100 Long Deep Self Respect Quotes To Inspire You (2023)

1. “To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference. If we do not respect ourselves, we are the one hand forced to despise those who have so few resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal weaknesses. On the other, we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out – since our self-image is untenable – their false notion of us. We flatter ourselves by thinking this compulsion to please others an attractive trait: a gist for imaginative empathy, evidence of our willingness to give. Of course I will play Francesca to your Paolo, Helen Keller to anyone’s Annie Sullivan; no expectation is too misplaced, no role too ludicrous. At the mercy of those we cannot but hold in contempt, we play roles doomed to failure before they are begun, each defeat generating fresh despair at the urgency of divining and meeting the next demand made upon us.”

2. “There is no great reward for being emotionally withdrawn, no pity prize for bottling your frustration. No one is coming to congratulate your chronic self-repression. By opening up, maybe you will inconvenience some people. Maybe you will trigger some conflict. Maybe you will be rejected, criticized, judged. Everything comes with a price and everything has its compensation. Authenticity may require pain, but it also opens the doors to joy, creativity, self-respect, empathy. Self-repression, on the other hand, costs you all the beauty of the world in exchange for a prison of comfort. Is it really worth it? Isn't it time to break free?”

3. “But even when a man has offended against his own rational code, I doubt whether a sense of sin is the best method of arriving at a better way of life. There is in the sense of sin something abject, something lacking in self-respect. No good was ever done to any one by the loss of self-respect. The rational man will regard his own undesirable acts, as he regards those of others, as acts produced by certain circumstances, and to be avoided either by a fuller realization that they are undesirable, or, where this is possible, by avoidance of the circumstances that caused them.”

4. “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~Marianne Williamson

5. “Knowing your limits, and that there is a limit to getting what you want, comes from a sense of self-respect instilled in you from an early age. It takes guts to stand up in the face of what you really want, but you have to know in your heart that if you make the wrong choice you won't be able to live with yourself for the rest of your life. There is only one person who matters at that point and that's YOU. If you give in to such pressures, you strip away your self-respect, your personal ethics and your standards - the very things that create the fiber that will hold you together for the rest of your life.”

6. “Anger delivers important information about where one of our boundaries has been crossed. [...] When we restore the boundary that was violated, we honor ourselves. When we know ourselves and honor ourselves, we live with integrity, peace and power – understandingthat we are the kind of woman who will be wise and brave enough to care for herself. Good stuff.”

7. “We have the need to be accepted and to be loved by others, but we cannot accept and love ourselves. The more self-love we have, the less we will experience self-abuse. Self-abuse comes from self-rejection, and self-rejection comes from having an image of what it means to be perfect and never measuring up to that ideal.” – Don Miguel Ruiz

8. “A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”

9. “The existence of homosexuality, not as a circumstantial matter of passing sexual whim, but as a shared condition and identity, raises the intriguing possibility of homosexual culture, or at least of a minority subculture with sexual identity as its base. At the very least, by sympathetic identification with cultural texts which appeared to be affirmative, homosexual people saw a way to shore up their self-respect in the face of constant moral attack, and they found materials with which to justify themselves not only to each other but also to those who found their very existence, let alone their behaviour, unjustifiable.”

10. “They said my solution was foreign because I lived on another planet. It required honesty. It required communication. It required kindness. It required integrity. It required compassion. It required empathy. It required a deep understanding of what it meant to be humane. It required courage to be something above the others. It required proving your love of God.”

11. “Our relationships and friendships often reflect where we are in life at the moment, and sometimes when you evolve sooner than you were prepared for, the only way to complete the process is to remove people from your life who only remind you of the version of yourself you have since outgrown...This is why I am strongly against helping to build men up in a world where they are averse to anything that reminds them of their struggle.”

12. “In the entire universe, you play such a huge role. The self esteem and love you have for yourself is the only gift you need to give. It isn’t a selfish act to love yourself hard. Only you can love yourself to the fullest because you understand why every aspect of your life has happened. A self love deficit isn’t what will bring you joy. The wrong mental attitude can be devastating in the world. If you have true self esteem and high self love you can share that love with the world around you. To love oneself is to love the world and a person learns that only when they show themselves the kindness they deserve.” – Anonymous

13. “You don’t need to look for the kind of love that patches your wounds and builds you a new home within your body. You can do that on your own. You have fallen and you have risen time and time again; you are the living, breathing fragments of your triumphs and your tragedies, stitched together through hurt and hope, and you still shine. You still shine.”

