269 Quotes by Nathaniel Branden

We are parts of one universe, true enough. We stand within an almost infinite network of relationships. Yet each of us is a single point of consciousness, a unique event, a private, unrepeatable world. This is the essence of our aloneness.

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 takes far more courage to fight for your values than to relinquish them.

To honor the self is to be willing to think independently, to live by our own mind, and to have the courage of our own perceptions.

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.

In the inner courtroom of my mind, mine is the only judgment that counts.

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

The first act of honoring the self is the assertion of consciousness: the choice to think, to be aware, to send the searchlight of consciousness outward toward the world and inward toward our own being. To default on this effort is to default on the self at the most basic level.

Self-esteem is a particular way of experiencing the self. Its two components are self-efficacy and self-respect. Self-efficacy is the experience of competence in thinking, learning, making appropriate decisions, and responding effectively to the challenges of life. Self-respect is the experience of success, achievement, love, joy, fulfilment - in a word, happiness - are natural and appropriate to us.

Of all the judgements we pass, none is as important as the one we pass on ourselves.