Nathaniel Branden quote: "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."

Between the ages of 24 and 27, I read Freud's complete works, everything that had been translate...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Not a great deal is known about the factors in childhood that doubtless underlie a person's choi...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

The United States was the first country in the history of the world to be consciously created out of...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

In a world in which the total of human knowledge is doubling about every ten years, our security can...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Productive achievement is a consequence and an expression of health and self-esteem, not its cause.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

To love a person is to know and love the person. But we can pick up an enormous amount about another...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Romantic love can be terrifying. We experience another human being as enormously important to us. So...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

I cannot remember a time when the question of why people behave as they do was not intensely interes...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Of all the nonsense written about love, none is more absurd than the notion that ideal love is selfl...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

If we are happy within ourselves, we don't accept or demand that our partner should fulfill ever...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will be...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

A woman in love will do almost anything for a man, except give up the desire to improve him.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

To preserve an unclouded capacity for the enjoyment of life is an unusual moral and psychological ac...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

For the rational, psychologically healthy man, the desire for pleasure is the desire to celebrate hi...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Live with integrity, respect the rights of other people, and follow your own bliss.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Reason and emotion are not antagonists. What seems like a struggle between two opposing ideas or val...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

We are anxious when there is a dissonance between our "knowledge" and the perceivable facts. Since ...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Integrity is congruence between what you know, what you profess, and what you do.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Self esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Tell me how a person judges his or her self-esteem, and I will tell you how that person operates at ...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Self-esteem is a powerful force within each of us... Self-esteem is the experience that we are appro...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

When I was a child, I felt at times that I had been born into an insane asylum, that much of human l...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Most of us are capable of more than we believe.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Persons of high self-esteem are not driven to make themselves superior to others; they do not seek t...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Innovators and creators are persons who can to a higher degree than average accept the condition of ...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

All positive interactions with other human beings involve, to some degree, the experience of visibil...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Self-esteem is not a luxury; it is a profound spiritual need.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

The greater a child’s terror, and the earlier it is experienced, the harder it becomes to develop ...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Sometimes the subconscious mind manifests a wisdom several steps or even years ahead of the consciou...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

The natural inclination of a child is to take pleasure in the use of the mind no less than of the bo...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

If we do not believe in ourselves- neither in our efficacy nor in our goodness- the universe is a fr...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

It is generally recognized that creativity requires leisure, an absence of rush, time for the mind a...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Positive self-esteem operates as, in effect, the immune system of the consciousness, providing resis...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

We do not hear the term "compassionate" applied to business executives or entrepreneurs, certainly n...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Productive achievement is a consequence and an expression of health, self-esteem, not its cause
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

In the inner courtroom of my mind, mine is the only judgment that counts.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

[This is a very minor criticism, however, especially considering how repetition works magnificently ...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

They stimulate insights, they help us gain access to implicit or tacit knowledge, and they can also ...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

The Art of Living Consciously.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Never marry a person who is not a friend of your excitement.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Sometimes the subconscious mind manifests a wisdom several steps or even years ahead of the consciou...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Persons of high selfesteem are not driven to make themselves superior to others; they do not seek t...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

In a world in which the total of human knowledge is doubling about every ten years, our security can...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

In any culture, subculture, or family in which belief is valued above thought, and self-surrender is...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

It is a mistake to look at someone who is self assertive and say, "It's easy for her, she has good s...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

A mind that trusts itself is light on its feet.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

We are parts of one universe, true enough. We stand within an almost infinite network of relationshi...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

What is required for many of us, paradoxical though it may sound, is the courage to tolerate happine...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Some people stand and move as if they have no right to the space they occupy. They wonder why others...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

We must become what we wish to teach.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Self-discipline is the ability to organize your behavior over time in the service of specific goals.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

It is painful to face the self we know we have never had the integrity to honor and assert.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

How do we keep our inner fire alive? Two things, at minimum, are needed: an ability to appreciate th...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Consciousness that is not translated into appropriate action is a betrayal of consciousness . . . Li...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

Regardless of what we think we're teaching, we teach what we are.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN

I'll admit I was having a little trouble in the classroom before. I wasn't failing or anything, but ...
BRANDEN ORE

I'm just so anxious to get back. I want to help these guys get the job done. Being away like this ma...
BRANDEN ORE

I first hurt it in high school, but it wasn't bothering me until the UNC game [Nov. 26].
BRANDEN ORE

Every opportunity I get, I try to make the most out of it. I'm looking forward to my future here at ...
BRANDEN ORE

