Top 165 Quotes & Sayings by Nathaniel Branden - Page 3

The music that inspires the souls of lovers exists within themselves and the private universe they occupy. They share it with each other; they do not share it with the tribe or with society. The courage to hear that music and to honor it is one of the prerequisites of romantic love.

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.

If we do not believe in ourselves- neither in our efficacy nor in our goodness- the universe is a frightening place.

Accepting does not necessarily mean liking, enjoying, condoning. I can accept what is-and be determined to evolve from there. It is not acceptance but denial that leaves me stuck.

How do we nurture the soul? By revering our own life. By learning to love it all, not only the joys and the victories, but also the pain and the struggles.

Loving consciously does not mean subjecting your relationship to endless analysis. It means something much simpler: paying attention. Noticing. This requires presence.

Sometimes the subconscious mind manifests a wisdom several steps or even years ahead of the conscious mind, and has its own way of leading us toward our destiny.

Respect starts with ourselves.

One of the characteristics of love relationships that flower is a relatively high degree of mutual self-disclosure

To trust one's mind and to know that one is worthy of happiness is the essence of self-esteem.

To preserve an unclouded capacity for the enjoyment of life is an unusual moral and psychological achievement. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the prerogative of mindlessness, but the exact opposite: It is the reward of self-esteem.

Your life is important. Whether you achieve what you want in life matters. Whether you are happy matters. Honor and fight for your highest potential. Self-realizatio n-the realization of the best within you-is the noblest goal of your existence.

Suppose you feel you cannot accept some fact about yourself. Then own your refusal to accept. Own the block. Embrace it fully. And watch it begin to disappear. The principal is this: Begin where you are-accept that. Then change and growth become possible.

Capitalism, by its nature, entails a constant process of motion, growth and progress.

It is true that people are sometimes hit by adversities beyond their control. But those so affected are better helped when they are awakened to the resources they do possess than when they are told they don't have any.

When your principles seem to be demanding suicide, clearly it's time to check your premises

Reason and emotion are not antagonists. What seems like a struggle between two opposing ideas or values, one of which, automatic and unconscious, manifests itself in the form of a feeling.

The lies most devastating to our self-esteem are not so much the lies we tell as the lies we live.

The natural inclination of a child is to take pleasure in the use of the mind no less than of the body. The child's primary business is learning. It is also the primary entertainment. To retain that orientation into adulthood, so that consciousness is not a burden but a joy, is the mark of the successfully developed human being.

When you are frightened, you typically pull energy in to your center, seeing less, hearing less-shrinking consciousness precisely when you need to expand it.

If we attach more importance to what other people believe than to what we know to be true - if we value belonging over being - we will not attain authenticity.

Moved by a passion they do not understand for a goal they seldom reach, men and women are haunted by the vision of a distant possibility that refuses to be extinguished.

An emotion is both a mental and a physical event.

The policy of seeking values from human beings by means of force, when practiced by an individual, is called crime. When practiced by a government, it is called statism.

The desire for self-esteem without integrity is like the desire for wealth without effort-a longing for the unearned.

Whether your focus is on preserving and strengthening family ties in a world of increasingly unstable relationships, gaining access to a decent job, growing and evolving as a person, or guiding a company through the stormy seas of a fiercely competitive global marketplace-whether your goals are material, emotional, or spiritual-the price of success is the same: thinking, learning. To be asleep at the wheel-to rely only on the known, familiar, and automatized-is to invite disaster.

In any culture, subculture, or family in which belief is valued above thought, and self-surrender is valued above self-expression, and conformity is valued above integrity, those who preserve their self-esteem are likely to be heroic exceptions.

Faith is the commitment of one's consciousness to beliefs for which one has no sensory evidence or rational proof. When man rejects reason as his standard of judgement, only one alternative standard remains to him: his feelings. A mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition. Faith is the equation of feelings with knowledge

... there is an irrational, cultish tendency in many intellectual movements, and Objectivism, alas, is no exception. Ayn Rand's personal obsession with loyalty did little to discourage this trend.... Rand had often protested, 'Protect me from my followers!'

If you bring five percent more awareness to your work tomorrow, or to your most important relationship, what might you do differently? Are you willing to find out?

Freedom is still the most radical idea of all.

Force, governmental coercion, is the instrument by which the ethics of altruism - the belief that the individual exists to serve others - is translated into political reality.

Whether in the workplace or in personal relationships, success belongs to those who are willing to take responsibility for attaining their desires-those who respond to life actively rather than passively.

If you have high self-esteem, you might still know times of emotional suffering, but less often and with faster recovery-your resilience is greater.

High self esteem people can surely be knocked down by an excess of troubles, but they are quickerto pick themselves up again.

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-assertiven ess requires courage, no matter how high your self-esteem.

Do not marry the enemy of your excitement.

Innovators and creators are persons who can to a higher degree than average accept the condition of aloneness. They are more willing to follow their own vision, even when it takes them far from the mainland of the human community. Unexplored places do not frighten them- or not, at any rate, as much as they frighten those around them. This is one of the secrets of their power. That which we call genius has a great deal to do with courage and daring, a great deal to do with nerve.

It is a curious paradox of human history that a doctrine that tells human beings to regard themselves as sacrificial animals has been accepted as a doctrine representing benevolence and love for mankind.

Individualism is at once an ethical-psychological concept and an ethical-political one. As an ethical-psychological concept, individualism holds that a human being should think and judge independently, respecting nothing more than the sovereignty of his or her mind; thus, it is intimately connected with the concept of autonomy. As an ethical-political concept, individualism upholds the supremacy of individual rights

I have to respect other's opinions even if I don't agree with them.

The world belongs to those who persevere.

Fully to surrender to love can be terrifying. But it is the price life asks in exchange for the possibility of ecstasy.

A productive purpose to which you give yourself fully and joyfully is one of the great adventures of life. It is a uniquely human source of happiness.

It is easy enough to say, Be true to your values. But what if your values are irrational? Or what if the virtues you have committed yourself to are so much against human nature that they cannot be practiced consistently? Be careful of what you accept as your code of morality. Think carefully about whether its tenets serve your life and well being. Exercise critical judgment. Realize how much is at stake-your life, your happiness, your self-esteem.