A productive purpose to which you give yourself fully and joyfully is one of the great adventures of life. It is a uniquely human source of happiness.
The policy of seeking values from human beings by means of force, when practiced by an individual, is called crime. When practiced by a government, it is called statism...
Your life is important. Whether you achieve what you want in life matters. Whether you are happy matters. Honor and fight for your highest potential. Self-realizatio n-the realization of the best within you-is the noblest goal of your existence.
Accepting does not necessarily mean liking, enjoying, condoning. I can accept what is-and be determined to evolve from there. It is not acceptance but denial that leaves me stuck.
Your life is important. Fight for it. Honour your highest potentials.
Where we see self esteem, we see self acceptance. High self esteem individual tend to avoid falling into an adversarial relationship with themselves.
I have to respect other’s opinions even if I don’t agree with them.
Fully to surrender to love can be terrifying. But it is the price life asks in exchange for the possibility of ecstasy.
The lies most devastating to our self-esteem are not so much the lies we tell as the lies we live.
The world belongs to those who persevere.
A woman in love will do almost anything for a man, except give up the desire to improve him.
Respect starts with ourselves.
Never marry a person who is not a friend of your excitement.
When we learn how to be in an intimate relationship without abandoning our sense of self, when we learn how to be kind without being self-sacrificing, when we learn how to cooperate with others without betraying our standards and convictions, we are practicing self-assertiveness.
Regardless of what we think we’re teaching, we teach what we are.
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.
When we have unconflicted self-esteem, joy is our motor, not fear. It is happiness that we wish to experience, not suffering that we wish to avoid. Our purpose is self-expression, not self-avoidance or self-justification. Our motive is not to “prove” our worth but to live our possibilities.
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.
What is required for many of us, paradoxical though it may sound, is the courage to tolerate happiness without self-sabotage.
The willingness to experience and accept our feelings carries no implication that emotions are to have the last word on what we do. I may not be in the mood to work today; I can acknowledge my feelings, experience them, accept them – and then go to work. I will work with a clearer mind because I have not begun the day with self-deception.