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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.

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
Anyone
Doesn
Really
Love
Authenticity
Authentic
Loves
Wants

More quotes by Nathaniel Branden

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A commitment to lifelong learning is a natural expression of the practice of living consciously.
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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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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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The first love affair you must consummate is the love affair with yourself. Only then are you ready for a romantic relationship.
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If you choose not to live self-responsibly, you count on others to make up your default. No one abjures self-responsibility on a desert island.
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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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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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I have to respect other's opinions even if I don't agree with them.
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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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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.
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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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We are anxious when there is a dissonance between our knowledge and the perceivable facts. Since our knowledge is not to be doubted or questioned, it is the facts that have to be altered.
Nathaniel Branden
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Sometimes pain is easier to bear alone than happiness.
Nathaniel Branden
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An emotion is both a mental and a physical event.
Nathaniel Branden
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A bully hides his fears with fake bravado. That is the opposite of self-assertiveness.
Nathaniel Branden
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Your choices have psychological consequences. The way you choose to deal with reality, truth, facts - your choice to honor or dishonor your own perceptions - registers in your mind, for good or for bad, and either confirms and strengthens your self-esteem or undermines and weakens it.
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.
Nathaniel Branden
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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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The highest compliment one can be paid by another human being is to be told: 'Because of what you are, you are essential to my happiness.'
Nathaniel Branden