Self Respect Quotes

Strong and rare natures are thus created; misery, almost always a stepmother, is sometimes a mother; privation gives birth to power of soul and mind; distress is the nurse of self-respect; misfortune is a good breast for great souls. ~ Victor Hugo

This image of his remained in the forefront of my memory so long, I think, because life itself can seem a lot like that: a matter of holding one's self-respect together, instead of a horse, as one's self-respect is expected to hurdle fences and hedges and water. My dear thirteen-year-old daughter Lily, having become a pretty adolescent, appears to me, as do most American adolescents, to be holding her self-respect together the best she can in a really scary steeplechase. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

To yield to the threat or actual use of violence is a surrender of one's self respect and religious conviction. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Borrowing other people's culture and adopting other people's way of life does destroy nation's self-respect which is the greatest asset a true citizen can enjoy more than food and clothes, more than all amenities and more than military glory. You can adopt a system of government and a way of life, but can you adopt the past history, travail and tradition out of which that system of government and a way of life were evolved? Can we adopt King Charles, King John, Magna Carta and civil wars and Cromwell as our own? They can always say "We evolved a system and a way of life", but we must always sing in refrain, "We borrowed them". Adopting a culture is not the same as adopting the use of a gadget. It is like tying other peoples' mangoes to your tree, while plucking and throwing away your own. How absurd! ~ Manasa Rao

And you will have gone just one more step in the direction of developing the habit of looking for and finding the good qualities in others. I cannot overemphasize the far-reaching effects of this habit of praising, openly and enthusiastically, the good qualities in others; for this habit will soon reward you with a feeling of self-respect and manifestation of gratitude from others that will modify your entire personality. Here, again, the law of attraction enters, and ~ Napoleon Hill

The Occupied Territories; you think there is absolutely no way you can get to it. Do you see how close it is? How touchable? How real?

When the eye sees it, it has all the clarify of earth and pebbles and hills and rocks. It has its colours and its temperatures and its wild plants too.

Who would dare to make it into an abstraction now that it has declared its physical self to the senses?

It is no longer 'the beloved' in the poetry of resistance, or an item on a political party program, and it is not an argument or a metaphor. It stretches before me, as touchable as a scorpion, a bird, a well; visible as a field of chalk, as the prints of shoes.

I asked myself, what is so special about it except that we have lost it? It is a land, like any land.

We sing for it only so that we may remember the humiliation of having had it taken from us. Our song is not for some sacred thing of the past but for our current self-respect that is violated anew every day by the Occupation. ~ Mourid Barghouti

Violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect ~ Frantz Fanon

And to have learned how to accept favors from friends without losing your self-respect or appearing ungrateful. ~ Marcus Aurelius

Our self-respect tracks our choices. Every time we act in harmony with our authentic self and our heart, we earn our respect. It is that simple. Every choice matters. ~ Don Coppersmith

Tony:...but you need something to do about Noah.

Paul: I know, I know. The only problem being that (a) he thinks I'm getting back with my ex-boyfriend, (b) he thinks I'll only hurt him, because (c) I've already hurt him and (d) someone else has already hurt him, which means that I'm hurting him even more. So (e) he doesn't trust me, and in all fairness, (g) every time I see him, I (h) want everything to be right again and I (i) want to kiss him madly. This means that (j) my feelings aren't going away anytime soon, but (k) his feelings don't look likely to budge, either. So either (l) I'm out of luck, (m) I'm out of hope, or (n) there's a way to make it up to him that I'm not thinking of. I could (o) beg, (p) plead, (q) grovel, or (r) give up. But, in order to do that, I would have to sacrifice my (s) pride, (t) reputation, and (u) self-respect, even though (v) I have very little of them left and (w) it probably wouldn't work anyway. As a result, I am (x) lost, (y) clue-free, and (z) wondering if you have any idea whatsoever what I should do. ~ David Levithan

He did not smile at his employees, he did not take them out for drinks, he never inquired about their families, their love lives or their church attendance. He responded only to the essence of a man: to his creative capacity. In this office one had to be competent. There were no alternatives, no mitigating considerations. But if a man worked well, he needed nothing else to win his employer's benevolence: it was granted, not as a gift, but as a debt. It was granted, not as affection, but as recognition. It bred an immense feeling of self-respect within every man in that office. ~ Ayn Rand

Those who doubt themselves will doubt you. Those who limit themselves will try to limit you. Do not fight them. Smile, go your own way, and trust that your example is enough. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

