motivation--than the estimate he passes on himself.
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Force, governmental coercion, is the instrument by which the ethics of altruism - the belief that the individual exists to serve others - is translated into political reality.
Nathaniel Branden
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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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High self esteem people can surely be knocked down by an excess of troubles, but they are quickerto pick themselves up again.
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The world belongs to those who persevere.
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Respect starts with ourselves.
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The stability we cannot find in the world, we must create within our own persons.
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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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A woman in love will do almost anything for a man, except give up the desire to improve him.
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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.
Nathaniel Branden