Accepting does not necessarily mean liking, enjoying, condoning. I can accept what is-and be determined to evolve from there. It is not acceptance but denial that leaves me stuck.

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

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

One of the hardest expressions of self-assertiveness is challenging your limiting beliefs.

Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves.

If you overcome your fear to ask someone for a date, a raise, or help with a project, that is an act of self-assertiveness. You are moving out into life rather than contracting and withdrawing.

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

Integrity is congruence between what you know, what you profess, and what you do.

The greater a child’s terror, and the earlier it is experienced, the harder it becomes to develop a strong and healthy sense of self.

If you face life without confidence in your own powers, you succumb too easily to setbacks and adversity; you lack the will to persevere.

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.

When you are a pessimist and the bad thing happens, you live it twice, " Amos liked to say. "Once when you worry about it, and the second time when it happens.

Pale death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.

Don't let the fear of striking out hold you back.

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them.

I'm sometimes described as a flamboyant leader and a hip-shooter, a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants operator. But if that were true, I could never have been successful in this business.

What breaks in daybreak? Is it the night? Is it the sun, cracked in two by the horizon like an egg, spilling out light?

There is no book so bad that some good can not be got out of it.

Murderers very often start out by killing and torturing animals as kids.

Christians have a dual citizenship - on earth and in heaven - and our citizenship in heaven ought to make us better people here on earth.