Conceited men often seem a harmless kind of men, who, by an overweening self-respect, relieve others from the duty of respecting them at all. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

I am not a capitalist in the simplistic left/right sense. But I do believe in the power of the global free-market economy and in using capitalist tools. I believe in the power of teh free market and the power of capital in the marketplace. I also believe that providing unemployment benefits is not the best way to address poverty. The able-bodied poor don't wan tor need charity. The dole only increases their misery, robs them of incentive and, more important, of self-respect. ~ Muhammad Yunus

Self-respect,
the corner-stone of all virtue. ~ John Herschel

She cared. She gave a crap. When I lacked even the self-respect to keep myself alive, she dabbed my cuts and I fell back into being a son; I fell as easily as you fall into your pillow at night. And I didn't want it to end. That's the best way I can explain it. I knew it was impossible. But I didn't want it to end. ~ Mitch Albom

Being kind is not an invitation to be dumped on. So be kind, but not at the expense of your self-respect. ~ Charles F. Glassman

Anything that encourages pauperism, anything that relaxes the manly fiber and lowers self-respect, is an unmixed evil. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Contemplating the goodness within ourselves is a classical meditation, done to bring light, joy, and rapture to the mind. In contemporary times this practice might be considered rather embarrassing, because so often the emphasis is on all the unfortunate things we have done, all the disturbing mistakes we have made. Yet this classical reflection is not a way of increasing conceit. It is rather a commitment to our own happiness, seeing our happiness as the basis for intimacy with all of life. It fills us with joy and love for ourselves and a great deal of self-respect. Significantly, when we do metta practice, we begin by directing metta toward ourselves. This is the essential foundation for being able to offer genuine love to others ~ Sharon Salzberg

The best way a writer can find to keep himself going is to live off his (or her) spouse. The trouble is that, psychologically at least, it's hard. Our culture teaches none of its false lessons more carefully than that one should never be dependent. Hence the novice or still unsuccessful writer, who has enough trouble believing in himself, has the added burden of shame. It's hard to be a good writer and a guilty person; a lack of self-respect creeps into one's prose. ~ John Gardner

Citizens who over-rely on their government to do everything not only become dependent on their government, they end up having to do whatever the government demands. In the meantime, their initiative and self-respect are destroyed. ~ Charles Koch

MUGWUMP, n. In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of independence. A term of contempt. ~ Ambrose Bierce

....because you deserve someone that just gets it.... ~ Kierra C.T. Banks

Never compromise your "Self-respect" for "Love". If feel like you are loosing your "Self-respect" for "Love" Tell them you can keep your "love" and I will keep my "Self-respect ~ Sharfaraz Ahmed

The enemies of Christ ... could not bear his independence; his "Give the emperor that which is the emperor's" showed a contempt for the affairs of state and its politics for the moral order that their self-respect would not let them tolerate. ~ John Carroll

Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect. ~ Eric Hoffer

Let a man then know his worth and keep things under his feet. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

No one can ever make you feel inferior without your permission, Tory. Don't give it to them. Realize that it's their own insecurities that make them attack you and others. They're so unhappy with themselves that the only way they can feel better is by making everyone as unhappy as they are. Don't let those people steal your day, baby. You hold your head high and know that you have the one thing they can never take away from you. (Theo)
What's that, Papa? (Tory)
My love. Your mother's love and the love of your family and true friends. Your own self-respect and sense of purpose. Look at me, Torimou, people laugh at me all the time and say that I'm chasing rainbows. They told George Lucas that he was a fool for making Star Wars – they used to even call it Lucas's Folly. Did he listen? No. And if he'd listened to them you wouldn't have had your favorite movie made and think of how many people would never have heard the phrase 'May the Force be With You.' (Theo) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Movements toward freedom and the self-respect that comes from something other than what people think is their most important feature. ~ Toni Morrison

Since very few things in life are worth getting into silly arguments over, I virtually don't respond at all when someone tries to persuade me otherwise. I simply take the tangent by making people smarter--it is my way to simply "bow and take my leave" instead of stooping to argue, with someone of lower intellect, lesser emotional maturity or simply lower class. It is a reasonable solution, their demeanour changes instantly. ~ Efrat Cybulkiewicz

I may not be a king or a queen, but I'll be damned if I'm not treated like royalty. ~ Samuel Crone

The challenge to America is to extend to Asia the defensive shield of American power in forms consonant with Asian freedom and self-respect. ~ Ferdinand Marcos

When you're an original it may take time for people to catch on. So keep at it and don't question yourself. ~ Lorin Morgan-Richards

Tracy: Stop eating people's old french fries, little pigeon. Have some self-respect. Don't you know you can fly? ~ Tina Fey

When old people talk too much in presence of younger persons, they wouldn't know when their value would be diminishing.

