c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Via the mediation of the Enlightenment, this movement had changed from a hobby among a tiny literate elite and their secretaries, an ostentatious amusement among princely and mercantile art patrons and their masterly suppliers (who established a first 'art system'), into a national, a European, indeed a planetary matter. In order to spread from the few to the many, the renaissance had to discard its humanistic exterior and reveal itself as the return of ancient mass culture. The true renaissance question, reformulated in the terminology of practical philosophy - namely, whether other forms of life are possible and permissible for us alongside and after Christianity, especially ones whose patterns are derived from Greek and Roman (perhaps even Egyptian or Indian) antiquity - was no longer a secret discourse or an academic exercise in the nineteenth century, but rather an epochal passion, an inescapable pro nobis.
— Peter Sloterdijk, Du mußt dein Leben ändern
Enlightenment is not an attainment, it is a realization. And when you wake up, everything changes and nothing changes.
— Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives
Sandals. The Sufi teacher Ghulam-Shah was asked what pattern he used in formulating his courses for disciples. He said: 'Barefoot until you can get sandals, sandals until you can manage boots.
— Idries Shah, The Dermis Probe
We don’t look at the sky anymore, instead we stare at boxes that keeps us captive; we don’t walk barefoot any more, we refuse to kiss the earth with our feet, we keep busy worrying and fearing, we exist and die, like robots we work and consume. We ignore the beauty of a butterfly and the power of the eagle, we have forgotten the scent of flowers, we are too busy to enjoy nature, we are plastic most of the time; we live together but we do not connect, we are asleep. I want to cleanse myself of societies’ noise, walk barefoot, and kiss the earth with my feet, I want look at the sky, and like my ancestors, I want to feel free. I want to rejoice of who I am, and what I will become.
— Martin Suarez
Love, not balance, brings enlightenment
— Nicholas C. Rossis, Rise of the Prince
In a thousand years or ten thousand, no one would remember my nation. It, too, would share in oblivion and prove to not matter, to never have mattered.    The same for my species, and the earth, the universe, and God. When the last star winks out, none of it will have mattered - and it ten billion years, I will still be nothing - and equal to God.     That was the first stage in my enlightenment: to understand that nothing matters. Hence, everything is equal.
— Rory Miller
Consistent with the liberal views of the Enlightenment, Leibniz was an optimist with respect to human reasoning and scientific progress. Although he was a great reader and admirer of Spinoza, Leibniz, being a confirmed deist, rejected emphatically Spinoza's pantheism.
— Shelby D. Hunt, Marketing Theory: Foundations, Controversy, Strategy, and Resource-Advantage Theory
If Enlightenment in a technical sense is the programmatic word for progress in the awareness of explicitness, one can say without fear of grand formulas that rendering the implicit explicit is the cognitive form of fate. Were this not the case, one would never have had cause to believe that later knowledge would necessarily be better knowledge - for, as we know, everything that has been termed 'research' in the last centuries has rested on this assumption. Only when the inward-folded 'things' or facts are by their nature subject to a tendency to unfold themselves and become more comprehensible for us can one - provided the unfolding succeeds - speak of a true increase in knowledge. Only if the 'matters' are spontaneously prepared (or can be forced by imposed examination) to come to light in magnified and better-illuminated areas can one seriously - which here means with ontological emphasis - state that there is science in progress, there are real knowledge gains, there are expeditions in which we, the epistemically committed collective, advance to hidden continents of knowledge by making thematic what was previously unthematic, bringing to light what is yet unknown, and transforming vague cognizance into definite knowledge. In this manner we increase the cognitive capital of our society - the latter word without quotation marks in this case.
— Peter Sloterdijk, Du mußt dein Leben ändern
JUST BECAUSE ANYONE CAN, DOESN'T MEAN EVERYONE SHOULD (Mrs. Peters to Conner Bailey)
— Chris Colfer, The Enchantress Returns
Actual freedom has not increased in proportion to man's awareness of it.
— Albert Camus, The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt
Human intellectual progress, such as it has been, results from our long struggle to see things 'as they are,' or in the most universally comprehensible way, and not as projections of our own emotions. Thunder is not a tantrum in the sky, disease is not a divine punishment, and not every death or accident results from witchcraft. What we call the Enlightenment and hold on to only tenuously, by our fingernails, is the slow-dawning understanding that the world is unfolding according to its own inner algorithms of cause and effect, probability and chance, without any regard for human feelings.
— Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
Just because ANYONE CAN, DOESN'T MEAN EVERYONE CAN.