14. “Your skin is your skin. Your legs are your legs. Your hair is your hair. Your smile is your smile. Your past is your past. You can waste your life hating these things, but you may as well learn to accept them. Both routes are difficult and full of pain, but with acceptance, you will be happy one day, while with hatred, you never will.”

15. “If only you could be yourself." they shouted. So, she did. "You are not like me or anyone I have met!" they screamed. So, she blended. "You are so fake." they laughed. So, the caterpillar retreated to her cocoon to find peace alone. One day, they came to find her gone. She left a message, “God knew I was different and gave me these beautiful wings because he meant for me to fly. You see...I wasn’t meant to be like you. I was meant to be me--better.”

16. “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.”

17. “It is not unreasonable to want repentance from a wrongdoer before forgiving that wrongdoer, since, in the absence of repentance, hasty forgiveness may harm both the forgiver and the wrongdoer. The forgiver may be harmed by a failure to show self-respect. The wrongdoer may be harmed by being deprived of an important incentive - the desire to be forgiven - that could move him toward repentance and moral rebirth.”

18. “Having dignity doesn't require you to fall out of love with someone. You can love someone your entire life and not been in their life. It simply means you won't allow their actions or inactions to guide your future. The moment you feel derailed from your life purpose, in limbo or have to sell your worth, you have crossed over from love to desperation.”

19. “Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what? Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful.” – Mark Victor Hansen

20. “But I think that because they trusted themselves and respected themselves as individuals, because they knew beyond doubt that they were valuable and potentially moral units -- because of this they could give God their own courage and dignity and then receive it back. Such things have disappeared perhaps because men do not trust themselves anymore, and when that happens there is nothing left except perhaps to find some strong sure man, even though he may be wrong, and to dangle from his coattails.”

21. “I’ve spent a lot of my time alone, and I have learned to treat myself as if I were a family. I give myself dinner at night. I give myself breakfast in the morning. I like the process of deciding what to eat and putting it together and seeing how it works, and I like to experiment, and I like to eat. There’s nothing lonelier than some guy alone in the kitchen eating Chinese food out of the carton.

22. “You yearn to stay in this in-between place, where the beauty of the times you have freshly bade farewell to is still alive and vivid in your mind – almost real – and the reality of your new circumstances has yet to fully sink in. You listen to the familiar melodies that had accompanied you on your journey, and allow the music to evoke landscapes and scenes in your mind. The songs caress your sub-consciousness and fill your being with an airy joy. You are both here and elsewhere. Or perhaps you are everywhere and nowhere.”

23. “Maybe your country is only a place you make up in your own mind. Something you dream about and sing about. Maybe it's not a place on the map at all, but just a story full of people you meet and places you visit, full of books and films you've been to. I'm not afraid of being homesick and having no language to live in. I don't have to be like anyone else. I'm walking on the wall and nobody can stop me.”

24. “Who can see inside the deepest recesses of your imagination and manifest those wishes into your daily experience? Who can appreciate those subtle nuances of character you've acquired by overcoming your deepest fears? Who can truly respect those things that are no longer a part of you because of all your work to release them? Who can see the strength left behind in the wake of your unique struggles and obstacles? Who will see you for who you are, appreciating everything that is there, everything that is not, everything that can be, if you do not? Who else can?”

25. “Self-respect cannot be hunted. It cannot be purchased. It is never for sale. It cannot be fabricated out of public relations. It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that, knowing the good, we have done it; knowing the beautiful, we have served it; knowing the truth we have spoken it”

26. “You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right -- that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don't. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that. Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, beacuse the clouds let him; they don't wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself.”

27. “Not having self-worth can be detrimental to your health, wealth, success, relationships, parenting ability, happiness, and probably a lot more. It ruins your experience of life. Worth is like a light switch. Low self-worth switches the light off. You live in the darkness and the shadows, unable to see all the beautiful things in the world around you. By increasing self-worth, the light switches on. Now you can see all the beauty life has to offer in all its colorful glory.” ― Rachel D. Greenwell

28. “We exist in a world where in the US, the most developed country in the world, for every dollar a man makes, a (white) woman makes about 79 cents. Trying to create false 'equality' by splitting expenses with a man, or taking in a man like he's a rescue dog from a shelter, will always benefit him more than it benefits you, even if you find it 'empowering'. There's nothing empowering to me about sharing my resources with someone who has access to more than I do.”