Talk less especially when a younger person is in your midst, it's a sign of dignity ~ OMOSOHWOFA CASEY

Sobriety, severity, and self-respect are the foundations of all true sociality. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Don't ever feel bad that someone couldn't give you all of their heart. Be grateful that you can take the least complicated part of their soul with you, wherever you go. This is more than some people will ever have. ~ Shannon L. Alder

You can't fight progress. The best you can do is ignore it, until it finally takes your livelihood and self-respect away. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Opportunity is what these kids lack," Burns said. "The path is the corner or the stoop. We're talking about these kids here on the corner. They don't have advocates ... Corner kids, there's nobody rooting for them. You have to change that world, and where you have to start is ages zero to three. That's the most formative years of your life, and you're not even in charge of it. You got to go back and you got to create institutions that give that child the dignity, the self-respect, the love that he or she needs to go out into the world. (221-222) ~ Jonathan Abrams

Incredible how so many people have no sense of honor. How does this happen? This happens by thriving on how one appears to the world around him rather than cultivating a person inside him that he knows is honorable and that he can be proud of. When all the focus is on what people think about you based upon your facebook profile or based upon the exterior that you put on everyday; you leave no room for looking at yourself and saying, "I want to look into the mirror every day and see someone that I can be proud of." And that's what a life of honor is based upon. It is based upon the knowledge that you know your own actions, your own self, and you can see the things that you do and know the things that you think. You answer to yourself, therefore, your standards need to come up to what you expect of yourself. It doesn't matter at all if anybody is looking. When such a sense of honor is present in a large group of people, that's when we see no crime rate or a very low crime rate, respect for other human life and personas, respect for the surroundings and really a respect for oneself. Because a respect for other people can only first be born from a true respect for oneself. ~ C. JoyBell C.

My heart is not a toy thing, you cannot just come and go. Choose quickly, or I'll choose for you - I have learnt much about eating alone. ~ Nikki Rowe

You increase your self-respect when you feel you've done everything you ought to have done, and if there is nothing else to enjoy, there remains that chief of pleasures, the feeling of being pleased with oneself. A man gets an immense amount of satisfaction from the knowledge of having done good work and of having made the best use of his day, and when I am in this state I find that I thoroughly enjoy my rest and even the mildest forms of recreation. ~ Eugene Delacroix

A decadent civilization compromises with its disease, cherishes the virus infecting it, loses its self-respect. ~ Emile M. Cioran

I'd rather see you poor men's wives, if you were happy, beloved, contented, than queen's on thrones, without self-respect and peace. ~ Louisa May Alcott

Lord, please restore to us the comfort of merit and demerit. Show us that there is at least something we can do. Tell us that at the end of the day there will at least be one redeeming card of our very own. Lord, if it is not too much to ask, send us to bed with a few shreds of self-respect upon which we can congratulate ourselves. But whatever you do, do not preach grace. Give us something to do, anything; but spare us the indignity of this indiscriminate acceptance. ~ Robert Farrar Capon

And in an odd way, realizing all this has given me an unexpected satisfaction and a little more self-respect. I have changed, and it's for the better. You really can't love unconditionally. People can burn and beat love out of you. They really can kill it, and it's not your fault you don't feel it anymore, and how liberating it is to finally realize that. Love isn't for better or for worse, through thick or thin. ~ Patricia Cornwell

The problem here is that most people who get caught cheating apologize and give the 'It will never happen again' spiel and that's that, as if penises fell into various orifices completely by accident. Many cheatees accept this response at face value, and don't question the values and fucks given by their partner (pun totally intended); they don't ask themselves whether those values and fucks make their partner a good person to stay with. They're so concerned with holding on to their relationship that they fail to recognize that it's become a black hole consuming their self respect.