— Chris Colfer
If you believe that you are NOT omnipresent, omniscient and ultimately omnipotent – you are delusional. If you believe that you are separate from that which you call God, then you are living a lie.
— Kevin Michel, Moving Through Parallel Worlds To Achieve Your Dreams
An enlightened thinker does not waste his precious time thinking about what others think of what he thinks.
— Mokokoma Mokhonoana
But sometimes, by the deserving and the fortunate, even that task is accomplished. And when it is accomplished— behold!— all the truth of life is there: a moment of vision, a sigh, a smile— and the return to an eternal rest.
— Joseph Conrad, The Nigger of the Narcissus
The secret of enlightenment is the absolute, unequivocal conviction that it exists.What does that mean? It means you have discovered an unshakable confidence in the fact of nonduality—in the perennial mystical revelation that IT IS . . . and I AM THAT. A confidence in that which can never be seen or known is the very ground of the enlightened state. Being is ungraspable, it’s unknowable, it’s ever elusive, and yet it is the only place you can find true confidence in life. Why? Because it is the very source of life itself.The conscious experience of Being, which is what enlightenment is, has always been the ultimate answer to the most fundamental spiritual questions: Who am I? and Why am I here? Those who have tasted enlightened awareness find that in that experience, any trace of existential doubt and all the questions that go along with it instantaneously disappear. It’s not even that they are answered, but rather, the questions lose their meaning. When you locate the nonrelative, or absolute, nature of consciousness in the depths of your own self, it is experienced as a clarity that is empty of content; a weightiness that is full of nothing in particular; a profound knowing that dissolves all questions. In that questionless state, you find yourself profoundly rooted and radically free, supported by an absolute confidence in the knowing of no-thing that changes everything. The experience of that empty ground is the answer—the one answer that always liberates each and every one of us. You simply know, unequivocally, before thought, that I am. That’s the only answer: I AM. There is no why.
— Andrew Cohen, Evolutionary Enlightenment: A New Path to Spiritual Awakening
Why struggle to open a door between us when the whole wall is an illusion?
— Jalaluddin Rumi
Enlightenment is scary. Sometimes things look better in the dark.
— David Levithan, How They Met, and Other Stories
Saints and bodhisattvas may achieve what Christians call mystical union or Buddhists call satori--a perpetual awareness of the force at the heart of the heart of things. For these enlightened few, the world is always lit. For the rest of us, such clarity comes only fitfully, in sudden glimpses or slow revelations. Quakers refer to these insights as openings. When I first heard the term from a Friend who was counseling me about my resistance to the Vietnam War, I though of how on an overcast day, sunlight pours through a break in the clouds. After the clouds drift on, eclipsing the sun, the sun keeps shining behind the veil, and the memory of its light shines on in the mind.
— Scott Russell Sanders, A Private History of Awe
The bottom line remains the same: you’re either awake or you’re not.One day, there it is. Nothing. No more enemies, no more battles.
— Jed McKenna
Enlightenment is the unprogrammed state.
— Jed McKenna
Enlightenment isn’t when you go there
—  it’s when there comes here.
Was this how trauma worked? she wondered. Those closest to it remained dumbfounded by the fact that those who weren't present could derive meaning from it?
— Kevin    Wilson, The Family Fang
I have said: "Blow out the lamp! Day is here!" And you keep saying: "Give me a lamp so I can find the day.
— Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah
If I could repeat it,people passing by would be enlightened and go free.
— Jalaluddin Rumi
That which you see in me is that which is in you. ~ Maitreya Miranda* ~
— Miranda* Linda Weisz
Sometimes in the quest for enlightenment the only thing that gets lighter is your wallet.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
Let one who seeks not stop seeking until that person finds.
— T. Scott McLeod, All That Is Unspoken
Live on berries in a hollowed-out comet lit by artificial suns long enough, and you start to have delusions about achieving enlightenment.
— Hannu Rajaniemi, The Fractal Prince
When you love yourself, utterly and completely, all of yourself, what you will discover then is that you love others, all others, utterly and completely.
— T. Scott McLeod, All That Is Unspoken
He broke me down past the flesh, past the muscle, past the bone, down to my soul and in a loud provocation, he asked, “What are you made of?”After I gathered the broken bits and pieces of my life together, I shouted at the top of my lungs, “HOPE! Unbreakable, undeniable, irrevocable hope!
— Jay Grewal, A Slave to Want
If you stay on this path as long as I have, you’ll soon learn that the road to providence leads right through perdition. And along that road, the devil’s waiting to collect his pound of flesh.
