Quote

It would be hard to name a more certain sign of poor self-esteem than the need to perceive some other group as inferior.

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
Certain
Perceive
Self
Esteem
Need
Sign
Hard
Group
Needs
Groups
Would
Name
Names
Inferior
Poor
Inferiors

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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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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.
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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.
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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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Doing more of what doesn't work doesn't work.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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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.
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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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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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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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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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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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A goal without an action plan is a daydream.
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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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Self-esteem is not a luxury it is a profound spiritual need.
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It's not that achievements prove our worth but rather that the process of achieving is the means by which we develop our effectiveness, our competence at living.
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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.
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