If people cheat, it's because something other than the relationship is more important to them. It may be power over others. It may be validation through sex. It may be giving in to their own impulses. Whatever it is, it's clear that the cheater's values are not aligned in a way to support a healthy relationship. And if the cheater doesn't admit this or come to terms with it, if he just gives the old 'I don't know what I was thinking; I was stressed out and drunk and she was there' response, then he lacks the serious self-awareness necessary to solve any relationship problems. ~ Mark Manson

The body is innocent. Deeply, beautifully, fundamentally innocent. ~ Rachel Hartman

I knew what it felt like to have no say in who you were as a sexual being. It didn't just strip away your dignity. It stripped away everything you were: your identity, your self-respect, your pleasure. Because it was all about the pleasure of the other person take, take, taking whatever they wanted from you, even if it was uncomfortable, or caused you pain. Even if you died from it, the other person still wouldn't care, because it was all about them. ~ Jess C. Scott

Nowhere is moral shortcoming more prevalent than in the intersection between our espoused morality and the way we engage romantic and sexual partners. In truth, how we function sexually is a microcosm of the way that we are in the world. We might ask ourselves, "Are we being selfish, considerate, or dismissive? Are we minimizing, compliant or controlling?" Sex is the ultimate laboratory where we can actually try out new ways of relating to ourselves and our lover, being conscious and mindful of how we impact another person. It takes great humility to open a genuine exploration of our lived
not just stated
morality. But to live by the dictates of our own internal compass brings equally great joy, serenity, and self-respect. ~ Alexandra Katehakis

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. ~ Gautama Buddha

Every act of self control leads to a sense of self-respect. ~ Abraham Low

Self-respect
I honor and love myself through my beautiful actions. ~ Doreen Virtue

As Kelly Rae so beautifully demonstrated, boundaries are simply our lists of what's okay and what's not okay. In fact, this is the working definition I use for boundaries today. It's so straightforward and it makes sense for all ages in all situations. When we combine the courage to make clear what works for us and what doesn't with the compassion to assume people are doing their best, our lives change. Yes, there will be people who violate our boundaries, and this will require that we continue to hold those people accountable. But when we're living in our integrity, we're strengthened by the self-respect that comes from the honoring of our boundaries, rather than being flattened by disappointment and resentment. ~ Brene Brown

In the end, most women get the type of man they dress for. ~ Tad R. Callister

So, what is my concept of a perfect life?

Doing something you love, being in the company of someone you love, while all material needs are satisfied. (Hmmm…sounds almost too simple, yet it does sound like the correct formula for me.)

Let's try to simplify: Enjoyment, Love, Satisfaction.

I truly believe that each of these core elements not only apply to our relationship with others and the world around us, but more importantly to our relationship with our self. That is likely one of the keys to personal fulfillment: enjoying the person you are, loving the person you are and being satisfied with the person you are.

If you are not, something must change before you start worrying about gaps or missing elements regarding your relationship to the world around you. Too often, people go chasing elusive relationships and opportunities, seeking enjoyment, love and satisfaction without first attending to their relationship with their self.

Start with the core, before searching for more. ~ Rob Kozak

To deny political equality is to rob the ostracised of all self-respect; of credit in the market place; of recompense in the world of work; of a voice among those who make and administer the law; a choice in the jury before whom they are tried, and in the judge who decides their punishment. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Dav­el­lon may be a vil­lage, but the Dav­el­lon House can be any­thing you make it. No­bil­ity has to start some­where. It might as well start with you. Let no­body look down on you, for what­ever rea­son, My Lord. Ti­tles are granted or in­her­ited, no­bil­ity isn't.

~Tenaxos I to Landar Parmingh, Baron Davellon ~ Andrew Ashling

One of the causes of unhappiness among intellectuals in the present day is that so many of them, especially those whose skill is literary, find no opportunity for the independent exercise of their talents, but have to hire themselves out to rich corporations directed by Philistines, who insist upon their producing what they themselves regard as pernicious nonsense. If you were to inquire among journalists in either England or America whether they believed in the policy of the newspaper for which they worked, you would find, I believe, that only a small minority do so; the rest, for the sake of a livelihood, prostitute their skill to purposes which they believe to be harmful. Such work cannot bring any real satisfaction, and in the course of reconciling himself to the doing of it, a man has to make himself so cynical that he can no longer derive whole-hearted satisfaction from anything whatever. I cannot condemn men who undertake work of this sort, since starvation is too serious an alternative, but I think that where it is possible to do work that is satisfactory to man's constructive impulses without entirely starving, he will be well advised from the point of view of his own happiness if he chooses it in preference to work much more highly paid but not seeming to him worth doing on its own account. Without self-respect genuine happiness is scarcely possible. And the man who is ashamed of his work can hardly achieve self-respect. ~ Bertrand Russell

