Quotes by Nathaniel Branden

About Nathaniel Branden:

Nathaniel Branden was a Canadian–American psychotherapist and writer known for his work in the psychology of self-esteem. A former associate and romantic partner of Ayn Rand, Branden also played a prominent role in the 1960s in promoting Rand's philosophy, Objectivism. Rand and Branden split acrimoniously in 1968, after which Branden focused on developing his own psychological theories and modes of therapy.
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Anyone who engages in the practice of psychotherapy confronts every day the devastation wrought by the teachings of religion.

Nathaniel Branden

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

Some people stand and move as if they have no right to the space they occupy. They wonder why others often fail to treat them with respect--not realizing that they have signalled others that it is not necessary to treat them with respect.

Nathaniel Branden

It is a mistake to look at someone who is self assertive and say, "It's easy for her, she has good self-esteem." One of the ways you build self-esteem is by being self-assertive when it is not easy to do so. There are always times when self-assertive...

Nathaniel Branden

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

Nathaniel Branden

Chances are, when you were young, you were told, in effect, "Listen, kid, here is the news: life is not about you. Life is not about what you want. What you want is not important. Life is about doing what others expect of you." If you accepted this i...

Nathaniel Branden

The opposite of self-assertiveness is self-abnegation--abandoning or submerging your personal values, judgment, and interests. Some people tell themselves this is a virtue. It is a "virtue" that corrodes self-esteem.

Nathaniel Branden

If you choose not to live self-responsibly, you count on others to make up your default. No one abjures self-responsibility on a desert island.

Nathaniel Branden

Out of fear, out of the desire for approval, out of 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 t...

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

Nathaniel Branden

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.

Nathaniel Branden

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 los...

Nathaniel Branden

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

Nathaniel Branden

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.

Nathaniel Branden

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...

Nathaniel Branden

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.

Nathaniel Branden

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.

Nathaniel Branden

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.

Nathaniel Branden

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 y...

Nathaniel Branden

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 fo...

Nathaniel Branden

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.

Nathaniel Branden

Author Bio

  • NameNathaniel Branden
  • Descriptionpsychotherapist, writer
  • BornApril 9, 1930
  • DiedDecember 3, 2014
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPsychologist; Psychotherapist; Author