I am responsible for my own existence and happiness.
All positive interactions with other human beings involve, to some degree, the experience of visibility– that is, the experience of being seen and understood.
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.
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.
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.
Never marry a person who is not a friend of your excitement.
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.
One of the hardest expressions of self-assertiveness is challenging your limiting beliefs.
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 corrodes self-esteem.
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.
Anyone who engages in the practice of psychotherapy confronts every day the devastation wrought by the teachings of religion.
Some people stand and move as if they have no right to the space they occupy. They wonder why others often fail to treat them with respect–not realizing that they have signalled others that it is not necessary to treat them with respect.
It is humiliating to realize that when you drive yourself underground, when you fake who you are, often you do so for people you do not even like or respect.
Everyone who has any familiarity with psychology knows about the danger of disowning the murderer within. Far fewer people understand the tragedy of disowning the hero within.
The greater a child’s terror, and the earlier it is experienced, the harder it becomes to develop a strong and healthy sense of self.
Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.
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.
In the inner courtroom of my mind, mine is the only judgment that counts.
Of all the judgements we pass, none is as important as the one we pass on ourselves.
To persevere with the will to understand in the face of obstacles is the heroism of consciousness.
Your life is important. Honor it. Fight for your highest possibilities.
Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves.
For the rational psychologically healthy man the desire for pleasure is the desire to celebrate his control over reality. For the neurotic the desire for pleasure is the desire to escape from reality.
There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem the more likely one will treat others with respect kindness and generosity. People who do not experience self-love have little or no capacity to love others.
There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem the more likely one will treat others with respect kindness and generosity. People who do not experience self-love have little or no capacity to love others.
There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will be to treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity.
Live with integrity, respect the rights of other people, and follow your own bliss.
In a world in which the total of human knowledge is doubling about every ten years, our security can rest only on our ability to learn.
The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.