29. “When you begin to walk your own journey, to have your own unique conversation, you will naturally stop feeling envious of others. Not because you’ll realize your desires are different from theirs, but because they are so similar. You’ll discover the difference between doing well and pretending to do well, between being happy and pretending to be happy, between healthy relationships and staged ones. You’ll see just how many obstacles lie on any path. You’ll realize that it takes the same amount of effort to work on building up the quality of the conversations in your life as it does to broadcast to the public, constantly, that those conversations are already perfect. You can either build up the mask or build up the authentic self. And you, brave and beautiful you, will make the right choice eventually. Be it now or on your deathbed. We all realize soon enough.”

30. “Any person or thing that corners you, puts you on the spot, increases your breathing unnecessarily and sucks up your energy may only just be a front- something to rob you of your energy and resources. Acknowledge it, slow down, then work-it-up, work-it-out, or walk-away. Life has a way of teaching us to earn respect from a position of self-respect”

31. “Don’t rely on someone else for your self-worth. Accept who you are, not because you think someone else wants you to be different.” – Stacey Charter

32. “Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being.”

33. “God isn't a place of fresh starts. He isn't a hideout. He is not a destination. He is not a clean break. He is not a cop out for indecision. He is not a straight line. He is a circle. He will take you back to whatever you ran from if he needs you to heal your scars and others. He is a God of justice and compassion. The greatest growth a soul can experience doesn't come from doing service to strangers that have no impact on your life. It comes from doing service to people that have hurt you or you have hurt them. To truly devote yourself to God is to travel down roads that are hard to revisit. However, he will keep taking you there, until you have healed yourself or others.”

34. “I knew what it felt like to have no say in who you were as a sexual being. It didn’t just strip away your dignity. It stripped away everything you were: your identity, your self-respect, your pleasure. Because it was all about the pleasure of the other person take, take, taking whatever they wanted from you, even if it was uncomfortable, or caused you pain. Even if you died from it, the other person still wouldn’t care, because it was all about them.”

35. “Not having self-worth can be detrimental to your health, wealth, success, relationships, parenting ability, happiness, and probably a lot more. It ruins your experience of life. Worth is like a light switch. Low self-worth switches the light off. You live in the darkness and the shadows, unable to see all the beautiful things in the world around you. By increasing self-worth, the light switches on. Now you can see all the beauty life has to offer in all its colorful glory.”

36. “Even if you have been having sex for years with many people, you can still become a "secondary virgin." That occurs when you repent of previous sexual sins and then determine not to be intimate with anyone until you are married. It will require discipline to stay in the hallway of doors, but it still bring the sweet benefits of healthiness, greater self-respect, and above all, harmony with the King. He will honor you for doing what is right.”

37. “Temptation goes both ways. Sometimes, you can be tempted to live a half life because it pleases someone else. Don't ever live in such a way that your heart splits into two souls. You might find yourself sinning for the rest of your life because you don't want to really be in that situation, but you don't want to hurt the kids. That is a hell that your children will pick up on soon enough. Staying for the kids is possible, but it takes two people to agree that choice is their lifestyle, not one. Otherwise, you hold another person captive because of your fear of stating the obvious-- you are not in love with them.”

38. “Turn your obstacles to your advantage. If you can find a plus out of a negative, then it cannot weigh you down. I like to think I have a superpower called dyslexia. I am creative, intuitive, and empathetic. I am great with problem-solving, and I can think outside the box. Just the other day, I was helping my daughter with a crossword puzzle, and she said, “Dad, how do you find the answers so fast? And I said, “I have dyslexia, and it helps me see things differently. To which she replied, “Aw, I want that.” If we can see our differences or unique qualities as gifts, we can bypass the stigmas that come with them and impress upon ourselves and society we can do anything any other person can do, just differently, and sometimes better.”

39. “Do not let your boss, your spouse, your kids, your neighbors, or anyone push you around or walk all over you. This does not mean you need to be a butt-hole - but you may need to draw some clear lines for the people in your life. Want to do it right? Communicate expectations clearly, and consistently. People cannot treat you the way you want them to treat you unless you tell them HOW to treat you.”

40. “Dating from a place of co-dependency, like a lot of us do, is immediately feeling as though the guy you went on a few dates with (who keeps ghosting you) is suddenly the one - just because he ticks a few of your boxes, texts you back sometimes and happens to be cute. But no, he's not being mysterious for intermittently disappearing on you. He's actually keeping you at a distance and playing on your need for validation, so that when he's done with his other options, he can return to you with minimal effort, knowing that you've been waiting for him all this time.”

