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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.

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
Belonging
Attain
Importance
Value
Values
True
Believe
Attach
People
Authenticity

More quotes by Nathaniel Branden

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Doing more of what doesn't work doesn't work.
Nathaniel Branden
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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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Where we see self esteem, we see self acceptance. High self esteem individual tend to avoid falling into an adversarial relationship with themselves.
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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.
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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
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A commitment to lifelong learning is a natural expression of the practice of living consciously.
Nathaniel Branden
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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
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The stability we cannot find in the world, we must create within our own persons.
Nathaniel Branden
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Capitalism, by its nature, entails a constant process of motion, growth and progress.
Nathaniel Branden
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The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.
Nathaniel Branden
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Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.
Nathaniel Branden
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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.
Nathaniel Branden
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What is guilt? It is moral self-reproach-I did wrong when it was possible to have done otherwise.
Nathaniel Branden
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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.
Nathaniel Branden
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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.
Nathaniel Branden
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Integrity means congruence. Words and behavior match.
Nathaniel Branden
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Set goals that don't feel all that easy, that challenge you, stimulate you, and give you a chance to stretch and push yourself. That is where the power of growth lies.
Nathaniel Branden
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The reputation you have with yourself - your self-esteem - is the single most important factor for a fulfilling life.
Nathaniel Branden
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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.
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.
Nathaniel Branden