142 Inspiring Self Esteem Quotes

In a world that often challenges our sense of self-worth, finding inspiration to boost self-esteem can be transformative. Whether it's a gentle reminder of our intrinsic value or a powerful affirmation of confidence, words have the remarkable ability to uplift and empower. Our carefully curated collection of 142 inspiring self-esteem quotes is designed to do just that—spark inner strength, foster self-acceptance, and ignite the courage to embrace who you truly are. Dive into these words of wisdom and let them serve as a catalyst for personal growth and self-love, as you navigate your unique journey with renewed confidence and clarity.

1. “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” - Sharon Salzberg

2. “Our musicians in residence carry this belief into the classroom. They don't think of children's self-esteem as so fragile that it will be shattered by the suggestion that the child guessed wrong or jumped to an invalid conclusion. They make corrections matter-of-factly, with no feeling that a chid is a failure because she has made an error, but with ocnfidence that the feedback will help the child learn and be accurate the next time.” - Peter Perret

3. “People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people's minds, as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues.” - Elizabeth Gaskell

4. “Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.” - Andre Gide

5. “I believe that love--not imitation--is the sincerest form of flattery. Your imitator thinks that you can be duplicated; your lover knows you can't.” - Marilyn Vos Savant

6. “Your self esteem is like a notch below Kafka's.” - Woody Allen

7. “Sicher gibt es kein größeres Geschenk für einen Menschen als das, was all seine Ziele zu brennenden Lippen und alles Leben zu einem Brunnen macht.” - Khalil Gibran

8. “The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.” - Mark Twain

9. “I don't want everyone to like me; I should think less of myself if some people did.” - Henry James

10. “No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not work those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself.” - Alfred Lord Tennyson

11. “Your value is in your individuality.” - Dorla Jenkins

12. “A fine glass vase goes from treasure to trash, the moment it is broken. Fortunately, something else happens to you and me. Pick up your pieces. Then, help me gather mine.” - Vera Nazarian

13. “Don't belittle yourself. Be BIG yourself.” - Corita Kent

14. “...and that's when I get to wondering, what would happen if I told her she something good, ever day?” - Kathryn Stockett

15. “Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” - Norman Vincent Peale

16. “Low self-esteem causes me to believe that I have so little worth that my response does not matter. With repentance, however, I understand that being worth so much to God is why my response is so important. Repentance is remedial work to mend our minds and hearts, which get bent by sin.” - John Ortberg

17. “At every given moment we are absolutely perfect for what is required for our journey.” - Steve Maraboli

18. “Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.” - St Jerome

19. “The French girls would tell you, to believe that you were pretty would make you so.” - Elizabeth Gaskell

20. “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.” - Hugo Hamilton

21. “Let me ask you something, in all the years that you have...undressed in front of a gentleman has he ever asked you to leave? Has he ever walked out and left? No? It's because he doesn't care! He's in a room with a naked girl, he just won the lottery. I am so tired of saying no, waking up in the morning and recalling every single thing I ate the day before, counting every calorie I consumed so I know just how much self loathing to take into the shower. I'm going for it. I have no interest in being obese, I'm just through with the guilt. So this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to finish this pizza, and then we are going to go watch the soccer game, and tomorrow we are going to go on a little date and buy ourselves some bigger jeans.” - Elizabeth Gilbert

22. “In your own life it's important to know how spectacular you are.” - Steve Maraboli

23. “You almost have to step outside yourself and look at you as if you were someone else you really care about and really want to protect. Would you let someone take advantage of that person? Would you let someone use that person you really care about? Or would you speak up for them? If it was someone else you care about, you'd say something. I know you would. Okay, now put yourself back in that body. That person is you. Stand up and tell 'em, "Enough!” - Queen Latifah

24. “When I loved myself enough, I let the tomboy in me swing off the rope in Jackass Canyon. Yes!” - Kim McMillen

25. “When I loved myself enough, I no longer needed things or people to make me feel safe.” - Kim McMillen

26. “When you're different, sometimes you don't see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn't.” - Jodi Picoult

27. “Good for you and be proud of yourself because you have your priorities in order. Be proud of yourself if you are responsible, reliable, persistent, and take your job and education seriously.” - Ana Monnar

28. “People simply feel better about themselves when they’re good at something.” - Stephen R. Covey

29. “I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.” - Charlotte Brontë

30. “I don't entirely approve of some of the things I have done, or am, or have been. But I'm me. God knows, I'm me.” - Elizabeth Taylor

31. “Sooo, I'm tired of people thinking I'm a freak. I know you can't relate to that but -""Get over it already, will ya?" Candace stood. "You're not Smellody anymore. You're pretty. You can get hot guys now. Tanned ones with good vision. Not geeky hose jousters." She shut the window. "Don't you ever want to use your lips as something other than veneer protectors?"Melody felt a familiar pinch behind her eyes. Her throat dried. Her eyes burned. And then they came. Like salty little paratroopers, tears descended en masse. She hated Candace thought she had never made out with a boy. But how could she convince a seventeen-year-old with more dates than a fruitcake that Randy the Starbucks cashier (aka Scarbucks, because of his acne scars) was a great kisser? She couldn't.” - Lisi Harrison

32. “I'm Dylan. I'm so cool. I want to date myself, but I don't know how! You want to date me instead? You're so lucky!” - Rick Riordan

33. “Believe in yourself and the world will follow suit.” - Tadahiko Nagao

34. “The first step toward being loved is learning to love what you see when you look in the mirror.” - Tadahiko Nagao

35. “I am beginning to measure myself in strength, not pounds. Sometimes in smiles.” - Laurie Halse Anderson

36. “One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.” - Michael J. Fox

37. “I exist as I am, that is enough,If no other in the world be aware I sit content,And if each and all be aware I sit content.One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself.” - Walt Whitman

38. “Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.” - Nathaniel Branden

39. “The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.” - C.G. Jung

40. “If you want me, you'll have to earn me. And, mister, I don't come cheap.” - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

41. “Stop trying to 'fix' yourself; you're NOT broken! You are perfectly imperfect and powerful beyond measure.” - Steve Maraboli

42. “Surely a good therapist should produce a Dorian Gray-style portrait from under the couch so the patient can see the person they really are.” - Rosamund Lupton

43. “In the story of Ugly Duckling, when did the Ugly Duckling stop feeling Ugly? When he realized that he was a Swan. Each of us has something Special, a swan of some sort, hidden inside somewhere. But until we recognize that it's there, what can we do but splash around, treading water? The Wise are Who They Are. They work with what they've got and do what they can do.” - Benjamin Hoff

44. “When you express "purity" which is the truth about yourself, you feel a love for yourself that is expressed by self-respect, self-esteem, and self-confidence!” - Dr. Tae Yun Kim

45. “Failing to make it to the list of the best 5 students in class or not being named the team captain should not make anyone feel like they have failed.” - Stephen Richards

46. “A failure is always in the passenger seat in his or her life.” - Stephen Richards

47. “Each person has got a voice inside them. Communicate with it and take hold of it. Do not let it push and shove you around – you are its master!” - Stephen Richards

48. “I’m ALL about the Alternative.” - Solange nicole

49. “Kissinger projects a strong impression of a man at home in the world and on top of his brief. But there are a number of occasions when it suits him to pose as a sort of Candide: naive, and ill-prepared for and easily unhorsed by events. No doubt this pose costs him something in point of self-esteem. It is a pose, furthermore, which he often adopts at precisely the time when the record shows him to be knowledgeable, and when knowledge or foreknowledge would also confront him with charges of responsibility or complicity.” - Christopher Hitchens

50. “Stagnation is self-abdication.” - Ryan Talbot

51. “One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.” - Shannon L. Alder

52. “God made you the way He wanted you to be and He does not make mistakes. He has a plan for your life that is much bigger than you can imagine.” - Michele Woolley

53. “with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26").” - Michele Woolley

54. “Women have face-lifts in a society in which women without them appear to vanish from sight.” - Naomi Wolf

55. “Western women have been controlled by ideals and stereotypes as much as by material constraints.” - Naomi Wolf

56. “Aging in women is 'unbeautiful' since women grow more powerful with time, and since the links between generations of women must always be broken.” - Naomi Wolf

57. “Even the models we see in magazines wish they could look like their own images.” - Cheri K. Erdman

58. “The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon us...During the past decade, women breached the power structure; meanwhile, eating disorders rose exponentially and cosmetic surgery became the fastest-growing specialty...pornography became the main media category, ahead of legitimate films and records combined, and thirty-three thousand American women told researchers that they would rather lose ten to fifteen pounds than achieve any other goal...More women have more money and power and scope and legal recognition than we have ever had before; but in terms of how we feel about ourselves physically, we may actually be worse off than our unliberated grandmothers.” - Naomi Wolf

59. “Every woman knows that, regardless of all her other achievements, she is a failure if she is not beautiful.” - Germaine Greer

60. “Women are mere "beauties" in men's culture so that culture can be kept male. When women in culture show character, they are not desirable, as opposed to the desirable. A beautiful heroine is a contradiction in terms, since heroism is about individuality, interesting and ever changing, while "beauty" is generic, boring, and inert. While culture works out moral dilemmas, "beauty" is amoral: If a woman is born resembling an art object, it is an accident of nature, a fickle consensus of mass perception, a peculiar coincidence--but it is not a moral act. From the "beauties" in male culture, women learn a bitter amoral lesson--that the moral lessons of their culture exclude them.” - Naomi Wolf

61. “[I]f you seek in every way to minimise my firm beliefs by your anti-feminist attacks, please recall that a small dagger or knife point can pierce a great, bulging sack and that a small fly can attack a great lion and speedily put him to flight.” - Christine de Pizan

62. “[S]ince you are angry at me without reason, you attack me harshly with, "Oh outrageous presumption! Oh excessively foolish pride! Oh opinion uttered too quickly and thoughtlessly by the mouth of a woman! A woman who condemns a man of high understanding and dedicated study, a man who, by great labour and mature deliberation, has made the very noble book of the Rose, which surpasses all others that were ever written in French. When you have read this book a hundred times, provided you have understood the greater part of it, you will discover that you could never have put your time and intellect to better use!" My answer: Oh man deceived by willful opinion! I could assuredly answer but I prefer not to do it with insult, although, groundlessly, you yourself slander me with ugly accusations. Oh darkened understanding! Oh perverted knowledge ... A simple little housewife sustained by the doctrine of Holy Church could criticise your error!” - Christine de Pizan

63. “Men were created before women. ... But that doesn't prove their superiority – rather, it proves ours, for they were born out of the lifeless earth in order that we could be born out of living flesh. And what's so important about this priority in creation, anyway? When we are building, we lay foundations on the ground first, things of no intrinsic merit or beauty, before subsequently raising up sumptuous buildings and ornate palaces. Lowly seeds are nourished in the earth, and then later the ravishing blooms appear; lovely roses blossom forth and scented narcissi.” - Moderata Fonte

64. “When our emotional health is in a bad state, so is our level of self-esteem. We have to slow down and deal with what is troubling us, so that we can enjoy the simple joy of being happy and at peace with ourselves.” - Jess C. Scott

65. “Be patient. Your skin took a while to deteriorate. Give it some time to reflect a calmer inner state. As one of my friends states on his Facebook profile: "The true Losers in Life, are not those who Try and Fail, but those who Fail to Try.” - Jess C. Scott

66. “Some people us language to describe the lives they lead, and other people use language to create the lives they lead.” - Steve Chandler

67. “To live in a culture in which women are routinely naked where men aren't is to learn inequality in little ways all day long. So even if we agree that sexual imagery is in fact a language, it is clearly one that is already heavily edited to protect men's sexual--and hence social--confidence while undermining that of women.” - Naomi Wolf

68. “The last thing the consumer index wants men and women to do is to figure out how to love one another: The $1.5 trillion retail-sales industry depends on sexual estrangement between men and women, and is fueled by sexual dissatisfaction. Ads do not sell sex--that would be counterproductive, if it meant that heterosexual women and men turned to one another and were gratified. What they sell is sexual discontent.” - Naomi Wolf

69. “Sexual satisfaction eases the stranglehold of materialism, since status symbols no longer look sexual, but irrelevant. Product lust weakens where emotional and sexual lust intensifies. The price we pay for artificially buoying up this market is our heart's desire. The beauty myth keeps a gap of fantasy between men and women. That gap is made with mirrors; no law of nature supports it. It keeps us spending vast sums of money and looking distractedly around us, but its smoke and reflection interfere with our freedom to be sexually ourselves.” - Naomi Wolf

70. “A consequence of female self-love is that the woman grows convinced of social worth. Her love for her body will be unqualified, which is the basis of female identification. If a woman loves her own body, she doesn't grudge what other women do with theirs; if she loves femaleness, she champions its rights. It's true what they say about women: Women are insatiable. We are greedy. Our appetites do need to be controlled if things are to stay in place. If the world were ours too, if we believed we could get away with it, we would ask for more love, more sex, more money, more commitment to children, more food, more care. These sexual, emotional, and physical demands would begin to extend to social demands: payment for care of the elderly, parental leave, childcare, etc. The force of female desire would be so great that society would truly have to reckon with what women want, in bed and in the world.” - Naomi Wolf

71. “Believe in yourself up here and it will make you stronger than you could ever imagine.” - Sarah Dessen

72. “Love me or hate me, i swear it won't make or break me.” - Lil Wayne

73. “Cosmetic surgery processes the bodies of woman-made women, who make up the vast majority of its patient pool, into man-made women.” - Naomi Wolf

74. “The maturing of a woman who has continued to grow is a beautiful thing to behold.Or, if your ad revenue or your seven-figure salary or your privileged sexual status depend on it, it is an operable condition.” - Naomi Wolf

75. “Spokespeople sell women the Iron Maiden and name her "Health": if public discourse were really concerned with women's health, it would turn angrily upon this aspect of the beauty myth.” - Naomi Wolf

76. “The surgeons' market is imaginary, since there is nothing wrong with women's faces or bodies that social change won't cure; so the surgeons depend for their income on warping female self-perception and multiplying female self-hatred.” - Naomi Wolf

77. “Putting someone down with name calling reveals your own low self-esteem.” - Stephen Richards

78. “In a sexual double standard as to who receives consumer protection, it seems that if what you do is done to women in the name of beauty, you may do what you like. It is illegal to claim that something grows hair, or makes you taller, or restores virility, if it does not. It is difficult to imagine that the baldness remedy Minoxidil would be on the market if it had killed nine French and at least eleven American men. In contrast, the long-term effects of Retin-A are still unknown--Dr. Stuart Yusps of the National Cancer Institute refers to its prescription as "a human experiment"--and the Food and Drug Administration has not approved it yet dermatologists are prescribing it to women at a revenue of over $150 million a year.” - Naomi Wolf

79. “What becomes of a man who acquires a beautiful woman, with her "beauty" his sole target? He sabotages himself. He has gained no friend, no ally, no mutual trust: She knows quite well why she has been chosen. He has succeeded in buying something: the esteem of other men who find such an acquisition impressive.” - Naomi Wolf

80. “Men who read it [beauty pornography] don't do so because they want women who look like that. The attraction of what they are holding is that it is not a woman, but a two-dimensional woman-shaped blank. The appeal of the material is not the fantasy that the model will come to life; it is precisely that she will not, ever. Her coming to life would ruin the vision. It is not about life.Ideal beauty is ideal because it does not exist; The action lies in the gap between desire and gratification. Women are not perfect beauties without distance. That space, in a consumer culture, is a lucrative one. The beauty myth moves for men as a mirage, its power lies in its ever-receding nature. When the gap is closed, the lover embraces only his own disillusion.” - Naomi Wolf

81. “Sadly, the signals that allow men and women to find the partners who most please them are scrambled by the sexual insecurity initiated by beauty thinking. A woman who is self-conscious can't relax to let her sensuality come into play. If she is hungry she will be tense. If she is "done up" she will be on the alert for her reflection in his eyes. If she is ashamed of her body, its movement will be stilled. If she does not feel entitled to claim attention, she will not demand that airspace to shine in. If his field of vision has been boxed in by "beauty"--a box continually shrinking--he simply will not see her, his real love, standing right before him.” - Naomi Wolf

82. “For the first time in history, children are growing up whose earliest sexual imprinting derives not from a living human being, or fantasies of their own; since the 1960s pornographic upsurge, the sexuality of children has begun to be shaped in response to cues that are no longer human. Nothing comparable has ever happened in the history of our species; it dislodges Freud. Today's children and young men and women have sexual identities that spiral around paper and celluloid phantoms: from Playboy to music videos to the blank females torsos in women's magazines, features obscured and eyes extinguished, they are being imprinted with a sexuality that is mass-produced, deliberately dehumanizing and inhuman.” - Naomi Wolf

83. “Cosmetic surgery is not "cosmetic," and human flesh is not "plastic." Even the names trivialize what it is. It's not like ironing wrinkles in fabric, or tuning up a car, or altering outmoded clothes, the current metaphors. Trivialization and infantilization pervade the surgeons' language when they speak to women: "a nip," a "tummy tuck."...Surgery changes one forever, the mind as well as the body. If we don't start to speak of it as serious, the millennium of the man-made woman will be upon us, and we will have had no choice.” - Naomi Wolf

84. “Whatever is deeply, essentially female--the life in a woman's expression, the feel of her flesh, the shape of her breasts, the transformations after childbirth of her skin--is being reclassified as ugly, and ugliness as disease. These qualities are about an intensification of female power, which explains why they are being recast as a diminution of power. At least a third of a woman's life is marked with aging; about a third of her body is made of fat. Both symbols are being transformed into operable condition--so that women will only feel healthy if we are two thirds of the women we could be. How can an "ideal" be about women if it is defined as how much of a female sexual characteristic does not exist on the woman's body, and how much of a female life does not show on her face?” - Naomi Wolf

85. “Health makes good propaganda.” - Naomi Wolf

86. “She may resent Playboy because she resents feeling ugly in sex--or, if "beautiful," her body defined and diminished by pornography. It inhibits in her something she needs to live, and gives her the ultimate anaphrodisiac: the self-critical sexual gaze. Alice Walker's essay "Coming Apart" investigates the damage done: Comparing herself to her lover's pornography, her heroine "foolishly" decides that she is not beautiful.” - Naomi Wolf

87. “Self-denial can lock women into a smug and critical condescension to other, less devout women.According to Appel, cult members develop..."an attitude of moral superiority, a contempt for secular laws, rigidity of thought, and the diminution of regard for the individual." A premium is placed on conformity to the cult group; deviation is penalized. "Beauty" is derivative; conforming to the Iron Maiden [an intrinsically unattainable standard of beauty that is then used to punish women physically and psychologically for failure to achieve and conform to it] is "beautiful." The aim of beauty thinking, about weight or age, is rigid female thought. Cult members are urged to sever all ties with the past: "I destroyed all my fat photographs!"; "It's a new me!” - Naomi Wolf

88. “Real self-worth comes from mastery, from getting good at something. It doesn't matter what. Then you don't have to worry about empty compliments. You don't worry about what other people think. You have self-respect.” - Albert Borris

89. “The first and most important person you must believe in is yourself.” - Toni Sorenson

90. “Kisses were better than potions.” - Gail Carson Levine

91. “Our choices in life are made according to our sense of our own worth.” - Kaylan Pickford

92. “If you don't feel you have any choice in a situation, self-esteem and confidence plummet. But once you understand that you do have a choice, self-esteem will improve. You aren't a helpless victim anymore. You decide how you deal with a situation. You aren't just reacting to life; you're creating your life.” - Theresa Francis-Cheung

93. “Though the funny thing about never being asked for anything is that after a while you start to feel like maybe you don’t have anything worth giving.” - Lev Grossman

94. “If you want to find the real competition, just look in the mirror. After awhile you'll see your rivals scrambling for second place.” - Criss Jami

95. “You will be your best self when you take time to understand what you really need, feel and want.” - Deborah Day

96. “You don't have to be like anyone else. You just need to learn more about your own creative self and start blooming.” - Deborah Day

97. “Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable, and you are worth the effort.” - Deborah Day

98. “Make a pledge to yourself right now, to declare that you are worth your time and energy.” - Deborah Day

99. “The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

100. “Then there was the realisation that I didn't actually feel that much better when I was thin(ner). In fact the 'thin' version felt worse because I lived with hunger clawing at my stomach all the time, and in fear that I was going to get fat again. After years of neuroticism I'd finally understood those who loved me would continue to put up with me fat or thin, and those who didn't ignored me. As a middle-aged woman I was pretty much invisible anyway. To pass unnoticed through an image-obsessed society is surprisingly liberating.” - Helen Brown

101. “Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart. Don't be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you. The chances are that they aren't paying any attention to you. It's your attention to yourself that is so stultifying. But you have to disregard yourself as completely as possible. If you fail the first time then you'll just have to try harder the second time. After all, there's no real reason why you should fail. Just stop thinking about yourself.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

102. “Elizabeth scowled, feeling like a nobody, a nothing. She felt like her entire self had been made worthless. She could change her interests, but she couldn’t change her looks. She’d never be six feet tall. She’d never look like a supermodel.” - Francine Pascal

103. “The secret to your purpose is to find what you feel is important, and not pursue what others would think is important. When you think highly of yourself, me thinking highly of you will never be enough!” - Shannon L. Alder

104. “I didn't despise myself for being who I was, and I never would. I wouldn't allow anyone to make me feel bad about that. That was a line I could draw in the sand.” - Z.A. Maxfield

105. “Imprisonment is the form of punishment which may detrimentally affect not only the offender but also his family and his employment and because of its duration it can seldom be kept from becoming general public knowledge. It [...] can have a lasting demoralising effect on the character and personality of the offender. The loss of liberty, tedium, regimentation [...] which prison life entails, have a greater potentiality than a whipping for destroying the offender's self-esteem and the integrity of his character and for changing, for the worse, his way of life.” - P.W. Thirion

106. “The only one that believes in you, is you. Don't lean on how others see you to find belief in yourself.” - Anthony Liccione

107. “Pain, too, comes from depths that cannot be revealed. We do not know whether those depths are in ourselves or elsewhere, in a graveyard, in a scarcely dug grave, only recently inhabited by withered flesh. This truth, which is banal enough, unravels time and the face, holds up a mirror to me in which I cannot see myself without being overcome by a profound sadness that undermines one's whole being. The mirror has become the route through which my body reaches that state, in which it is crushed into the ground, digs a temporary grave, and allows itself to be drawn by the living roots that swarm beneath the stones. It is flattened beneath the weight of that immense sadness which few people have the privilege of knowing. So I avoid mirrors.” - Tahar Ben Jelloun

108. “Self respect, self worth and self love, all start with self. Stop looking outside of yourself for your value.” - Rob Liano

109. “The way you think about yourself determines your reality. You are not being hurt by the way people think about you. Many of those people are a reflection of how you think about yourself.” - Shannon L. Alder

110. “The only real conflict you will ever have in your life won’t be with others, but with yourself.” - Shannon L. Alder

111. “The most stable, and therefore, the most healthy self-esteem is based on deserved respect from others rather than on external fame or celebrity and unwarranted adulation.” - Abraham Maslow

112. “Life is like a sandwich!Birth as one slice,and death as the other.What you put in-between the slices is up to you.Is your sandwich tasty or sour?Allan Rufus.org” - Allan Rufus

113. “My sister said Mary Elizabeth is suffering from low self-esteem, but I told her that she said the same thing about Sam back in November when she started dating Craig, and Sam is completely different. Everything can't be low self-esteem, can it? My sister tried to clarify things. She said that by introducing me to all these great things, Mary Elizabeth gained a "superior position" that she wouldn't need if she was confident about herself. She also said that people who try to control situations all the time are afraid that if they don't, nothing will work out the way they want.” - Stephen Chbosky

114. “You your own best thing, Sethe. You are.” - Toni Morrison

115. “For there are two kinds of forgiveness in the world: the one you practice because everything really is all right, and what went before is mended. The other kind of forgiveness you practice because someone needs desperately to be forgiven, or because you need just as badly to forgive them, for a heart can grab hold of old wounds and go sour as milk over them.” - Catherynne M. Valente

116. “Life is like a game of chess.To win you have to make a move.Knowing which move to make comes with IN-SIGHTand knowledge, and by learning the lessons that areacculated along the way.We become each and every piece within the game called life!” - Allan Rufus

