Societal Validation Quotes

I became an overachiever to get approval from the world.

He whose honor depends on the opinion of the mob must day by day strive with the greatest anxiety, act and scheme in order to retain his reputation. For the mob is varied and inconsistent, and therefore if a reputation is not carefully preserved it dies quickly.

I always wanted to be famous because I thought that if I couldn't be good [at something], I'd be famous. I was never really good. I was just something different and I got to be famous for being different.

A man, in order to establish himself in the world, does everything he can to appear established there.

Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories: the story of our quest for sexual love and the story of our quest for love from the world.

I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. It's more important to confirm the least sincere. The clouds get enough attention as it is.

Black boys shouldn't have to feel that being good at sports is the only way to be cool - or to be valued by the world.

In a country where everyone strives for attention, it is better to be bankrupt than to be nothing.

They please, are pleas'd, they give to get esteem Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.

The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue.

It's great that Time is moving in the direction of validating those who, by choice or circumstance, will never be parents. But the point is not simply that society should stop judging those of us who don't have children. It's that society actually needs us. Children need us.

I believe that a lot of people in our society today, people who have been hurt and even people who haven't been hurt, get their worth and value from what they do, what they look like, what they own, what kind of job they have, what kind of house they live in, how much money they have, what social circles they're in, what level of education they have, especially even how other people respond to them. They feel better about themselves if everybody is giving a smiling nod to the way they look and all their choices.