Selected self worth quotes

1. How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.

2. Every man and every woman is a star.

3. All I ask of Life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance.

4. The important thing isn't the house. It's the ability to make it. You carry that in your brains and in your hands, wherever you go... It's one thing to carry your life wherever you go. Another thing to always go looking for it somewhere else.

5. Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike; One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.

6. I'm not afraid of Spassky. The world knows I'm the best. You don't need a match to prove it.

7. Oh, I've wept. Yeah, I've definitely wept just with the world, you know, how judgmental they are. You know what, I know I'm a good mom.

8. A day wasted on others is not wasted on one's self.

9. Charlie Brown is the one person I identify with. C.B. is such a loser. He wasn't even the star of his own Halloween special.

10. Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.

11. Revere thyself, and yet thyself despise.

12. Pygmies are pygmies still, though percht on Alps; And pyramids are pyramids in vales. Each man makes his own stature, builds himself. Virtue alone outbuilds the Pyramids; Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall.

13. To believe that if we could have but this or that we would be happy is to suppress the realization that the cause of our unhappiness is in our inadequate and blemished selves. Excessive desire is thus a means of suppressing our sense of worthlessness.

14. Some people have no original ideas because they do not think well enough of themselves to consider their ideas worth noticing and developing.

15. What most people in our culture mean by being lovable is essentially a mixture between being popular and having sex appeal.

16. Hunger hurts, but starving works, when it costs too much to love.

17. So much is a man worth as he esteems himself.

18. I love the pride whose measure is its own eminence and not the insignificance of someone else.

19. The most real of all splendors are not in outward things, they are within us.

20. Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got.

21. It is an aspect of all happiness to suppose that we deserve it.

22. I honor my importance and the importance of others. None of us is dispensable, none of us is replacable. In the chorus of life each of us brings a True Note, a perfect pitch that adds to the harmony of the whole. I act creatively and consciously to actively endorse and encourage the expansion of those whose lives I touch. Believing in the goodness of each, I add to the goodness of all. We bless each other even in passing.

23. My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me never to delight in praise or to be distressed by reproach. Before my Soul taught me, I doubted the value of my accomplishments until the passing days sent someone who would extol or disparage them. But now I know that trees blossom in the spring and give their fruits in the summer without any desire for accolades. And they scatter their leaves abroad in the fall and denude themselves in the winter without fear of reproof.

24. Why would I cry over a boy? I would never waste my tears on a boy. Why waste your tears on someone who makes you cry?

25. You have to be careful who you let define your good.

26. First, I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm a person. Then maybe I'll convince myself that I'm an actress.

27. In Hollywood a girl's virtue is much less important than her hairdo. You're judged by how you look, not by what you are. Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty.

28. Women who set a low value on themselves make life hard for all women.

29. Don't live your life to please other people.

30. I'm like a good cheese. I'm just getting mouldy enough to be interesting.

31. Our first duty is not to hate ourselves, because to advance we must have faith in ourselves first and then in God. Those who have no faith in themselves can never have faith in God.

32. As for the people who say tackling problems through clothes is superficial, I think they say that because they have their own issues about self worth.

33. Eventually every man gotta face the problem of tryin' to figger if it's worthwhile to prove that he is himself.

34. We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.

35. 'If someone says, 'Hey, I ran 100 miles this week. How far did you run?' Ignore him! What the hell difference does it make? The magic is in the man, not the 100 miles.'

36. Don't Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

37. I believe in my own divinity - and yours.

38. Surely we have had enough of confusing maleness with 'usefulness' and other human virtues. If men had a more modest view of what their masculinity ought to entail, perhaps they could move on from debilitating feelings of loss to tackling their real economic and political problems.

39. I am better than my reputation.

40. Beauty isn't worth thinking about; what's important is your mind. You don't want a fifty-dollar haircut on a fifty-cent head.

41. And you know you're hard enough. And you find you're strong enough. Oh yeah you'll find you're hard enough. Oh yeah you'll find you're strong enough. ~ 'Come Back Home'

42. I can't buy her diamonds, my dick's too small. I never know where I stand with her. It's either a black eye or a love bite.

43. She said, 'I'll show you a picture, A picture of tomorrow, There's nothing changing, it's all sorrow.' 'Oh, no, please don't show me I'm a swine, you don't wanna know me!'

