Nathaniel Branden Quotes

68 Sourced Quotes

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

Nathaniel Branden
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.

Nathaniel Branden
Living consciously reflects the conviction that sight is preferable to blindness; that respecting the facts of reality is more satisfying than denying them; that evasion does not make the unreal real or the real unreal; that it is better to correct your mistakes that to pretend they do not exist; and that the more conscious you are of facts bearing on your life and goals, the more wisely and effectively you can act.

Nathaniel Branden
If you overcome your fear to ask someone for a date, a raise, or help with a project, that is an act of self-assertiveness. You are moving out into life rather than contracting and withdrawing.

Nathaniel Branden
If you are terrified of making mistakes, you will be reluctant to acknowledge them when you do make them-and therefore you will not correct them.

Nathaniel Branden
Integrity is congruence between what you know, what you profess, and what you do.

Nathaniel Branden
Rand always says, Never pass up an opportunity to pass moral judgment. Well I say: Look for an opportunity to do something more useful instead. Nobody was led to virtue by being told he was a scoundrel.

Nathaniel Branden
Some people have a view of self and of the universe that obliges them to struggle for happiness, to yearn for happiness-"some time in the future"-perhaps next year or the year after that. But not now. Not at this moment. Not here. Here and now is too terrifyingly close, too terrifyingly immediate. They suffer from happiness anxiety.

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

Nathaniel Branden
You have a right to your feelings. Your feelings are there to tell you something, but they are not infallible guides to behavior.

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

Nathaniel Branden
One of the mistakes that Rand makes is that after she condemns a belief or an action, she goes on to tell you the psychology of the person who did it, as if she knows. I focus my judgment on the action and not on the person. My primary interest is: do I admire or dislike this behavior? And there, judgment is important for me. People often attribute all kinds of things to another person, without ever knowing where that person's coming from. Most of the time, I regard the judgment of people as a waste of time. I regard the judgment of behavior as imperative.

Nathaniel Branden
The highest compliment one can be paid by another human being is to be told: 'Because of what you are, you are essential to my happiness.'

Nathaniel Branden
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.

Nathaniel Branden
Positive self-esteem operates as, in effect, the immune system of the consciousness, providing resistance, strength, and a capacity for regeneration. When self-esteem is low, our resilience in the face of life's adversities is diminished. We crumble before vicissitudes that a healthier sense of self could vanquish. We tend to be more influenced by the desire to avoid pain than to experience joy. Negatives have more power over us than positives.

Nathaniel Branden
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.

Nathaniel Branden
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.

Nathaniel Branden
Taking on responsibilities that properly belong to someone else means behaving irresponsibly toward yourself. You need to know where you end and someone else begins. You need to understand boundaries. You need to know what is and is not up to you, what is and is not in your control, what is and is not your responsibility.

Nathaniel Branden
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.

Nathaniel Branden
The tragedy of too many people is that they cannot allow happiness just to be there; they cannot leave it alone. Their sense of who they are and of what their destiny is cannot accommodate happiness. So they are drive to find ways to sabotage it.

Nathaniel Branden
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.

Nathaniel Branden
If you face life without confidence in your own powers, you succumb too easily to setbacks and adversity; you lack the will to persevere.

Nathaniel Branden
What is guilt? It is moral self-reproach-I did wrong when it was possible to have done otherwise.

Nathaniel Branden
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.

Nathaniel Branden