It is a pleasurable thing to earn the admiration of others, but it is a far better feeling to honestly admire thyself. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Insecurity cuts deeper and extends more widely than bare unemployment. Fear of loss of work, dread of the oncoming of old age, create anxiety and eat into self-respect in a way that impairs personal dignity. ~ John Dewey

That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is most often unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages. ~ Adam Smith

The fraudulent behaviour does not make a man of conscience. Sooner or later fraud gets exposed and the fraudster, not only loses other esteem but also loses self-respect. ~ Ehsan Sehgal

Give respect to everyone for the first time.
Let them earn it for the next times. ~ Basit Junaid Afzal

Here's the thing: you're not really ready for love until you have enough self-respect that if you met your exact self, but in a guy, you would totally, completely, absolutely want to be with him. ~ Tracy McMillan

No one will give a damn about you and your excellence unless you give a damn about yourself. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Astarte has come again, more powerful than before. She possesses me. She lies in wait for me.

December 97

My cruelty has also returned: the cruelty which frightens me. It lies dormant for months, for years, and then all at once awakens, bursts forth and - once the crisis is over - leaves me in mortal terror of myself.

Just now in the avenue of the Bois, I whipped my dog till he bled, and for nothing - for not coming immediately when I called! The poor animal was there before me, his spine arched, cowering close to the ground, with his great, almost human, eyes fixed on me... and his lamentable howling! It was as though he were waiting for the butcher! But it was as if a kind of drunkenness had possessed me. The more I struck out the more I wanted to strike; every shudder of that quivering flesh filled me with some incomprehensible ardour. A circle of onlookers formed around me, and I only stopped myself for the sake of my self-respect.

Afterwards, I was ashamed.

I am always ashamed of myself nowadays. The pulse of life has always filled me with a peculiar rage to destroy. When I think of two beings in love, I experience an agonising sensation; by virtue of some bizarre backlash, there is something which smothers and oppresses me, and I suffocate, to the point of anguish.

Whenever I wake up in the middle of the night to the muted hubbub of bumps and voices which suddenly become perceptible in the dormant city - ~ Jean Lorrain

If you feel inadequate to face challenges, unworthy of love or respect, untitled to happiness, and fear assertive thought, wants, or needs- if you lack basic self trust, self-respect, and self-confidence- your self-esteem deficiency will limit you, no matter what other assets you possess. ~ Nathaniel Branden

The poor man's price of admittance to the favor of the rich is his self-respect. ~ Ambrose Bierce

A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi

I could never adjust to the separate waiting rooms, separate eating places, separate rest rooms, partly because the separate was always unequal, and partly because the very idea of separation did something to my sense of dignity and self-respect. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Only one valid law: never belittle others. Never belittle yourself. ~ Marty Rubin

Acceptance is an art that must be mastered if we want to keep our friends for the span of life that remains to us, and presently step off the stage with our self-respect intact. ~ Ethel Smyth

There are worse things than suffering and death ... it is worse to lose one's self-respect. ~ Sandor Marai

Although to be driven back upon oneself is an uneasy affair at best, rather like trying to cross a border with borrowed credentials, it seems to me now the one condition necessary to the beginning of self-respect. Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The tricks that work on others count for nothing in that very well-lit back alley where one keeps assignations with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions. ~ Joan Didion

The question "Is this an act of self-love or is it an act of self-sabotage?" is
one you must consistently ask yourself if you are committed to having all
that you want and all that you deserve. When you love yourself you feel
worthy and deserving of claiming the gifts of this world. Self-love gives you
peace of mind and balance. Self-love gives you self-respect and the ability
to respect others. It gives you the confidence to stand up and ask for what
you want. Self-love is the main ingredient in a successful, fulfilled life. ~ Debbie Ford

The grandiose person is never really free; first because he is excessively dependent on admiration from others, and second, because his self-respect is dependent on qualities, functions, and achievements that can suddenly fail. ~ Alice Miller

I think death has a right to its own courage and dignity and self-respect. ~ Adela Rogers St. Johns

What was so miraculous about a relationship that was based more on my gratitude than on mutual self respect? ~ Justina Chen