44. Je vous aime, Beaucoup moins que mon Dieu, mais bien plus que moi-meme.

45. That's the story of my life, no respect, ya know?

46. Men that look upon my outside, perusing only my condition, and fortunes, do err in my altitude; for I am above Atlas his shoulders.

47. Fuck it, I feel like I shine.

48. The dreamer sometimes falls into the doldrums, but is said to emerge from them again. And the absent-minded person also makes up for it with bouts of perspicacity. Sometimes he is a person whose right to exist has a justification that is not always immediately obvious to you, or more usually, you may absent-mindedly allow it to slip from your mind. Someone who has been wandering about for a long time, tossed to and fro on a stormy sea, will in the end reach his destination. Someone who has seemed to be good for nothing, unable to fill any job, any appointment, will find one in the end and, energetic and capable, will prove himself quite different from what he seemed at first.

49. My writing is careless, but all through it is something that is good, that is mine alone, that no other writer could ever achieve.

50. Dicko: Can I say that you look absolutely fabulous tonight? I thought that was going to be a great song for you, but I can still hear you thinking. You're worth a lot more than you realise, you have to learn to feel more. I think that your greatest barrier is yourself...

51. 'I am but as others: I am but what I was born to be.' 'Do you recognize what you were born to be? Not only a nobleman, but a gentleman; not only a gentleman, but a man - man, made in the image of God. How can you, how dare you, give the lie to your Creator?' 'What has He given me? What have I to thank Him for?' 'First, manhood; the manhood His Son disdained not to wear; worldly gifts, such as rank, riches, influence, things which others have to spend half an existence in earning; life in its best prime, with much of youth yet remaining - with grief endured, wisdom learnt, experience won. Would to Heaven, that by any poor word of mine I could make you feel all that you are - all that you might be!' A gleam, bright as a boy's hope, wild as a boy's daring, flashed from those listless eyes - then faded. 'You mean, Mr. Halifax, what I might have been. Now it is too late.' 'There is no such word as 'too late,' in the wide world - nay, not in the universe. What! shall we, whose atom of time is but a fragment out of an ever-present eternity - shall we, so long as we live, or even at our life's ending, dare to cry out to the Eternal One, 'It is too late!''

52. So when some man says to me, 'Don't you wish you were beautiful?' those are like killing words. That's my death, if I don't pummel it into his soft, not yet completely formed radio disc jockey skull that I am already beautiful, and I wish for nothing, other than for him to go away. I am so beautiful, sometimes people weep when they see me. And it has nothing to do with what I look like really, it is just that I gave myself the power to say that I am beautiful, and if I could do that, maybe there is hope for them too. ... You can't even get to me. I got special service, boundaries like the rings of Saturn. I am protected. I am four - five faggots deep all around me, who don't see your name on the list, who will not let you in here looking like that, who will hold you in a cold, hard, unflinching stare or back hand compliment you until you cry. ... If you even had the courage to ask me out you would have to do it by mail, sent months in advance, on a single 5 by 7 sheet of eggshell vellum, signed in blood and sealed in gold and scented with a light mist of the new fragrance by alan cumming, just so I could throw it away without becoming repulsed.

53. Part of me thinks I'm a loser and part of me thinks I am God-Almighty

54. you'll know it's true, that you are blessed and lucky it's true, that you are touched by something that will grow and bloom in you

55. How suddenly we find the flesh of god within us after all, when we thought we were only made of dust

56. He hadn't realized how much he needed the honor of others until he finally got it

57. If he wants you, then I don't want him. The man I loved wouldn't have gotten married without bothering to break off his previous engagement. So whatever you've got there with his arm attached to your back. It's not a man I ever knew or ever wanted. Somebody else, somebody faithless. I deserve better. So save your tears for yourself. Bitch

58. I don't like the thought of you being married to a woman who always thinks she married down That's a problem isn't it? But the truth is, she did No. No, that's not true. There is no woman alive who, marrying you, would be marrying down I thought - that's a thing that mother would say Yes. Mothers say things like that more than fathers do

59. Waiting your time, dreaming of a better life Waiting your time, you're more than just a wife

60. And when he tells you you ain't nothin / don't believe him / And if he can't learn to love you / you should leave him