When you have a brother like he has, you are always going to have pressure. Everybody wants you to b...
BRANDEN ORE

You never know how much of it is him just trying to fill a role thats being created or if its si...
BRANDEN STEINECKERT

You really couldnt take four more different people together,
BRANDEN STEINECKERT

There was pretty much some drama going on during the whole making of the new album. There's no such ...
BRANDEN STEINECKERT

It's two different seasons, two different groups of girls, personalities, and chemistry, so we don't...
BRANDEN LIPPY

Each game is very important now. We can't judge any team by their record, and we have to take on eac...
BRANDEN LIPPY

We passed the ball very well but we did not capitalize as well as we have earlier.
BRANDEN ADKINS

We are making changes to get more offense and today it worked out well.
BRANDEN ADKINS

The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally pr...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

If the people in Britain knew the nature and disposition of the New England people as well as we do ...
NATHANIEL SMITH

May the Lord our God prepare us for every event, then comes Life or Death - it is no great matter.
NATHANIEL SMITH

We fear our passage will be attended with difficulties by reason of the great number of passingers w...
NATHANIEL SMITH

But the worst of all is, according to the old phrase, while the grass grows, the horse starves, but ...
NATHANIEL SMITH

There is much boasting among the young men about their teams as their horse and carts in Cleveland. ...
NATHANIEL SMITH

There is here, as in all countries, advantages and disadvantages.
NATHANIEL SMITH

In my experience, scientists are not always the most socially adjusted people, and may have habits a...
NATHANIEL RICH

I try to write 1,000 words. Some people say it's not about the quantity but about the quality. I...
NATHANIEL RICH

There is something fascinating about every human being. The question is how much they're willing...
NATHANIEL RICH

Criticism always seemed to me a lot like police work. You look for clues, fingerprints, motives. You...
NATHANIEL RICH

I studied literature and Italian at Yale. I wrote my thesis about Italo Svevo, one of my heroes.
NATHANIEL RICH

I live in New Orleans, because it's the strangest city in the United States. It has the highest ...
NATHANIEL RICH

Some of my books sort of have a provocative take. Sometimes you find interesting things about charac...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

For me, the hardest thing in the world is how to start a book.
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

As a former English major, I have always been fascinated by the connections between literature and h...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

When I was at Brown, I wanted to write the great American novel, but I was too scared to take a crea...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

Nantucket's English settlers, who first disembarked on the island in 1659, had been mindful of t...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

He was born in 1741, a descendant of the Rhode Island equivalent of royalty. The first Benedict Arno...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

Most Americans have no clue that before there were highways, there were only waterways to get throug...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

I don't subscribe to the idea that the founders or anyone else were somehow better than us and t...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

As long as I can remember, I've been writing - first poems, then stories, and by my early teenag...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

Many of us came away from our youth thinking that the story of the Revolution was that the Americans...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

For me, 'Moby-Dick' is more than the greatest American novel ever written; it is a metaphysi...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

To my mind, an adventure is something a person willingly undertakes.
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

You know, if you're at home with children, you lose twenty-five IQ points.
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

I follow the Patriots, but the Steelers were my first and true love. I still have a 'Terrible To...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

Instead of being a page-turner, 'Moby-Dick' is a repository of American history and culture ...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

We think of the revolution ending in Yorktown, Va. The fact of the matter is that the French defeate...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

There's an ugly civil war side to revolutionary Boston that we don't often talk about and a ...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

A survival tale peels away the niceties and comforts of civilization. Suddenly, all the technology a...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

A good leader has to at some point trust those around him; otherwise, nothing constructive is going ...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

In the years to come, the combination of climate change and population growth could have a devastati...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

Whaling was the oil business of its day.
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

There are a lot of bad films out there. There's a lot of bad architecture out there, and I think...
NATHANIEL KAHN

As a child, my father's architecture seemed to me to be industrial in a way. It seemed harsh and...
NATHANIEL KAHN

My father was my hero, and he died when I was 11. So, I really never experienced the kind of natural...
NATHANIEL KAHN

I really miss the Australian lifestyle and being around my friends and family.
NATHANIEL BUZOLIC

I tweeted once, and I still stick to this, that I would love to marry a Croatian girl. I want my chi...
NATHANIEL BUZOLIC

I love to meet the fans. I just get embarrassed with those who weep. I don't know what to do or ...
NATHANIEL BUZOLIC

People say I look like a vampire. I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or not.
NATHANIEL BUZOLIC

I do love to capture beauty in this world. And photos can last the test of time.
NATHANIEL BUZOLIC

