Nathaniel Branden

Nathaniel Branden

"A bully hides his fears with fake bravado. That is the opposite of self-assertiveness."
53 Quotes
"A bully hides his fears with fake bravado. That is the opposite of self-assertiveness."
Nathaniel Branden
"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."
Nathaniel Branden
"All positive interactions with other human beings involve, to some degree, the experience of visibility-- that is, the experience of being seen and understood."
Nathaniel Branden
"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."
Nathaniel Branden
"Out of fear, out of the desire for approval, out of misguided notions of duty, people surrender themselves--their convictions and their aspirations--every day. There is nothing noble about it. It takes far more courage to fight for your values than to relinquish them."
Nathaniel Branden
"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."
Nathaniel Branden
"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."
Nathaniel Branden
"It is a mistake to look at someone who is self assertive and say, It's easy for her, she has good self-esteem. One of the ways you build self-esteem is by being self-assertive when it is not easy to do so. There are always times when self-assertiveness requires courage, no matter how high your self-esteem."
Nathaniel Branden
"It is painful to face the self we know we have never had the integrity to honor and assert."
Nathaniel Branden
"Genuine self esteem – please understand this – genuine self esteem is not competitive or comparative. Genuine self esteem isn’t expressed by self-glorification at the expense of others, or by trying to make yourself superior to everyone else, or diminishing others in order to elevate yourself. Arrogance, boastfulness, the overestimation of your abilities, reflect low self esteem, even though we’re often encouraged to believe the opposite. In human beings, joy in the simple fact of existence is a core meaning of healthy self esteem. Thus understood, how can you possibly have too much of it?"
Nathaniel Branden
"One of the hardest expressions of self-assertiveness is challenging your limiting beliefs."
Nathaniel Branden
"Integrity is congruence between what you know, what you profess, and what you do."
Nathaniel Branden
"Self-esteem is not a luxury; it is a profound spiritual need."
Nathaniel Branden
"It is naive to think that self-assertiveness is easy. To live self-assertively--which means to live authentically--is an act of high courage. That is why so many people spend the better part of their lives in hiding--from others and also from themselves."
Nathaniel Branden
"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."
Nathaniel Branden Six Pillars of Self-Esteem
"Self-discipline is the ability to organize your behavior over time in the service of specific goals."
Nathaniel Branden
"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."
Nathaniel Branden Six Pillars of Self-Esteem
"The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance."
Nathaniel Branden
"Romantic love can be terrifying. We experience another human being as enormously important to us. So there is surrender - not a surrender to the other person so much as to our feeling for the other person. What is the obstacle? The possibility of loss."
Nathaniel Branden
"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."
Nathaniel Branden
✉️

Get more quotes like Nathaniel Branden's — every morning.

Join thousands of wisdom seekers getting daily quotes from 300,000+ curated sources.

Free forever. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.