41. “When we don’t think we look good, it changes the way we interact with people.”

42. “An inexhaustible capacity to engage in sin is what makes human beings capable of living a virtuous life. To err is human; to seek penance is humankind’s unique act of salvation. Whenever a person fails, it is often their overwhelming sense of anguish that drives them forward to make a second attempt that is far more bighearted than they originally envisioned. The need for redemption drives us to try again despite our backside enduring the terrible weight of our greatest catastrophes. There is no person as magnanimous as a person whom finally encountered tremendous success after previously enduring a tear-filled trail of hardships and repeated setbacks. In an effort to redeem our lost dignity, in an effort to regain self-respect, we find our true selves. By working independently to better ourselves and struggling to fulfill our cherished values, we save ourselves while coincidentally uplifting all of humanity.”

43. “Compassion for yourself is fundamental, since if you don’t care how you feel and want to do something about it, it’s hard to make an effort to become happier and more resilient. Compassion is both soft and muscular. For example, studies show that when people feel compassion, motor planning areas in the brain begin preparing for action.” – Rick Hanson

44. “Most people spend their lives doing one of two things to their emotions: numbing or venting. Self-loving people do something very different—they accept each emotion as a piece of communication and they try to decode it. This way, emotions can become important guideposts on the journey of self-discovery, rather than annoying roadblocks.”

45. “That's the big picture, your happiness. And health. You should never care what a man thinks of you -- until he demonstrates to you that he cares about making you happy. If he isn't trying to make you happy, then send him back from "whence" he came because winning him over will have no benefit. At the end of the day, happines, joy...and yes...your emotional stability...those comprise the only measuring stick you really need to have.”

46. “Wrapped up in that sweet guy who treats you so well, except goes weeks without calling you and suddenly disappears after a couple drinks and a round of the horizontal polka? Been wondering if he really likes you? Do his excuses of being so busy all the time seem legit? It doesn’t sound like the answer is a “Fuck yes.” Then it’s time to move on.”

47. “Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man.”

48. “About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough—and even miraculous enough if you insist—I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about?

49. “So it was just herself. In this world with these people she wanted to be the person who would never again need rescue. Not from Lenore through the lies of the Rat, not from Dr. Beau through the courage of Sarah and her brother. [...] She wanted to be the one who rescued her own self. [...] Wishing would not make it so, nor would blame, but thinking might. If she did not respect herself, why should anybody else?”

50. “It was not only colored people who praised John, since they could not, John felt, in any case really know; but white people also said it, in fact had said it first and said it still. It was when John was five years old and in the first grade that he was first noticed; and since he was noticed by an eye altogether alien and impersonal, he began to perceive, in wild uneasiness, his individual existence.”

51. “Fed by neither Heaven nor by Earth he was going forward . . . He hadn't a God or a lover--the two usual incentives to virtue. But on he struggled with his back to ease, because dignity demanded it. There was no one to watch him, nor did he watch himself, but struggles like his are the supreme achievements of humanity, and surpass any legends about Heavan.”

52. “Nietzche is right about christianity. It's the fucking hair shirt syndrome: always made me feel shame, guilt, always responding to duty and obligations to others --I view myself as weak, at the beck and call of others, obligated to them. Bullshit. "I am a man" -- as that book on judaism puts it. I need no one's permission anymore. I need not account to anyone. I owe them nothing; they are pushing old buttons, long out of date. I have proved my worth and earned my reward.”

53. “The problem here is that most people who get caught cheating apologize and give the 'It will never happen again' spiel and that's that, as if penises fell into various orifices completely by accident. Many cheatees accept this response at face value, and don't question the values and fucks given by their partner (pun totally intended); they don't ask themselves whether those values and fucks make their partner a good person to stay with. They're so concerned with holding on to their relationship that they fail to recognize that it's become a black hole consuming their self respect.

54. “Unrequited love is the only emotion that allows sane people to taste the “life sentence” of someone with bipolar disorder. The longer they hang onto a lost cause the more unstable they look to everyone else. They contradict their own belief systems and statements, by circling the drain with two competing emotions—love and hate.”

55. “What does being understood do for you? It makes you feel safe and seen. It makes you feel like your flaws aren't 'that bad'. It enables you. But whilst being around people who make the effort to understand you is beneficial, you still need to inspect yourself. My way of releasing the unhealthy need to be understood by others often comes in the form of me accepting that I am a complex, multi-faceted being - it would be impossible for me to be entirely understood even by myself.”