A hero cannot be a hero unless in a heroic world.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits ...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

What we call real estate - the solid ground to build a house on - is the broad foundation on which n...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Easy reading is damn hard writing.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he choose...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Mountains are earth's undecaying monuments.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Faint not, poor soul, in God still trust;
Fear not the things thou suffer must;
For, whom ...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

A bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a sym...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

The pomp of death is far more terrible than death itself.
NATHANIEL LEE

I stew all night in my own grease.
NATHANIEL COTTON

It was a folly, with the materiality of this daily life pressing so intrusively upon me, to attempt ...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

I wonder that we Americans love our country at all, it having no limits and no oneness; and when you...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, wit...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

The way to be nothing is to do nothing.
NATHANIEL HOWE

Any fact is better established by two or three good testimonies than by a thousand arguments.
NATHANIEL EMMONS

Sunlight is painting.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self ...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

A bodily disease which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symp...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Habit is either the best of servants or the worst of masters.
NATHANIEL EMMONS

Mankind are earthen jugs with spirits in them.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Generosity is the flower of justice.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Nobody has any conscience about adding to the improbabilities of a marvelous tale.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Mental pleasure are never cloy; unlike those of the body, they are increased by repetition, approved...
NATHANIEL COTTON

The way of the world is, to praise dead saints, and persecute living ones.
NATHANIEL HOWE

Moonlight is sculpture.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Insanity destroys reason, but not wit.
NATHANIEL EMMONS

I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetabl...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

I could never think well of a man's intellectual or moral character, if he was habitually unfaithful...
NATHANIEL EMMONS

A woman's chastity consists, like an onion, of a series of coats.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where ...
NATHANIEL BORENSTEIN

From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

We'll therefore relish with content, Whate'er kind providence has sent, Nor aim beyond our pow...
NATHANIEL COTTON

One picture in ten thousand, perhaps, ought to live in the applause of mankind, from generation to ...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

"Here, dearest Eve," he exclaims, "here is food." "Well," answered she, with the germ of a housewi...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Some maladies are rich and precious and only to be acquired by the right of inheritance or purchase...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Dr. Johnson's morality was as English an article as a beefsteak.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

And what is more melancholy than the old apple-trees that linger about the spot where once stood a ...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

When individuals approach one another with deep purposes on both sides they seldom come at once to ...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Thus we see, too, in the world that some persons assimilate only what is ugly and evil from the sam...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will s...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

It is a suggestive idea to track those worn feet backward through all the paths they have trodden e...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

The marble keeps merely a cold and sad memory of a man who would else be forgotten. No man who needs...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Every individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important, in some respect, whether he cho...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, ...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you ...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

A bodily disease which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a sym...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, with...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

What we call real estate--the solid ground to build a house on--is the broad foundation on which ne...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Mountains are earth's undecaying monuments.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves ...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Every crime destroys more Edens than our own.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Eager souls, mystics and revolutionaries, may propose to refashion the world in accordance with thei...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Is it a fact -- or have I dreamt it -- that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

If solid happiness we prize, Within our breast this jewel lies, And they are fools who roam; ...
NATHANIEL COTTON

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you wi...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Perhaps, moreover, he whose genius appears deepest and truest excels his fellows in nothing save th...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

All brave men love; for he only is brave who has affections to fight for, whether in the daily battl...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

I had a great AP U.S. History teacher in Pittsburgh. We still exchange Christmas cards. She was the ...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's s...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and ...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

I know I should feel anger at my father for certain things. But since he died when I was 11, I never...
NATHANIEL KAHN

We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the ...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me.
NATHANIEL LEE

When I was a kid, we weren't really supposed to listen to secular music. But one day, I found a ...
NATHANIEL RATELIFF

Unfortunately, we have a tendency to see figures from the past as caricatures - either all good or a...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

There was a listlessness in his gait, as if he saw no reason for taking one step further, nor felt a...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvelous and merciful, that the sufferer should...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

A woman's chastity consists, like an onion, of a series of coats.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it le...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

In all natural disasters through time, man needs to attach meaning to tragedy, no matter how random ...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

You can get assent to almost any proposition so long as you are not going to do anything about it.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Washington worked very hard to create his legacy. Even before the War of Independence was over, he w...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling ...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

It is impossible to say when 37-year-old Benedict Arnold first met 18-year-old Peggy Shippen, but we...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

I consider myself a writer who happens to write about history, rather than a historian. I was an Eng...
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

A stale article, if you dip it in a good, warm, sunny smile, will go off better than a fresh one tha...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

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.

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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

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