Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

In society, we have to earn other things of import like trust, respect, money, education, careers, status and etc., so naturally, we find ourselves attempting to earn love, acceptance and validation along with that. Here's the trip: we do it at the cost of other people and, more importantly, ourselves.

It's nice to be included in people's fantasies but you also like to be accepted for your own sake.

I'm a strange person - I don't really get rewards out of how many hits I have on YouTube. I love it, and I'm grateful, and it's important to me. But does it equal peace within me? No, it doesn't.

Today a woman must ignore her reflection in the eyes of her lover, since he might admire her, and seek it in the gaze of the God of Beauty, in whose perception she is never complete.

No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments. We need people to bear witness against our inner judge, who keeps book on our shortcomings and transgressions. We need people to convince us that we are not as bad as we think we are.

The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others' appraisals to play a determining role in how we see ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among.

Nobody can determine what your life means or how much your valued. You are your value.

It's a better boost to my ego that people are commenting positively on my appearance than negatively.

I need to keep reminding myself that I don't need a million people to watch my videos, all I need is one. If one person reaches out to me and says, 'This is great, I love it, let's be friends,' I am just as content.

I realized that everyone was only complimenting me for the way I looked. More than my voice, people focused on how pretty I am.

I'd got into the habit of needing that security, love, and acceptance from a guy to make me happy.

Winning or losing an argument, receiving an acceptance or rejection, is no proof of the validity or value of personal identity. One may be wrong, mistaken, or a poor craftsman, or just ignorant - but this is no indication of the true worth of one's total human identity: past, present and future!

Is it not excessively ridiculous to seek the good opinion of those whom you would never wish to be like?

When you believe that other people think highly of you, your level of self-acceptance and self-esteem goes straight up.

To know I was beautiful in his eyes made me beautiful.

...people liking you or not liking you is an accident and is to do with them and not you. That goes for love too, only more so.

You have money, fame, youth, beauty, talent. That's a good start... for feeling good.

A man who does not love praise is not a full man.

He who is usually self-sufficient becomes exceptionally vain and keenly alive to fame and praise when he is physically ill. The more he loses himself the more he has to endeavor to regain his position by means of the opinion of others.

If anyone steps on your ego, instantly, he becomes your enemy. But a Guru is a friend who constantly tramples your ego.

I'm encouraging you to know what you're worth. And know that no matter who has more money in class, who has more stuff, who has a country house - nobody is worth more than anybody else.

If the man succeeds in becoming indifferent to the opinions of his neighbors he runs into another danger, that of a distorted and extravagant self of the pride sort, since by the very process of gaining independence and immunity from the stings of depreciation and misunderstanding, he has perhaps lost that wholesome deference to some social tribunal that a man cannot dispense with and remain quite sane.

Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; The rest is all but leather and prunello.

It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own.

Before, I thought I was actually fighting for my own self-worth; that is why I so desperately wanted people to like me. I thought their liking me was a comment on me, but it was a comment on them.