Quotes by Nathaniel Branden

“I am responsible for my own existence and happiness.”

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

“Self-discipline is the ability to organize your behavior over time in the service of specific goals.”

“Never marry a person who is not a friend of your excitement.”

“The challenge for people today--and it is not and easy one--is to maintain high personal standards even while feeling that one is living in a moral sewer.”

“It is naive to think that self-assertiveness is easy. To live self-assertively--which means to live authentically--is an act of high courage. That is why so many people spend the better part of the...”

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

“It is painful to face the self we know we have never had the integrity to honor and assert.”

“Genuine self esteem please understand this genuine self esteem is not competitive or comparative. Genuine self esteem isnt expressed by self-glorification at the expense of others, or by trying t...”

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

“It is a mistake to look at someone who is self assertive and say, "It's easy for her, she has good self-esteem." One of the ways you build self-esteem is by being self-assertive when it is not easy...”

“The opposite of self-assertiveness is self-abnegation--abandoning or submerging your personal values, judgment, and interests. Some people tell themselves this is a virtue. It is a "virtue" that co...”

“Out of fear, out of the desire for approval, out of misguided notions of duty, people surrender themselves--their convictions and their aspirations--every day. There is nothing noble about it. It t...”

“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.”

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

“Suffering is just about the easiest of all human activities; being happy is just about the hardest. And happiness requires, not surrender to guilt, but emancipation from guilt.”

“It is not only negative feelings that become blocked. The repression extends to more and more of his emotional capacity.When one is given an anesthetic in preparation for surgery, it is not merely ...”

“One of the great self-deceptions--and one of the great foolishnesses--is to tell yourself, Only I will know. Only you will know that you are a liar; only you will know you deal unethically with peo...”

“Most people do not erode their self-esteem over big issues but over small ones, little acts of betrayal and hypocrisy forgotten (repressed) very quickly. But the computer in your subconscious mind ...”

“The idea of original sin--of guilt with no possibility of innocence, no freedom of choice, no alternatives--inherently militates against self-esteem. The very notion of guilt without volition or re...”