Top 180 Nathaniel Branden Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “You have a right to your feelings. Your feelings are there to tell you something, but they are not infallible guides to behavior.”

— Nathaniel Branden

102. “To be flexible is to be able to respond to change without inappropriate attachments binding one to the past. A clinging to the past in the face of new and changing circumstances is itself a product of insecurity, a lack of self-trust. Rigidity is what animals sometimes manifest when they are frightened: they freeze.”

— Nathaniel Branden

103. “As a psychotherapist I see that nothing does as much for an individual’s self-esteem as becoming aware of and accepting disowned parts of the self. The, first steps of healing and growth are awareness and acceptance – consciousness and integration. They are the fountainhead of personal development.”

— Nathaniel Branden

104. “In any culture, subculture, or family in which belief is valued above thought, and self-surrender is valued above self-expression, and conformity is valued above integrity, those who preserve their self-esteem are likely to be heroic exceptions.”

— Nathaniel Branden

105. “Sometimes people who feel fear in the human realm drop to a very low level of consciousness in their relationships and seek the safety and security of competence in the impersonal word of machines, mathematics, or abstract thought.”

— Nathaniel Branden

106. “It is very difficult to accept in others emotions you cannot accept in yourself.”

— Nathaniel Branden

107. “All positive interactions with other human beings involve, to some degree, the experience of visibility – that is, the experience of being seen and understood.”

— Nathaniel Branden

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

— Nathaniel Branden

109. “A well-developed sense of self is a necessary if not sufficient condition of your well-being. Its presence does not guarantee fulfillment, but its absence guarantees some measure of anxiety, frustration, or despair.”

— Nathaniel Branden

110. “Most of us are capable of more than we believe.”

— Nathaniel Branden

111. “It is painful to face the self we know we have never had the integrity to honor and assert.”

— Nathaniel Branden

112. “Most of the time, I regard the judgment of people as a waste of time. I regard the judgment of behavior as imperative.”

— Nathaniel Branden

113. “When we learn how to be in an intimate relationship without abandoning our sense of self, when we learn how to be kind without being self-sacrificing, when we learn how to cooperate with others without betraying our standards and convictions, we are practicing self-assertiveness.”

— Nathaniel Branden

114. “When you are frightened, you typically pull energy in to your center, seeing less, hearing less-shrinking consciousness precisely when you need to expand it.”

— Nathaniel Branden

115. “If you are terrified of making mistakes, you will be reluctant to acknowledge them when you do make them-and therefore you will not correct them.”

— Nathaniel Branden

116. “One of the great self-deceptions – and one of the great foolishnesses – is to tell yourself, Only I will know. Only you will know that you are a liar; only you will know you deal unethically with people who trust you; only you will know you have no intention of honoring your promise. Whose knowledge or judgment do you imagine is more important? It is precisely your own ego from which there is no escape.”

— Nathaniel Branden

117. “Conscious individuals know that if they wish to advance in their careers they cannot rest on yesterday’s knowledge and skills. An overattachment to the known and familiar has become costly and dangerous; it threatens both organizations and individuals with obsolescence. Scientific.”

— Nathaniel Branden

118. “An emotion is both a mental and a physical event.”

— Nathaniel Branden

119. “Moved by a passion they do not understand for a goal they seldom reach, men and women are haunted by the vision of a distant possibility that refuses to be extinguished.”

— Nathaniel Branden

120. “If someone I like does not return my feeling, it may be disappointing or even painful, but it is not a reflection on my personal worth.”

— Nathaniel Branden

121. “For “I” to become “we” and yet remain “I,” is one of the great challenges of marriage.”

— Nathaniel Branden

122. “Be careful what you say to your children. They may agree with you.”

— Nathaniel Branden

123. “When your principles seem to be demanding suicide, clearly it’s time to check your premises.”

— Nathaniel Branden

124. “Capitalism, by its nature, entails a constant process of motion, growth and progress.”

— Nathaniel Branden

125. “What is guilt? It is moral self-reproach-I did wrong when it was possible to have done otherwise.”

— Nathaniel Branden

126. “Sometimes pain is easier to bear alone than happiness.”

— Nathaniel Branden

127. “The lies most devastating to our self-esteem are not so much the lies we tell as the lies we live.”