True humility is intelligent self respect which keeps us from thinking too highly or too meanly of ourselves. It makes us modest by reminding us how far we have come short of what we can be. ~ Ralph W. Sockman

The corruption of freedom is in proportion to the moral deterioration of the people. For a people who have lost their sense of self-respect have no need for freedom. And the income tax, by transferring the property of earners to the State, has disintegrated the moral fiber of Americans to such a degree that they do not even recognize the fact. ~ Frank Chodorov

People try to accept themselves in order to be different, and try to surrender themselves in order to have more self-respect in their own eyes - or ~ Alan W. Watts

Self-respect is the best means of getting the respect of others. ~ Napoleon Hill

Is there a price too great to pay for your own happiness? What is the price that you are willing to pay for your own happiness? ~ Lenon Honor

Don't restrain yourself to mundaneness. You're subject to consciousness that makes you more than animalistic. ~ T.F. Hodge

... but I don't think I'm the only person who is tired of books and movies full of paper-doll characters you don't care about, who have no self-respect and no respect for anybody or any institution ... ..And I don't want to sound preachy or Victorian, but I'm tired of amorality in fiction and in real life. Immorality is a fascinating human dilemma that creates suspense for the readers and tension for the characters, but where is the tension in an amoral situation? When people have no personal code, nothing is threatening and nothing is meaningful. ~ Olive Ann Burns

The most admirable quality among people is when we pause, and think of something to say, without ripping others to shreds (even if they deserved it). ~ Efrat Cybulkiewicz

I would rather quit public life at seventy, and quit it forever, than to retain public life at a sacrifice to my own self-respect. I will not vote for any law which will make fair for me and foul for another. The blacklist is the most cruel form of oppression ever devised by man for the infliction of suffering upon his weaker fellows. ~ Joseph Gurney Cannon

Don't let people who don't care about you manipulate your mind feelings and emotions, or controls how you think about yourself. Never give that much power to someone else. ~ Karon Waddell

A man who has been the indisputable favorite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror. ~ Sigmund Freud

Depression is awful beyond words or sounds or images ... it bleeds relationships through suspicion, lack of confidence and self-respect, the inability to enjoy life, to walk or talk or think normally, the exhaustion, the night terrors, the day terrors. There is nothing good to be said for it except that it gives you the experience of how it must be to be old, to be old and sick, to be dying; to be slow of mind; to be lacking in grace, polish and coordination; to be ugly; to have no belief in the possibilities of life, the pleasures of sex, the exquisiteness of music or the ability to make yourself and others laugh. ~ Kay Redfield Jamison

Some loves are like that. Your heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, & your self-respect & independence. After a while you start throwing people out - friends, everyone you know. & it's still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, & you know it's going to take you down with it. I've seen that happen to a lot of people. I think that's why I'm sick of love. - Karla ~ Gregory David Roberts

A key barometer to help us weigh the rightness of our actions is self-respect. ~ Sharon Salzberg

If there is to be no loss whatever of dignity or self-respect in getting and staying on relief, then there can be no gain in dignity or self-respect in makings some sacrifices to keep off. ~ Henry Hazlitt

If love and friendship makes you unhappy, try solitude. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

You can't belittle a person in one breath and then expect them to grow self-respect and self-reliance with the next. ~ Tim Greaton

The spirit of the South Atlantic was the spirit of Britain at her best. It has been said that we surprised the world, that British patriotism was rediscovered in those spring days. It was never really lost. But it would be no bad thing if the feeling that swept the country then were to continue to inspire us. For if there was any doubt about the determination of the British people it was removed by the men and women who, a few months ago, brought a renewed sense of pride and self-respect to our country. ~ Margaret Thatcher

I also realized that in my family drama a very limited number of character traits were available to the players. In my mind, either I could be weak, wimpy, submissive, and pathetic, or I could be a raging tyrant and bully who demanded total compliance from everyone in my realm. The notion of being strong and assertive while staying calm, insisting on appropriate boundraries and on being treated with respect and dignity, were not in my realm of experience. Once I realized that I was much happier with the person I was in the rest of my life, I realized it was foolish not to be that "me" around my family as well. I began to feel liberated and genuinely felt they could take the new me or leave it. So far, they've chosen to leave it, but I feel a sense of integrity and self-respect that I had never experienced before. ~ Mark Sichel

Confident women don't COMPARE themselves to other women ~ Dr. Reina Moo

If you respect yourself, you will respect others. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita