Nathaniel Branden Quotes

The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.

Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.

One of the hardest expressions of self-assertiveness is challenging your limiting beliefs.

Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves.

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.

Live with integrity, respect the rights of other people, and follow your own bliss.

Integrity is congruence between what you know, what you profess, and what you do.

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.

If you face life without confidence in your own powers, you succumb too easily to setbacks and adversity; you lack the will to persevere.

There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will be to treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity.

Self esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.

A commitment to lifelong learning is a natural expression of the practice of living consciously.

A bully hides his fears with fake bravado. That is the opposite of self-assertiveness.

No one is coming to save you.

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.'

Integrity means congruence. Words and behavior match.

The stability we cannot find in the world, we must create within our own persons.

The ultimate test of our integrity is not how we deal with those whom we agree but how we deal with those who we do not agree.

Fear and pain should be treated as signals not to close our eyes but to open them wider.

To attain "success" without attaining positive self-esteem is to be condemned to feeling like an imposter anxiously awaiting exposure.

Romantic love is a passionate spiritual-emotional-sexual attachment between a man and a woman that reflects a high regard for the value of each other's person.

If my aim is to prove I am 'enough,' the project goes on to infinity-because the battle was already lost on the day I conceded the issue was debatable.

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.

Productive achievement is a consequence and an expression of health and self-esteem, not its cause.

Be careful what you say to your children. They may agree with you.

A goal without an action plan is a daydream.

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.

One of the characteristics of love relationships that flower is a relatively high degree of mutual self-disclosure

When people are not accepting toward themselves they are often obsessed with acceptance by others.

Every day, it's important to ask and answer these questions: "What's good in my life?" and "What needs to be done?"

You have a right to your feelings. Your feelings are there to tell you something, but they are not infallible guides to behavior.

Feel deeply to think clearly.

The real basic power of an individual isn't what he or she knows; it's the ability to think and learn and face new challenges.

Anyone who engages in the practice of psychotherapy confronts every day the devastation wrought by the teachings of religion.

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.

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.

When your principles seem to be demanding suicide, clearly it's time to check your premises

We tend to feel most comfortable, "most at home", with people whose self esteem level resembles our own.

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.

Our motive is not to prove our self-worth, but to live up to our possibilities.

It is very difficult to accept in others emotions you cannot accept in yourself.

The reputation you have with yourself - your self-esteem - is the single most important factor for a fulfilling life.

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.

We must become what we wish to teach.

As you grow in self-esteem, your face, manner, way of talking and moving will tend naturally to project the pleasure you take in being alive.

Either you will make your life work, or your life will not work.

For "I" to become "we" and yet remain "I," is one of the great challenges of marriage.

One of the most significant characteristics of healthy self esteem is that it is the state of one who is not at war either with himself or with others.

How do we nurture the soul? By revering our own life. By learning to love it all, not only the joys and the victories, but also the pain and the struggles.

If you have high self-esteem, you might still know times of emotional suffering, but less often and with faster recovery-your resilience is greater.