The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.

In a world in which the total of human knowledge is doubling about every ten years, our security can rest only on our ability to learn.

Live with integrity, respect the rights of other people, and follow your own bliss.

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

A woman in love will do almost anything for a man, except give up the desire to improve him.

Self esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.

There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will be to treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity.

The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.

Between the ages of 24 and 27, I read Freud's complete works, everything that had been translated into English. It was very stimulating intellectually. But I did not accept his view of neurosis or of human nature.

I cannot remember a time when the question of why people behave as they do was not intensely interesting to me. The desire to understand was very important. When I was young, I was aware of the fact that much of the time, the reasons a person gave for his actions were not the actual reasons.

If we are happy within ourselves, we don't accept or demand that our partner should fulfill every need. We need to be comfortable with our own company.

Not a great deal is known about the factors in childhood that doubtless underlie a person's choice of career - I'm talking now about a career to which one is passionately committed, in contradistinction to a career chosen merely as a means of earning a living.

Of all the nonsense written about love, none is more absurd than the notion that ideal love is selfless. To love is to see myself in you and to wish to celebrate myself with you. What I love is the embodiment of my values in another person. Love is an act of self-assertion, self-expression and a celebration of being alive.

Romantic love can be terrifying. We experience another human being as enormously important to us. So there is surrender - not a surrender to the other person so much as to our feeling for the other person. What is the obstacle? The possibility of loss.

Self-esteem is a powerful force within each of us... Self-esteem is the experience that we are appropriate to life and to the requirements of life.

Tell me how a person judges his or her self-esteem, and I will tell you how that person operates at work, in love, in sex, in parenting, in every important aspect of existence - and how high he or she is likely to rise. The reputation you have with yourself - your self-esteem - is the single most important factor for a fulfilling life.

The United States was the first country in the history of the world to be consciously created out of an idea - and the idea was liberty.

To love a person is to know and love the person. But we can pick up an enormous amount about another human being just by exchanging a couple of sentences. It's not yet knowledge; it's an intuition that motivates you to want to find out more.

When I was a child, I felt at times that I had been born into an insane asylum, that much of human life appeared to be an insane asylum. It was bewildering.

A bully hides his fears with fake bravado. That is the opposite of self-assertiveness.

How do we keep our inner fire alive? Two things, at minimum, are needed: an ability to appreciate the positives in our life - and a commitment to action.

Self-discipline is the ability to organize your behavior over time in the service of specific goals.

When we bury our feelings, we also bury ourselves. It means we exist in a state of alienation. We rarely know it, but we are lonely for ourselves.

Set goals that dont feel all that easy that challenge you stimulate you and give you a chance to stretch and push yourself. That is where the power of growth lies.

A goal without an action plan is a daydream.

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

One of the characteristics of love relationships that flower is a relatively high degree of mutual self-disclosure.

Romantic love is a passionate spiritual-emotional-sexual attachment between a man and a woman that reflects a high regard for the value of each other's person.

A productive purpose to which you give yourself fully and joyfully is one of the great adventures of life. It is a uniquely human source of happiness.

Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.

Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.

Set goals that don't feel all that easy, that challenge you, stimulate you, and give you a chance to stretch and push yourself. That is where the power of growth lies.

The stability we cannot find in the world, we must create within our own persons.

Fully to surrender to love can be terrifying. But it is the price life asks in exchange for the possibility of ecstasy.

Never marry a person who is not a friend of your excitement.

Given a fair wind, we will negotiate our way into the Common Market, head held high, not crawling in. Negotiations? Yes. Unconditional acceptance of whatever terms are offered us? No.

I've had a very good career and I'm grateful that the public has had some level of acceptance and appreciation of my work.

PC stuff just lowers the general acceptance of good work and replaces it with bogus poetry that celebrates values that in themselves are probably quite worthy.

Familiarity with evil breeds not contempt but acceptance.

The tenacious character I've possessed since I was a small child propelled me to successfully meet this challenge, and I was able to safely gain acceptance to the university of my choice.

The keys to patience are acceptance and faith. Accept things as they are, and look realistically at the world around you. Have faith in yourself and in the direction you have chosen.

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.

You're going to have more rejection than acceptance.

The principal barrier to a general acceptance of the monist position is that it is counterintuitive.

The homosexual community has more acceptance in America than it ever has, and the suicide rate is as high as it's always been.

Devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one.

I'm thrilled of the acceptance I get abroad. The people are so hearty, warm and grateful and I feel privileged having seen so many countries and some of the greatest monuments.

In America, educators punish those who actually think for themselves. There is only acceptance for popular opinion.