How to value my own self-esteem more than the praise of others.

Value yourself more.

I had discovered that I needed stability more than social life. I had brains for sure and some talent in writing. These facts were a constant in my life. My skin color, my size, and my appearance were variables-things that were judged cording to my current self-image, the aesthetic values of the times, the places I was in, and the people I met. My studies, later my writing, the respect of people who saw me as an individual person they cared about, these were the criteria for my sense of self-worth that would concentrate on in my adult life.

I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.

I did not hesitate to be disagreeable to preserve my independence.

He wanted to be who he was, not the person he would become if he lost the one trait that distinguished him from everybody else, no matter how perverse that decision seemed to others.

You are going to have to decide that you love yourself too much to stop settling for less than what you really deserve. If you think that you could be doing better in life, you might be right. If you think that there is more that you are here to accomplish, you might be right. If you think that you are not being your authentic self, you might be right.

In my present insistence on high standards you will see that there is less self-indulgence than resolve and application. I do not let the Christian monopolize the ideal of perfection. I have my own virtue, which I am constantly cultivating and refining by teaching myself not to tolerate in me or my surroundings anything but the exquisite.

Self love and value to know which opportunity you should take and which one you should leave

I hated myself for going, why couldn't I be the kind of person who stays?

It’s about respecting yourself, instead of catering to your insecure need to be liked. This is incredibly powerful, because when you love yourself enough to stand in your truth no matter what the cost, everyone benefits. You start attracting the kinds of things, people, and opportunities, that are in alignment with who you truly are, which is way more fun than hanging out with a bunch of irritating energy suckers. And by declining to participate in other people’s drama, (i.e. refusing to rip people to shreds, to complain about how unfair the world is, etc.) you not only raise your own frequency, but you offer the drama queens the chance to rise up too, instead of everyone continuing to play a low, lame game. Never apologize for who you are. It lets the whole world down.

To survive, much less succeed, I learned I could not give myself over to either pleasure or misery in excess. Whatever you felt was not important.

Why couldn’t I take control of my own life, since after all, I was virtually husbandless and, what did my husband care about a woman’s virtue? If I was sleeping with men and charging them for it, it was me giving myself to them. The body being used and misused belonged to me.