56. “People can have their opinions about everything in the world, but people's opinions end where the tip of my nose begins. Your opinions of others can only go so far as to where their own shoreline is. The world is for your taking, but other people are not. One is only allowed to have an opinion of me, if that person is done educating him/herself on everything about me. Before people educate themselves on everything about you, they're not allowed to open their venomous mouthes and have an opinion about you.”

57. “One of the causes of unhappiness among intellectuals in the present day is that so many of them, especially those whose skill is literary, find no opportunity for the independent exercise of their talents, but have to hire themselves out to rich corporations directed by Philistines, who insist upon their producing what they themselves regard as pernicious nonsense. If you were to inquire among journalists in either England or America whether they believed in the policy of the newspaper for which they worked, you would find, I believe, that only a small minority do so; the rest, for the sake of a livelihood, prostitute their skill to purposes which they believe to be harmful. Such work cannot bring any real satisfaction, and in the course of reconciling himself to the doing of it, a man has to make himself so cynical that he can no longer derive whole-hearted satisfaction from anything whatever. I cannot condemn men who undertake work of this sort, since starvation is too serious an alternative, but I think that where it is possible to do work that is satisfactory to man’s constructive impulses without entirely starving, he will be well advised from the point of view of his own happiness if he chooses it in preference to work much more highly paid but not seeming to him worth doing on its own account. Without self-respect genuine happiness is scarcely possible. And the man who is ashamed of his work can hardly achieve self-respect.”

58. “Dear young woman, do not place your sense of beauty and self worth, upon the plastic pedestal called "what other people say to you", "what other people think about your photo", "how many 'likes' your pictures get", "how many guys tell you that you look sexy", "how skinny can you be?". A plastic pedestal that is but the dismal shadow of the real one. Dear young woman, place your sense of self worth and beauty upon the Roman marble pedestal that will exist even when all other people are no longer there. If you were the very last person on this planet, you should still be able to know within your heart that you are worthy, you are beautiful, you are wanted. Even if you become the very last person on Earth, you should be fully wanted. Want yourself. Know yourself. See yourself as beautiful, see yourself as worthy.”

59. “In its severe form, this is not uncommonly seen when a person has such low self-esteem that their Chimp allows their partner to beat them up, physically or psychologically, and then remain with them. Learn to recognise what is happening and work with their Chimp’s emotions and learn to build self-esteem and self-respect to replace insecurity. This is not an easy task and professional help is often needed.”

60. “When people want to win they will go to desperate extremes. However, anyone that has already won in life has come to the conclusion that there is no game. There is nothing but learning in this life and it is the only thing we take with us to the grave—knowledge. If you only understood that concept then your heart wouldn’t break so bad. Jealousy or revenge wouldn’t be your ambition. Stepping on others to raise yourself up wouldn’t be a goal. Competition would be left on the playing field, and your freedom from what other people think about you would light the pathway out of hell.”

61. “So, attend carefully to your posture. Quit drooping and hunching around. Speak your mind. Put your desires forward, as if you had a right to them — at least the same right as others. Walk tall and gaze forthrightly ahead. Dare to be dangerous. Encourage the serotonin to flow plentifully through neural pathways desperate for its calming influence.”

62. “Self-respect is the very cement of character, without which character will not form nor stand; a personal ideal is the only possible foundation for self-respect, without which self-respect degenerates into vanity or conceit, or is lost entirely, its place being taken by worthlessness and the consciousness of worthlessness; and that is the end of all character. It is often said that if we do not respect ourselves no one else will respect us; this is rather a dangerous way to put it; let us rather say that if we are not worthy of our own respect we cannot claim the respect of others. True self-respect is a matter of being and never of mere seeming. As Paulsen says, "It is vanity that desires first of all to be seen and admired, and then, if possible, really to be something; whereas proper self esteem desires first of all to be something, and' then, if possible, to have its worth recognized.”

63. “Perhaps this general degradation was the result of too much crowding, too little privacy, too much noise. You couldn't be decent if you weren't intelligent; you couldn't be intelligent if you couldn't think—and who could think in all this racket? Add the stench to the confusion of cramped quarters, and who could be self-respecting?”