— Nathaniel Branden

128. “Regardless of what we think we’re teaching, we teach what we are.”

— Nathaniel Branden

129. “A mind that trusts itself is light on its feet.”

— Nathaniel Branden

130. “It would be hard to name a more certain sign of poor self-esteem than the need to perceive some other group as inferior.”

— Nathaniel Branden

131. “To attain “success” without attaining positive self-esteem is to be condemned to feeling like an imposter anxiously awaiting exposure.”

— Nathaniel Branden

132. “My life does not belong to others and I am not here on earth to live up to someone else’s expectations.”

— Nathaniel Branden

133. “Reason and emotion are not antagonists. What seems like a struggle between two opposing ideas or values, one of which, automatic and unconscious, manifests itself in the form of a feeling.”

— Nathaniel Branden

134. “Loving consciously does not mean subjecting your relationship to endless analysis. It means something much simpler: paying attention. Noticing. This requires presence.”

— Nathaniel Branden

135. “It is a mistake to look at someone who is self-assured and say, “It’s easy for her to be self-assertive, she has good self-esteem.” One of the ways we build self-esteem is by being self-assertive when it is not easy to do so. There are always times when self-assertiveness calls on our courage.”

— Nathaniel Branden

136. “The desire for self-esteem without integrity is like the desire for wealth without effort-a longing for the unearned.”

— Nathaniel Branden

137. “You are not likely to bring out the best in people or nurture their creativity if every time you hear about their problems you instantly offer a solution Encourage people to look for their own solutions-and project the knowledge that they are capable of doing so.”

— Nathaniel Branden

138. “Out of fear, out of the desire for approval, out of the misguided notions of duty, people surrender themselves-their convictions and their aspirations-every day. There is nothing noble about it. It takes far more courage to fight for your values than to relinquish them.”

— Nathaniel Branden

139. “There is only one reality – the reality knowable to reason. And if man does not choose to perceive it, there is nothing else for him to perceive; if it is not of this world that he is conscious, then he is not conscious at all.”

— Nathaniel Branden

140. “High self esteem people can surely be knocked down by an excess of troubles, but they are quickerto pick themselves up again.”

— Nathaniel Branden

141. “What is required for many of us, paradoxical though it may sound, is the courage to tolerate happiness without self-sabotage.”

— Nathaniel Branden

142. “It’s not that achievements prove our worth but rather that the process of achieving is the means by which we develop our effectiveness, our competence at living.”

— Nathaniel Branden

143. “To preserve an unclouded capacity for the enjoyment of life is an unusual moral and psychological achievement. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the prerogative of mindlessness, but the exact opposite: It is the reward of self-esteem.”

— Nathaniel Branden

144. “If I am unwilling to take responsibility for the attainment of my desires, they are not really desires – they are merely daydreams.”

— Nathaniel Branden

145. “The idea of Original Sin – of guilt where there is no possibility of innocence, no freedom of choice, no alternatives available – is anti-self-esteem by its very nature. The very notion of guilt without volition or responsibility is an assault on reason as well as on morality.”

— Nathaniel Branden

146. “Perhaps the essence of our evolution as human beings is to keep answering, on deeper and deeper levels, the basic question: Who am I?”

— Nathaniel Branden

147. “We are parts of one universe, true enough. We stand within an almost infinite network of relationships. Yet each of us is a single point of consciousness, a unique event, a private, unrepeatable world. This is the essence of our aloneness.”

— Nathaniel Branden

148. “The ultimate test of our integrity is not how we deal with those whom we agree but how we deal with those who we do not agree.”

— Nathaniel Branden

149. “Sometimes the path to higher self-esteem is lonely and frightening. We cannot fully know in advance how much more satisfying our lives will be. But the more we are willing to experience and accept the many aspects of who we are, the richer our inner worlds, the greater our resources, the more appropriate we feel to the challenges and opportunities of life. Also, it is more likely that we will find – or create – a style of existence that will meet our individual needs.”

— Nathaniel Branden

150. “Even when our life is most difficult, it is important to remember that something within us is keeping us alive- the life force-that lift us, energizes us, pulls us back sometimes from the abyss of despair. True spirituality does not exist without love of life.”

— Nathaniel Branden