Quotes about Self-esteem

The greatest secret for eliminating the inferiority complex, which is another term for deep and profound self doubt, is to fill your mind to overflowing with faith. Develop a tremendous faith in God and that will give you a humble yet soundly realistic faith in yourself.

A sense of inferiority and inadequacy interferes with the attainment of your hopes, but self-confidence leads to self-realisation and successful achievement.

Insecurity is worse than poverty.

We nourish the bodies of our children and friends and employees, but how seldom do we nourish their self-esteem? We provide them with roast beef and potatoes to build energy, but we neglect to give them kind words of appreciation that would sing in their memories for years like the music of the morning stars.

I am convinced now that nothing good is accomplished and a lot of damage can be done if you tell a person straight out that he or she is wrong. You only succeed in stripping that person of self-dignity and making yourself an unwelcome part of any discussion.

Humility is to make a right estimate of one's self it is no humility for a man to think less of himself than he ought, though it might rather puzzle him to do that.

I do not believe we can repair the basic fabric of society until people who are willing to work have work. Work organizes life. It gives structure and discipline to life. It gives meaning and self-esteem to people who are parents. It gives a role model to children.

Sometimes we disfigure ourselves by what we think about ourselves rather than by what we do to ourselves. Some people have been disfigured emotionally because of what others did to them when they were children. Sometimes our memory banks become warehouses of beliefs and feelings that cripple our progress.

I believe strongly that one of the primary goals of religion is to teach people to like themselves and feel good about themselves. All my experience has taught me that people who feel good about themselves will be more generous, more forgiving of others, less defensive about their mistakes, more assessable to change, and better able to cope with misfortune and adversity.

A sense of our inadequacies and failings, a recognition that we could be better people than we usually are, is one of the forces for moral growth and improvement in our society. An appropriate sense of guilt makes people try to be better. But an excessive sense of guilt, a tendency to blame ourselves for things which are clearly not our fault, robs us of our self-esteem and perhaps of our capacity to grow and to act.

The most difficult secret for a man to keep is his own opinion of himself.

Why is that true? Because when our friends excel us, they feel important; but when we excel them, they—or at least some of them—will feel inferior and envious.