Quotes about self-esteem

“What’s more, you’re loads better than you think you are.” “So why is it I get to thinking that way?” I puzzled. “That’s because you’re only half-living.” she said briskly. “The other half is still untapped somewhere.”

She looked at me. Looked away. “You think too much of me.”

I smiled. “Perhaps you think too little of yourself.”

I've always considered myself a failure: I feel I've never done anything wholly right. [...] Everybody will tell you, "Oh no, how can you say that, because ten thousand people clap you on a night?" But part of that is reflex action and part of it is because you're reasonably good. But if you're great, that's a different thing.

I couldn't regard myself as personally repulsive. No man can, or, if he ever comes to do so, that is the end of him.

We all of us go about, she meant to tell him but was too occupied, wanting to be wanted but unsure why anybody should bother. (twenty-two: THE PRESENT)

'Most people think everybody feels about them much more violently than they actually do - they think other people's opinions of them swing through great arcs of approval or disapproval. '

Above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you very much at your own reckoning.

I think we each come out of the womb with some unique way of looking at the world and if we don't express it, we loose faith in ourselves.

I’ve learned from these events that self-esteem plays as much a part in the destiny of nations as it does in the lives of individuals; that self-hatred leads to the need either to dominate or to be dominated; that citizens who refuse to obey anything but their own conscience can transform their countries; in short, that self-esteem is the basis of any real democracy.

It would be hard to name a more certain sign of poor self-esteem than the need to perceive some other group as inferior.

To love oneself is to struggle to rediscover and maintain your uniqueness. It is understanding and appreciating the idea that you will be the only you to ever live upon this earth, that when you die so will all of your fantastic possibilities. It is the realization that even you are not totally aware of the wonders which lie dormant within yourself.

"It's easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own record. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence—such easy substitutes; love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence."