43 Inspiring Self-Love Quotes

In a world that often encourages self-improvement and transformation, it's essential to pause and celebrate oneself as we are. Embracing the power of self-love can transform our lives, offering a foundation of self-respect and inner peace. Whether you're on a journey to cultivate more self-compassion or simply seeking a boost of positivity, these inspiring self-love quotes can serve as gentle reminders of the inherent worth and beauty within each of us. Dive into this curated collection, and let these words encourage you to appreciate the unique brilliance that you bring to the world.

1. “Since [narcissists] deep down, feel themselves to be faultless, it is inevitable that when they are in conflict with the world they will invariably perceive the conflict as the world's fault. Since they must deny their own badness, they must perceive others as bad. They project their own evil onto the world. They never think of themselves as evil, on the other hand, they consequently see much evil in others.” - M. Scott Peck

2. “When a woman becomes her own best friend life is easier.” - Diane Von Furstenberg

3. “Anya looked upon Nin admirably. Having him as a partner-in-crime—if only on this one occasion, which she hoped would only be the start of something more—was more revitalizing than the cheap thrills of a cookie-cutter shallow, superficial romance, where the top priority was how beautiful a person was on the outside.” - Jess C. Scott

4. “I feel keeping a promise to yourself is a direct reflection of the love you have for yourself. I used to make promises to myself and find them easy to break. Today, I love myself enough to not only make a promise to myself, but I love myself enough to keep that promise” - Steve Maraboli

5. “You were not meant for a mundane or mediocre life!” - Steve Maraboli

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

7. “Dare to love yourselfas if you were a rainbowwith gold at both ends.” - Author-Poet Aberjhani

8. “So then, the relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself.” - Alan Wilson Watts

9. “A deep love resides inside each of us. This love is independent of the desires, thoughts, and opinions, good or bad, which are readily offered to us. It is a love that is gentle and kind, accepting and nonjudgmental, playful and spontaneous, courageous and curious. It is always encouraging and always evolving. This love can be discovered only through turning off the noise around us, coming to ourselves in silence, meditation, and prayer. If we listen carefully we will hear the murmurs of our inner voice tell yearnings of our truest selves. What is available to us is a profound understanding, appreciation, and full acceptance of self, all of the good and all of the bad. Only when we truly know that we are able to tap into this part of ourselves can we begin to love others fully. Love for others is the manifestation of love for self. We cannot love another more than we love ourselves. Life is a mirror. If you want to know what love for yourself looks like, look at your love for others. If you want to know what your love for others look like, look at your love for self. When you love yourself this way, you love God this way. This relationship is the divine love triangle; self, God, and others in any order.” - Marlon Lindsay

10. “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

11. “Do something every day that is loving toward your body and gives you the opportunity to enjoy the sensations of your body.” - Golda Poretsky

12. “Sometimes, I cannot control myself. Please do not blame me, its not me. Maybe it is someone who knows better about me.” - Santosh Kalwar

13. “Once you start recognizing the truth of your story, finish the story. It happened but you're still here, you're still capable, powerful, you're not your circumstance. It happened and you made it through. You're still fully equipped with every single tool you need to fulfill your purpose.” - Steve Maraboli

14. “I come across too much material on "how to make a man want you", "how to make a man commit", "how to make a man finally pop the question", "how to make a man take you seriously", "how to get into a man's emotions." And I laugh. My dear fellow women, enough! Do not busy yourselves with such things! Instead, fall in love with yourself!” - C. JoyBell C.

15. “The most adventurous journey to embark on; is the journey to yourself, the most exciting thing to discover; is who you really are, the most treasured pieces that you can find; are all the pieces of you, the most special portrait you can recognize; is the portrait of your soul.” - C. JoyBell C.

16. “HOW do you define a word without concrete meaning? To each his own, the saying goes, soWHYpush to attain an ideal state of being that no two random people will agree isWHERE you want to be? Faultless. Finished. Incomparable. People can never be these, and anyway,WHENdid creating a flawless facade become a more vital goal than learning to love the personWHOlives inside your skin? The outside belongs to others. Only you should decide for you -WHATis perfect.” - Ellen Hopkins

17. “I have known friendship love, parental love, romantic love, family love and unrequited love in my life time, but the only love that made a difference was self love. You don't need confirmation from the world or another person that you matter. You simply do matter. When you finally believe that truth and live it then you can do amazing things with your life!” - Shannon Alder

18. “Life is too short to waste any amount of time on wondering what other people think about you. In the first place, if they had better things going on in their lives, they wouldn't have the time to sit around and talk about you. What's important to me is not others' opinions of me, but what's important to me is my opinion of myself.” - C. JoyBell C.

19. “The person in life that you will always be with the most, is yourself. Because even when you are with others, you are still with yourself, too! When you wake up in the morning, you are with yourself, laying in bed at night you are with yourself, walking down the street in the sunlight you are with yourself.What kind of person do you want to walk down the street with? What kind of person do you want to wake up in the morning with? What kind of person do you want to see at the end of the day before you fall asleep? Because that person is yourself, and it's your responsibility to be that person you want to be with. I know I want to spend my life with a person who knows how to let things go, who's not full of hate, who's able to smile and be carefree. So that's who I have to be.” - C. JoyBell C.

20. “Loving oneselfIs the most primalOf all survival mechanisms” - Karen Hackel

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

22. “The goal is to learn to be nurturing with yourself so you can feel free.” - Deborah Day

23. “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

24. “Some of us are crèmes brûlées, unfortunately in the presence of those who would rather have corn dogs. We can try to degenerate into corn dogs to make them happy, or we can just accept the fact that we were made for Paris!” - C. JoyBell C.

25. “Whatever they say about it, but being altruistic is not so simple for everyone. Not to look and sound like despotism, altruism must be learnt, and it’s a long way, which in fact begins from our egoism, for really, a human can’t love others if he doesn’t love himself first.” - Lara Biyuts

26. “She held herself until the sobs of the child inside subsided entirely. I love you, she told herself. It will all be okay.” - H Raven Rose

27. “It’s all about falling in love with yourself and sharing that love with someone who appreciates you, rather than looking for love to compensate for a self love deficit.” - Eartha Kitt

28. “Obviously, the choice between human selfishness and divine Selfishness is not about leaving or not leaving a relationship. More important are the day-to-day opportunities in the course of relationship. It is really the choice of living from the heart or living from fear. And how do you live from fear? Saying "yes" when your heart wants to say "no." Saying "no" when your heart wants to say "yes." By not listening to your heart (i.e., what is best for your soul), you compromise your truth, and cause suffering in the relationship. You may be afraid of hurting your friend. You may be afraid of losing their love and friendship. Whatever it is you are afraid of, it is still fear that is ruling you, rather than love.” - Joyce Vissell

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

30. “All my life, in nameless, indeterminate ways, I'd tried to complete my life with someone else--first my father, then Hugh, even Whit, and I didn't want that anymore. I wanted to belong to myself.” - Sue Monk Kidd

31. “The one person who will never leave us, whom we will never lose, is ourself. Learning to love our female selves is where our search for love must begin.” - bell hooks

32. “How much self-love comes in the guise of selfless devotion!” - Susan Sontag

33. “Haven't we all, as time continues, found that we must be kind to ourselves and listen to our thoughts, because fewer and fewer of those remain who know what is most real to us?” - Lan Samantha Chang

34. “To love one’s self, this is the greatest challenge we are all called to face.” - T. Scott McLeod

35. “One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others. There was a time when I felt lousy about my over-forty body, saw myself as too fat, too this, or too that. Yet I fantasized about finding a lover who would give me the gift of being loved as I am. It is silly, isn't it, that I would dream of someone else offering to me the acceptance and affirmation I was withholding from myself. This was a moment when the maxim "You can never love anybody if you are unable to love yourself" made clear sense. And I add, "Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself.” - bell hooks

36. “Don't rush into any kind of relationship. Work on yourself. Feel yourself, experience yourself and love yourself. Do this first and you will soon attract that special loving other.” - Russ von Hoelscher

37. “Monsters were wild. Monsters were strong. Monsters were fierce and free.If I was monstrous...perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing.” - Sarah Diemer

38. “We’re hungry for acceptance—from ourselves even more than from others—for love, for fulfillment, for peace. We’re hungry for a life we think we don’t deserve or can’t have, for the person we know we can be if only we’d give ourselves the chance.” - Mary DeTurris Poust

39. “Jesus tells us: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ (Mk 12:31). How can we love our neighbor if we can’t or won’t love ourselves, at least a little? When we hold ourselves to unrealistic standards, that perfectionist attitude can’t help but trickle down. It becomes harder to have compassion for others if we have no compassion for ourselves.” - Mary DeTurris Poust

40. “It's hard loving those who don't much like themselves: "If you're so great, why would you think I'm so great.” - Alain De Botton

41. “Self-love isn’t always so poetic; sometimes it’s a nice big triple back flip kick in the ass. You’ve got to call yourself on your own nonsense; on the incredibly efficient way you can be self-destructive.” - Steve Maraboli

42. “When you have developed a relationship with yourself, you can begin to take on the world.” - Gabriella Kortsch Ph. D.

43. “If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.” - Charles Bukowski