64. I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I’ve done that sort of thing in my life, but I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder. They’re much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.. Steve Jobs

65. “A person imbued with compassion and self-understanding can readily love oneself and exhibit endless sympathy for all people. A person who is unkind to their self can never transcend their corrupt barriers much less run into the world with open arms enthusiastically embracing humankind and all of nature with uninhibited friendliness and goodwill.”

66. “This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him. They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. "Oh, comply!" it said. "Think of his misery; think of his danger–look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong nature; consider the recklessness following on despair–soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for 'you'? or who will be injured by what you do?"

67. “...one of the best feelings there is is the accomplishing of something that's difficult. It's something that's yours. It's something no one can take away from you. And it's brave too, very brave. Determination means courage, and courage means you're a real person. And it doesn't have to be the most earth shattering act either. It could be telling yourself you're going to walk a mile and then going out and walking it. Or telling yourself I'm not going to chew gum for a week and then keeping your word to yourself. This is called dignity. it helps your self respect...”

68. “Always keep in mind the existence of those individuals, whether relatives or great friends, who believe that reality must adapt to their immediate impulses and desires. Those who created opportunities to hurt you, and then find it funny to watch your pain, sometimes pointing it out to others, instead of protecting your privacy and helping you comfort yourself.”

69. “For a long time I have had the recurring and sentimental wish that I could go back to the early 1990s and just hold onto my younger self, tightly, the way she needed, and not pay attention to her protestations that she was 'fine.' Because I know what I would say to her. I would embrace her and I would tell her that I know she is lonely, that I know she feels lost, that I know she feels worthless. And then, because she is not me, and because she is me, I would assure her that there is something about her, something amazing, something lovable, something special, something beautiful, something fragile, something strong, something worth fighting for.”

70. “The self-love needed for self-care [is] missing. Academicians use terms like self-esteem, self-worth, self-support, self-care, but rarely self-love. That is left to the spiritual community. People don’t realize that taking care of their own needs; eating, drinking, brushing their teeth, showering, wearing clean clothes, going to work are all acts of self-love.” – Angela C. Santomero

71. “Recovering from the trauma inflicted by our narcissistic mother (or father/spouse/partner) takes time and effort. For some, it can take decades to understand, process, and unpack it. Healing isn’t a marathon. Rather, it’s a daily journey. We gain more insight. We educate ourselves. We process our painful abuse. We know that we are worthy of being loved, respected, and cared for.”

72. “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 people who trust you; only you will know you have no intention of honoring your promise. Whose knowledge or judgment do you imagine is more important? It is precisely your own ego from which there is no escape.”

73. “I wasted my early twenties and late teens on him. I don’t know why I did but I pushed away guys that liked me because of him, because he spoke like he loves me. But I was wrong. He only cared about his reputation being in tact. And he never even bothered to tell me to my face that I wasn’t good enough for his world when I told myself that he was more than enough in my world. To him, I will always be the one seeking attention. But all I wanted was love, I cared for him and gave him my heart. But he broke the trust that I had for him, and he never even spoke up about his feelings to me. Love is sacred and forever when it comes to togetherness.”

74. “Incredible how so many people have no sense of honor. How does this happen? This happens by thriving on how one appears to the world around him rather than cultivating a person inside him that he knows is honorable and that he can be proud of. When all the focus is on what people think about you based upon your facebook profile or based upon the exterior that you put on everyday; you leave no room for looking at yourself and saying, "I want to look into the mirror every day and see someone that I can be proud of." And that's what a life of honor is based upon. It is based upon the knowledge that you know your own actions, your own self, and you can see the things that you do and know the things that you think. You answer to yourself, therefore, your standards need to come up to what you expect of yourself. It doesn't matter at all if anybody is looking. When such a sense of honor is present in a large group of people, that's when we see no crime rate or a very low crime rate, respect for other human life and personas, respect for the surroundings and really a respect for oneself. Because a respect for other people can only first be born from a true respect for oneself.”

75. “But I was coming to learn that much of your perception of a relationship is shaped by everything else that happens to be going on in your life at the time. When I first met Ed Farley, I had been starved for love. He was the first man I'd ever known to show me kindness. Hr had taken my loneliness away. And for that I knew I would always be grateful. But being grateful was not enough of a reason to stay with someone.”

76. “And this is the ultimate dating advice lesson — man, woman, gay, straight, trans, furry, whatever — the only real dating advice is self-improvement. Everything else is a distraction, a futile battle in the grey area, a prolonged ego trip. Because, yes, with the right tools and performance, you may be able to con somebody into sleeping with you, dating you, even marrying you. But you will have won the battle by sacrificing the war, the war of long-term happiness.”

