Nathaniel Branden Quotes

Life imposes things on you that you can't control, but you still have the choice of how you're going to live through this.

Successful people are able to rise above crises by relaxing no matter what the external situation. Their belief in themselves, the strength of their self-image is impenetrable armor, which protects them against shattering events.

It's not the circumstances that determine who you're gonna be but how you deal with these problems and pains that come your way.

You can't avoid pain, but you can choose to overcome it.

Something horrible may have happened to you, but you always have a choice in how you respond to it. You have the "Why does bad stuff always happen to me? I'm never going to find happiness" option, and the "This sucks but I'm going to learn and evolve from it, examine what role I played in it, and ultimately it will help me become the person I'm supposed to be" option.

At the center of our agency is our freedom to form a healthy attitude toward whatever circumstances we are placed in!

If you become a master of meaning, you become a master of your life. Two people can have the same experience. One person decides that because of that experience his or her life is over, while the other decides that God has challenged him or her to step up, face the challenge, and become more than he or she ever was before.

We cannot always control everything that happens to us in this life, but we can control how we respond.

Sickness is a hindrance to the body, but not to your ability to choose, unless that is your choice. Lameness is a hindrance to the leg, but not to your ability to choose. Say this to yourself with regard to everything that happens, then you will see such obstacles as hindrances to something else, but not to yourself.

It's not what happens to us that defines us. It's what we choose to do with what happens to us that defines us.

This is an important lesson to remember when you're having a bad day, a bad month, or a shitty year. Things will change: you won't feel this way forever. And anyway, sometimes the hardest lessons to learn are the ones your soul needs most.

Sometimes when things get hard, we tend to set our sights on what's hard, that difficult thing that keeps us upset, and we turn our back on our strengths.

The first question to be answered by any individual or by any social group, The real handle facing a hazardous sit - to a difficult uation, is whether the stuaton crisis is to be met as a challenge to strength or as an occasion for despair.

It's not what happens to you that determines how far you will go in life; it is how you handle what happens to you.

Some people give their problems swimming lessons instead of drowning them.

Life is not about focusing on the obstacles. It's about how you handle them, and whether you get enlightenment or levity from the way you do it

I love hearing stories about, you know, people who are overcoming challenges in their life. And when you experience hardships, you can either fold or rally, and just by a paradigm shift in your belief system.

When you face adversity . . . don't' ask: Why does this have to happen to me? Why do I have to suffer this, now? What have I done to cause this? Rather ask: What am I to do? What am I to learn from this experience? What am I to change? Whom am I to help? How can I remember my many blessings in times of trial?

When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.

Adversity, and perseverance and all these things can shape you. They can give you a value and a self-esteem that is priceless.

All of us suffer difficulties in our lives. And if you say to yourself 'find a way,' you'll make it through.

The struggle I went through has value.

Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: 'It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.

You have to accept the storms and the rainy days and the things in life that you sometimes don't want to face.

My truth is that what doesn't kill you makes you weaker rather than stronger, although it makes you wiser.