Quote

If you feel inadequate to face challenges, unworthy of love or respect, untitled to happiness, and fear assertive thought, wants, or needs- if you lack basic self trust, self-respect, and self-confidence- your self-esteem deficiency will limit you, no matter what other assets you possess.

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
Thought
Trust
Assets
Matter
Respect
Limit
Self
Wants
Possess
Feel
Challenges
Esteem
Untitled
Feels
Face
Basic
Assertive
Needs
Happiness
Lack
Deficiency
Love
Faces
Confidence
Unworthy
Fear
Limits
Inadequate

More quotes by Nathaniel Branden

Image
Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
A goal without an action plan is a daydream.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
Loving consciously does not mean subjecting your relationship to endless analysis. It means something much simpler: paying attention. Noticing. This requires presence.
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
An emotion is both a mental and a physical event.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
The higher our self-esteem, the stronger the drive to express ourselves, reflecting the sense of richness within. The lower our self-esteem, the more urgent the need to prove ourselves or to forget ourselves by living mechanically and unconsciously.
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
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
Image
A bully hides his fears with fake bravado. That is the opposite of self-assertiveness.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.
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
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-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
Image
Our motive is not to prove our self-worth, but to live up to our possibilities.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
If we do not believe in ourselves- neither in our efficacy nor in our goodness- the universe is a frightening place.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
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.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
Where we see self esteem, we see self acceptance. High self esteem individual tend to avoid falling into an adversarial relationship with themselves.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
We tend to feel most comfortable, most at home, with people whose self esteem level resembles our own.
Nathaniel Branden
Image
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
Image
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