77. “We have only minimal control over the rewards for our work and effort - other people’s validation, recognition, rewards. It’s far better when doing the work itself is sufficient. When fulfilling our own internal standards is what fills us with pride and self-respect. The less attached we are to the outcomes, the better. Our ego wants recognition & compensation. We have expectations. Let the effort, not the results be enough. Maybe your parents/kids/partner/etc won’t be impressed. We can’t let THAT be what motivates us. We can change the definition of success to: ‘peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.’ With this definition we decide not to let externals determine if something is worth doing. It’s on us.”

78. “Loving oneself isn’t hard when you understand who and what ‘yourself’ is. It has nothing to do with the shape of your face, the size of your eyes, the length of your hair or the quality of your clothes. It’s so beyond all of those things and it’s what gives life to everything about you. Your own self is such a treasure.” ~Phylicia Rashad

79. “Be brave and upright. Shred the fake mask of humility into pieces. And put on the mask of arrogance if needed. Take the whole responsibility of your surrounding society on your own shoulders. If you consider yourself a human being, who cares for humanity, then, become a brave responsible citizen of the whole world. If not a big banyan tree, at least be like a mango tree under the shade of which a few people can rest. You are the architects of this beautiful world. Build it your way. And nourish it with your modern conscience.”

80. “Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.” – Mahatama Gandhi

81. “I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.”

82. “The path to self-discovery is not a straight line. It’s a zigzag. We move in and out of awareness: one step forward, three steps to the left, a baby step back, another leap forward. A lightbulb moment might shine brightly one day, but then flicker the next. It takes work to hold tightly to a certain consciousness, to live in its wisdom. Every day, I have to intentionally maintain an awareness of my value.” ~Alicia Keys

83. “Most people live in two extremes. One is poor self-image, and the other one is arrogance, which is overly high self-image. Both of these are not in touch with the reality of who you are. Self-respect is right in the middle and seems to be the hardest to maintain. It is hard because self-image by itself is a temporary phenomenon”

84. “Moments later, I was climbing nervously into the back of the car. The driver wore the archetypal expression of an antagonist. No words were exchanged beyond the brief lines uttered to this nameless stranger, whose inclinations remained unclear. The car sped along empty roads and traversed dingy alleyways. Music blared from its speakers. I did not remember exhaling throughout the entire journey.”

85. “Living life to the fullest takes a lot of dedication and hard work, especially when the going gets tough. However, If we have the courage to pay close attention to the wisdom that can be found within Yoga, we can conclude that Yoga is both a challenge and a triumph opportunities from which we can grow, much similar to living life. This ancient form of exercise goes deeper into the connection between mind, body, and spirit. It lies in the desire to excel oneself. Through self-love.”

86. “Stuck in my own trap of writing about a nonsubject, I think I can defend my own self-respect, and also the integrity of a lost girl, by saying two things. First, the trivial doings of Paris Hilton are of no importance to me, or anyone else, and I should not be forced to contemplate them. Second, she should be left alone to lead such a life as has been left to her. If this seems paradoxical, then very well.”

87. “One of the questions asked by al-Balkhi, and often repeated to this day, is this: Why do the children of Israel continue to suffer? My grandmother Dodo thought it was because the goyim were jealous. The seder for Passover (which is a shame-faced simulacrum of a Hellenic question-and-answer session, even including the wine) tells the children that it's one of those things that happens to every Jewish generation. After the Shoah or Endlösung or Holocaust, many rabbis tried to tell the survivors that the immolation had been a punishment for 'exile,' or for insufficient attention to the Covenant. This explanation was something of a flop with those whose parents or children had been the raw material for the 'proof,' so for a time the professional interpreters of god's will went decently quiet. This interval of ambivalence lasted until the war of 1967, when it was announced that the divine purpose could be discerned after all. How wrong, how foolish, to have announced its discovery prematurely! The exile and the Shoah could now both be understood, as part of a heavenly if somewhat roundabout scheme to recover the Western Wall in Jerusalem and other pieces of biblically mandated real estate.

88. “If you want to be a good parent then be a great leader. You should live a life with passion for someone and something. The legacy you leave your children shouldn't be how you suffered in gratitude for a life you had no passion for. Rather, it should be how grateful you are to a God that believes fairytales can come true because they came true for you.”

