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Our motive is not to prove our self-worth, but to live up to our possibilities.
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
Possibilities
Motive
Esteem
Prove
Possibility
Worth
Live
Self
More quotes by Nathaniel Branden
Freedom is still the most radical idea of all.
Nathaniel Branden
The first love affair you must consummate is the love affair with yourself. Only then are you ready for a romantic relationship.
Nathaniel Branden
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.
Nathaniel Branden
What is guilt? It is moral self-reproach-I did wrong when it was possible to have done otherwise.
Nathaniel Branden
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.
Nathaniel Branden
An emotion is both a mental and a physical event.
Nathaniel Branden
You have a right to your feelings. Your feelings are there to tell you something, but they are not infallible guides to behavior.
Nathaniel Branden
... 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!'
Nathaniel Branden
No one is coming to save you.
Nathaniel Branden
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.
Nathaniel Branden
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.
Nathaniel Branden
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.
Nathaniel Branden
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.
Nathaniel Branden
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.
Nathaniel Branden
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
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.
Nathaniel Branden
Respect starts with ourselves.
Nathaniel Branden
In the nature of our existence, we must act to achieve values. And in order to act appropriately, we need to value the beneficiary of our actions. In order to seek values, we must consider ourselves worthy of enjoying them. In order to fight for our happiness, we must consider ourselves worthy of happiness.
Nathaniel Branden
The ultimate test of our integrity is not how we deal with those whom we agree but how we deal with those who we do not agree.
Nathaniel Branden
If we do not believe in ourselves- neither in our efficacy nor in our goodness- the universe is a frightening place.
Nathaniel Branden