117. “The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

118. “I realized that I don't want to try to change you in order to be with you. That's not fair to you. And I deserve to share my life with someone who's on the same path as me, and right now, that's not you. But I need you to know that you have been such a strength and a comfort to me when I had nothing and," I started to cry, "I love you so much. You truly are my best friend. I don't want to have to imagine my world without you in it. But if following my truth creates that, then know that I will always love you no matter what you choose to do with your life.” - Hippie

119. “Learning is a matter of gathering knowledge; wisdom is applying that knowledge.” - Dr Roopleen

120. “You cannot wish for happiness but you can work towards your life goals and create lasting happiness.” - Dr Roopleen

121. “Attitude is that little thing that will make the most difference in the accomplishment of your goals.” - Dr Roopleen

122. “To be able to live each day with honor, respect and dignity is the greatest achievement of all.” - Dr Roopleen

123. “To turn your dreams into reality, all your resources, efforts and concentration should be aligned in the same direction.” - Dr Roopleen

124. “Genuine self-acceptance is not derived from the power of positive thinking, mind games or pop psychology. IT IS AN ACT OF FAITH in the God of grace.” - Brennan Manning

125. “Don't be so defensive and afraid to be proven wrong that you miss the opportunity to learn from your mistakes.” - Karen E. Quinones Miller

126. “1. We fear people because they can expose and humiliate us. 2. We fear people because they can reject, ridicule, or despise us. 3. We fear people because they can attack, oppress, or threaten us. These three reasons have one thing in common: they see people as “bigger” (that is, more powerful and significant) than God, and, out of the fear that creates in us, we give other people the power and right to tell us what to feel, think, and do.” - Edward T. Welch

127. “Only those few who are able to surpass their fear of death completely can fully experience the highest forms of life; not the mundane life of the mortal, but the godly life of the resurrected.” - Zeena Schreck

128. “When it comes to your self-esteem, it is best not to value the opinions of deluded psychopaths.” - Rosen Trevithick

129. “There's no alternative to being yourself. Accept it, honour it, value it - and get on with it.” - Rasheed Ogunlaru

130. “I'd been through so much, falling short again and again, and only recently had found a place where who I was, right now, was enough.” - Sarah Dessen

131. “One of the most powerful lessons in life is to recognize that no one can give you power, and many people don’t want you to have it. You have to find the courage to seize it, own it and hold on!” - Shannon L. Alder

132. “How far can you go in life if you don't love yourself?” - Sean King

133. “Brenda, do you know God loves you? He really does. To Him, you're perfect, absolutely perfect. You always have been.” - Nikki Rosen

134. “You have tremendous gifts to give; God sent them with you when you came to this earth. And while you might forget them, or doubt they exist, God does not forget and He will show them to you. As soon as your gifts are dedicated to His work, they will blossom. Chains that might have held you back for years will dissolve. And you will feel free. You will learn that your spirit is bigger than your circumstances, as soon as you put your spirit first.” - Marianne Williamson

135. “The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize."[Modernism's Patriarch (Time Magazine, June 10, 1996)]” - Robert Hughes

136. “Mamma says if we stay so focused on our past failings, we won't be able to move beyond them and learn what we need to know.” - Annette Bridges

137. “The problem isn’t that I think so highly of myself. It is just that you think so little of yourself. Live life BIG, BOLD and OUT LOUD!” - Shannon L. Alder

138. “People who repeatedly attack your confidence and self-esteem are quite aware of your potential, even if you are not.” - Wayne Gerard Trotman

139. “Staying silent is like a slow growing cancer to the soul and a trait of a true coward. There is nothing intelligent about not standing up for yourself. You may not win every battle. However, everyone will at least know what you stood for—YOU.” - Shannon L. Alder

140. “You've been criticising yourself for years and it hasn't worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” - Louise Hay

141. “When you encounter obstacles, don’t turn your back on them. Face them, confront them and your will see them dissolving in front of your eyes.” - Roopleen

142. “If you talked to your friends the way you talk to your body, you’d have no friends left at all.” - Marcia Hutchinson