89. “Why doesn't the pope convert to Calvinism? Why doesn't the Dalai Lama, convert to Christianity, why doesn't Billy Graham convert to Islam, Why doesn't the Ayatollahs convert to Buddhism, Why isn't Buddhism swept away? Religious leaders know that all religions are equal; they know that no one of them has the monopoly to the knowledge of God. They know that each religion is trying to find the hidden God and that no one religion can claim to have found him beyond doubt. That's why they remain where they are and respect each other.”

90. “The source to low self-esteem is the lack of control you feel you have in your life. If you spend your life competing with others, trying to make right the wrongs done to you, or waste your time trying to look right, you will never achieve contentment and emotional balance. People you encounter in life can’t be controlled by you. You only have control of yourself. Build your life around a relationship with a higher power and achieving what you’re passionate about. When you let go of what you can’t control, true peace can then enter your life. This is the path to achieving emotional balance.”

91. “Sometimes I have to act crazy to handle the crazies. Trying to be normal near the crazies makes me as crazy as them. The more I push reason and logic on them, the more they pervert it and use it against me, the angrier they make me feel. It's much easier to pretend they're ghosts talking to the wind, and ignore them as if they weren't really human. My mood improves, my self-esteem is better and I feel happier. On another hand, maybe I'm just being realistic here, because you can't really talk to the dead. That's what people without respect or empathy are; dead in the brain; just walking bodies without a soul.”

92. “You will never be able to end any battle if the people involved are unable to see their own hypocrisy, or how their insecurity contributed to their problems. Wounded people often choose to play the victim, so they can restore their dignity in unhealthy ways. Sadly, they do this through feeling justified, by making bad choices or actions (that honestly no diety would want them to do). This inability to accept their part in their unhappiness keeps them from growing. They need your prayers more than your anger. Just walk away. Let it go and pray that one day they will understand your pain, as much as you do theirs. Remember: The sexiest woman alive is one that can walk away from a place that God doesn't want them to be. Do so with your head held high and forgive yourself and others. When you can do this, you will know what God's definition of class is-- YOU!”

93. “I will never accept life for what it is. I don't need an easy life. My road was meant to be hard because anything worth having in this world will take me to the very edge of myself. I will overcome everything I have ever gone through and will make my future the one God intended me to have. I will pick up the pieces of this pain and sculpt it into art. I am not ordinary and never was. I walk into my birthright as a queen with her head held high. I was born to do this!”

94. “Ava, se você for ouvir tudo que as pessoas esperam de você, vai viver a vida que elas querem. Várias pessoas vão achar que você é só músculo e nenhum cérebro, mas você tem de se perguntar se isso é real. A impressão que elas têm de você não é a verdade. Não é o respeito delas que vai fazer você melhor ou pior! O que os outros acham de você não a define, e sim como você se vê, a forma como pensa de si mesma.”

95. “To do without self-respect, on the other hand, is to be an unwilling audience of one to an interminable documentary that details one's failings, both real and imagined, with fresh footage spliced in for every screening. (...) To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commission and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice or carelessness. However long we postpone

96. “After much conversation, the tomato plant finally understood that it might not be beautiful, but it can satisfy a hungry palette with its rich flavor. And the rose bush understood that it cannot feed the stomach, but it can fill the senses with its lavish beauty and sweet scents. And from that point forward neither had the desire to be the other, for they understood that such a foolish action would have caused them to lose the marvelous ability to complement the other.”

97. “When people make you feel unwanted, don't leave to make them feel sad or guilty, they won't. Leave because you no longer have a reason to stay. Sometimes you have to be strong for yourself. What’s meant to be will end up good and what’s not - won’t. Love is worth fighting for, but sometimes you can’t be the only one fighting. At times, people need to fight for you. If they don’t, you just have to move on and realize what you gave them was more than they were willing to give you and more than they deserve.”

98. “El resentimiento que he construido en mi corazón hacia él no significa que las emociones no sigan allí. El hecho de que alguien te haga daño no significa que simplemente puedas dejar de amarlos. No son las acciones de una persona las que hacen más daño. Es el amor. Si no hubiera amor unido a la acción, el dolor sería un poco más fácil de soportar.”

99. “Your body is a temple, not a daily dumping ground for another person’s pain, anger, betrayal, judgment, hypocrisy, denial, games, jealousy or blame. When you are being psychologically, spiritually or emotionally abused by a person, and they don’t care how it hurts you, then it is time to leave what is polluting your relationship with God.”

100. “We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”