61. Less than the dust beneath thy chariot wheel, Less than the rust that never stained thy sword,

62. I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous- everyone hasn't met me yet.

63. 'I am but as others: I am but what I was born to be.' 'Do you recognize what you were born to be? Not only a nobleman, but a gentleman; not only a gentleman, but a man - man, made in the image of God. How can you, how dare you, give the lie to your Creator?' 'What has He given me? What have I to thank Him for?' 'First, manhood; the manhood His Son disdained not to wear; worldly gifts, such as rank, riches, influence, things which others have to spend half an existence in earning; life in its best prime, with much of youth yet remaining - with grief endured, wisdom learnt, experience won. Would to Heaven, that by any poor word of mine I could make you feel all that you are - all that you might be!' A gleam, bright as a boy's hope, wild as a boy's daring, flashed from those listless eyes - then faded. 'You mean, Mr. Halifax, what I might have been. Now it is too late.' 'There is no such word as 'too late,' in the wide world - nay, not in the universe. What! shall we, whose atom of time is but a fragment out of an ever-present eternity - shall we, so long as we live, or even at our life's ending, dare to cry out to the Eternal One, 'It is too late!''

64. This world is bullshit. And just because I appear in music video wherein I am in my underwear, and make young women feel not good enough so that they become anorxeic; and okay, maybe because of that I became popular more quickly than other singers who are, I don't know, maybe more talented or better songwriters. That doesn't matter because, and ... um ... my boyfriend is a magician, and he can pull a quarter out of your ear and say things like 'We have not met before have we?' Go with yourself.

65. I'm selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control, and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.

66. Follow the three Rs: Respect for self, Respect for others and Responsibility for all your actions.

67. The attempt to force human beings to despise themselves: is what I call hell.

68. Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.

69. Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!

70. When they have really learned to love their neighbours as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbours.

71. What is at stake is human dignity. If a man is not accorded respect he cannot respect himself and if he does not respect himself, he cannot demand it.

72. A lot of times black folks look for love in all the wrong places. You're always looking for somebody to love you, be accepted, and there's the insecurities that are even transmitted through rap. Everyone is trying to aim to please too much.

73. Your eyes are poor. You're blind. You see, no beauty could have come from me. I'm a waste of breath, of space, of time.

74. You need at this time especially to know that you are fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder. You need to know that you were not created to work and produce and impoverish yourself to enrich an idle exploiter. You need to know that you have a mind to improve, a soul to develop, and a manhood to sustain.

75. Thing thrown to a corner, rag fallen on the road, my ignoble being feigns itself in front of life.

76. Each one of us is special and it's because of who we are inside. We're all different and we all have something to offer our world.

77. When I'm not thanked at all, I'm thanked enough; I've done my duty, and I've done no more.

78. When I am not desperate, I am worthless.

79. My son don't have to say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud. He don't have to be called those crazy names.

80. She was of course only too good for him; but as nobody minds having what is too good for them, he was very steadily earnest in the pursuit of the blessing...

81. Self-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue.

82. I am the greatest show on Earth.

83. And clenching your fist for the ones like us who are oppressed by the figures of beauty, you fixed yourself, you said, 'Well never mind, we are ugly but we have the music.'

84. To be disesteemed by people you don't have much respect for is not the worst fate.

85. I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.

86. There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.

87. Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

88. My dear father, if we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it.

89. It is a very hard undertaking to seek to please everybody.

90. If I have any talent at all, it is not for doing but for being.

91. Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.

92. 'But what can I do?' cried she, spreading out her arms helplessly. 'I can not hew down trees, as my father used; and in all this end of the king's domain there is nothing else to be done. For there are so many shepherds that no more are needed, and so many tillers of the soil that no more can find employment. Ah, I have tried; hut no one wants a weak girl like me.' 'Why don't you become a witch?' asked the man. 'Me!' gasped Mary-Marie, amazed. 'A witch!' 'Why not?' he inquired, as if surprised. 'Well,' said the girl, laughing. 'I'm not old enough. Witches, you know, are withered dried-up old hags.' 'Oh, not at all!' returned the stranger. 'And they sell their souls to Satan, in return for a knowledge of witchcraft,' continued Mary-Marie more seriously. 'Stuff and nonsense!' cried the stranger angrily. 'And all the enjoyment they get in life is riding broomsticks through the air on dark nights,' declared the girl. 'Well, well, well!' said the old man in an astonished tone. 'One might think you knew all about witches, to hear you chatter. But your words prove you to be very ignorant of the subject. You may find good people and bad people in the world; and so, I suppose, you may find good witches and bad witches. But I must confess most of the witches I have known were very respectable, indeed, and famous for their kind actions.' 'Oh. I'd like to be that kind of witch!' said Mary-Marie, clasping her hands earnestly.