Quote

The policy of seeking values from human beings by means of force, when practiced by an individual, is called crime. When practiced by a government, it is called statism.

Nathaniel Branden

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Nathaniel Branden
Age: 84 †
Born: 1930
Born: April 9
Died: 2014
Died: December 3
Academic
Non-Fiction Writer
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
Government
Beings
Human
Crime
Humans
Policy
Mean
Called
Values
Statism
Force
Practiced
Individual
Individualism
Means
Seeking

More quotes by Nathaniel Branden

Image
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.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
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.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
A depression is a large-scale decline in production and trade...there is nothing in the nature of a free-market economy to cause such an event.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
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.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
Sometimes pain is easier to bear alone than happiness.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
The world belongs to those who persevere.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
... 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
Image
We tend to feel most comfortable, most at home, with people whose self esteem level resembles our own.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
What is guilt? It is moral self-reproach-I did wrong when it was possible to have done otherwise.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Capitalism, by its nature, entails a constant process of motion, growth and progress.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
Feel deeply to think clearly.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
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.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
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.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
For I to become we and yet remain I, is one of the great challenges of marriage.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
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
Image
I have to respect other's opinions even if I don't agree with them.
Nathaniel Branden