One of the very best of all earthly possessions is self-possession.
—George D. Prentice (1802–70) American Journalist, Editor, Poet
The soul that is within me no man can degrade.
—Frederick Douglass (1817–95) American Abolitionist, Author, Editor, Diplomat, Leader
You should examine yourself daily. If you find faults, you should correct them. When you find none, you should try even harder.
—Israel Zangwill (1864–1926) English Playwright, Novelist, Zionist Activist
Each of us needs time for mental self-renewal.
—Whitt N. Schultz (1920–84) American Self-Help Author
Self-respect cannot be hunted. It cannot be purchased. It is never for sale. It cannot be fabricated out of public relations. It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that, knowing the good, we have done it; knowing the beautiful, we have served it; knowing the truth we have spoken it.
—Alfred Whitney Griswold (1906–63) American Historian, Educator
Every one stamps his own value on himself.—The price we challenge for ourselves is given us.—Man is made great or little by his own will.
—Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist
The duty of man is the same in respect to his own nature as in respect to the nature of all other things, namely not to follow it but to amend it.
—John Stuart Mill (1806–73) English Philosopher, Economist
It is the highest form of self-respect to admit our errors and mistakes and make amends for them. To make a mistake is only an error in judgment, but to adhere to it when it is discovered shows infirmity of character.
—Dale Turner (1917–2006) American Priest, Columnist, Epigrammist
One self-approving hour whole years outweighs of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
Self-respect is the fruit of discipline, the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–72) American Jewish Rabbi
Without self-respect there can be no genuine success. Success won at the cost of self-respect is not success? For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own self-respect.
—B. C. Forbes (1880–1954) Scottish-born American Journalist, Publisher
The individual woman is required a thousand times a day to choose either to accept her appointed role and thereby rescue her good disposition out of the wreckage of her self-respect, or else follow an independent line of behavior and rescue her self-respect out of the wreckage of her good disposition.
—Jeannette Rankin (1880–1973) American Feminist, Pacifist
I care not so much what I am in the opinion of others as what I am in my own; I would be rich of myself and not by borrowing.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man’s self-respect is a sin.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–44) French Novelist, Aviator
Respect yourself and others will respect you.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
It may be no less dangerous to claim, on certain occasions, too little than too much. There is something captivating in spirit and intrepidity, to which we often yield as to a resistless power; nor can he reasonably expect the confidence of others who too apparently distrusts himself.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Respecting yourself means listening to your body and emotions continuously. Then acting beyond a linear logic to achieve ones goals.
—Unknown
Would that there were an award for people who come to understand the concept of enough. Good enough. Successful enough. Thin enough. Rich enough. Socially responsible enough. When you have self-respect, you have enough.
—Gail Sheehy (1936–2020) American Writer, Journalist
Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The pious and just honoring of ourselves may be thought the fountainhead from whence every laudable and worthy enterprise issues forth.
—John Milton (1608–74) English Poet, Civil Servant, Scholar, Debater
He who is bashful before others but is not before himself is wanting in self-respect.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
Who will adhere to him that abandons himself?
—Philip Sidney (1554–86) English Soldier Poet, Courtier
If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.
—Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American Poet
No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
When thou hast profited so much that thou respectest thyself, thou mayest let go thy tutor.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life is the source from which self-respect springs.
—Joan Didion (1934–2021) American Essayist, Novelist, Memoirist
Self-respect is a question of recognizing that anything worth having has a price.
—Unknown
To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference.
—Joan Didion (1934–2021) American Essayist, Novelist, Memoirist
They cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
Self-respect…that corner-stone of all virtue.
—John Herschel (1792–1871) English Mathematician, Astronomer, Chemist
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