Quote

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

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Nathaniel Branden
Age: 84 †
Born: 1930
Born: April 9
Died: 2014
Died: December 3
Academic
Non-Fiction Writer
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
Something
True
Keeping
Love
Remember
Spirituality
Life
Doe
Despair
Back
Exist
Energizes
Without
Alive
Pulls
Sometimes
Within
Abyss
Important
Force
Lift
Even
Difficult
Lifts

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If we attach more importance to what other people believe than to what we know to be true - if we value belonging over being - we will not attain authenticity.
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Respect starts with ourselves.
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Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.
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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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Most of us are taught from an early age to pay far more attention to signals coming from other people than from within. We are encouraged to ignore our own needs and wants and to concentrate on living up to others expectations.
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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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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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It is painful to face the self we know we have never had the integrity to honor and assert.
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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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To exist without purpose is to be at the mercy of the chance encounter, the chance invitation, the chance phone call, the chance event- always being controlled by forces external to oneself.
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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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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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Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves.
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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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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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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.
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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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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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Our motive is not to prove our self-worth, but to live up to our possibilities.
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