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The greater a child’s terror, and the earlier it is experienced, the harder it becomes to develop a strong and healthy sense of self.

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
Self
Develop
Children
Harder
Healthy
Becomes
Child
Greater
Earlier
Strong
Experienced
Sense
Terror

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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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Self-esteem is not a luxury it is a profound spiritual need.
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What is guilt? It is moral self-reproach-I did wrong when it was possible to have done otherwise.
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Either you will make your life work, or your life will not work.
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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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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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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.
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Set goals that don't feel all that easy, that challenge you, stimulate you, and give you a chance to stretch and push yourself. That is where the power of growth lies.
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Freedom is still the most radical idea of all.
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... there is an irrational, cultish tendency in many intellectual movements, and Objectivism, alas, is no exception. Ayn Rand's personal obsession with loyalty did little to discourage this trend.... Rand had often protested, 'Protect me from my followers!'
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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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We tend to feel most comfortable, most at home, with people whose self esteem level resembles our own.
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To attain success without attaining positive self-esteem is to be condemned to feeling like an imposter anxiously awaiting exposure.
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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
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It would be hard to name a more certain sign of poor self-esteem than the need to perceive some other group as inferior.
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No one is coming to save you.
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The reputation you have with yourself - your self-esteem - is the single most important factor for a fulfilling life.
Nathaniel Branden
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Fear and pain should be treated as signals not to close our eyes but to open them wider.
Nathaniel Branden
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Even when our life is most difficult, it is important to remember that something within us is keeping us alive- the life force-that lift us, energizes us, pulls us back sometimes from the abyss of despair. True spirituality does not exist without love of life.
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For children mastery entails struggle. This means they must be permitted to struggle. If parents inappropriately step in to help-out of impatience or solicitude-they sabotage important learning. Among other things, the child is unlikely to discover the advantages of perseverance and self-discipline.
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