— Jay Grewal, A Slave to Want
It is all, the unfolding. Neither good nor bad, my destiny.
— T. Scott McLeod, All That Is Unspoken
The true division of humanity is this: the luminous and the dark.To diminish the number of the dark, to increase the number of the luminous, there is the aim.That is why we cry: education, knowledge! to learn to read is to kindle a fire; every syllable spelled sparkles.But whoever say light does not necessarily say joy.There is suffering in light; an excess burns. Flames is hostile to the wing. To burn and yet to fly, this is the miracle of genius
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
I only come here seeking knowledge
— Sting Police
Intellectual and moral growth is no less indispensable than material amelioration...If three is anything more poignant than a body agonizing for want of bread, it is a soul dying of hunger for light.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
From a mind filled with infinite love comes the power to create infinite possibilities. We have the power to think in ways that reflect and attract all the love in the world. Such thinking is called enlightenment. Enlightenment is not a process we work toward, but a choice available to us in any instant.
— Marianne Williamson, The Law of Divine Compensation: On Work, Money, and Miracles
Enlightenment is its own reward, its own punishment. You begin to see so much more. And so much more sees you.
— Laird Barron
You can't expect anyone to trust revelation if he hasn't experienced it himself. Those who haven't only know reason. And since revelation is a thing apart, and cannot be accounted for reasonably, they never will believe you. This is the great division of the world and always has been. When reason and revelation run together, why, then you have something great, a great age.
— Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale
Poetic justice, with her lifted scale,Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,And solid pudding against empty praise. Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep,Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep,Till genial Jacob, or a warm third day,Call forth each mass, a poem, or a play:How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie,How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry.
— Alexander Pope, The Dunciad
Teach those only willing to listen and listen to those only willing to teach
— Justin Southwick
Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.
— Immanuel Kant
I'm no one... I don't want to be anyone. I stepped into singularity to exist within a void. I'm no one... However, I am becoming... Imagination. I am grabbing conception, and leaving humanity behind. Humans have lost their sight, and individuality makes people blind to the truth. It makes people believe that anything is possible. Only nothing is possible. But then again, my words are the words of no one.
— Lionel Suggs
Science has marched forward. But civilization’s values remain rooted in philosophies, religious traditions, and ethical frameworks devised many centuries ago. Even our economic system, capitalism, is half a millennium old. The first stock exchange opened in 1602 in Amsterdam. By 1637, tulip mania had caused the first speculation bubble and crash. And not a lot has changed. Virtually every business stills uses the double-entry bookkeeping and accounting adopted in thirteenth –century Venice. So our daily dealings are still heavily influenced by ideas that were firmly set before anyone knew the world was round. In many ways, they reflect how we understood the world when we didn’t understand the world at all.
— Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World
He, the One, the bringer of all to enlightenment, had an earthy name. His name was Jimmy.
— Teresa Lo, The Other Side: a Collection of Short Stories
What are the path of love and the path of meditation? There are basically two different paths to enlightenment. These two paths are The path of love and The path of meditation. The path of love is the female path to enlightenment and The path of meditation is the male path to enlightenment. The path of love is the path of love, joy, relationships, devotion and surrender. The path of meditation is the path of meditation, silence, aloneness and freedom. These two paths has different ways, but they have the same goal. Through love and surrender the person that walks The path of love discovers the inner silence. Through meditation and aloneness the person that walks The path of meditation discovers the inner source of love. These two paths are like climbing the mountain of enlightenment through different routes, but the two paths are meeting on the summit of the mountain - and discover an inner integration between love and meditation, between relating and aloneness. Before I accept to work with a student now, I make an intuitive and clairvoyant evaluation about which spiritual paths that the student has walked before in previous lives. This intuitive assessment gives information about the spiritual level that the student has attained, and it also makes it easier to guide the person spiritually if he has followed a certain path in the past. A female student of mine laughed recently when I told her that she had followed The path of love in several past lives. She commented: "You have told me three times now that I have walked the path of love and silence, but with my head I still do not understand it." But this overall assessment of her spiritual growth uptil now, and of the spiritual paths that she had walked, made all the pieces of her life puzzle fit together - and brought a new, creative light to all her life choices in her current life. A male student of mine, who was a Tibetan monk in a previous life, walks The path of meditation, and I notice how I change my language and the methods that I recommend when I guide him along the path of meditation. I now work with students who walk both The path of love and The path of meditation, which also allows me to discover a deeper integration of love and meditation on my path to enlightenment.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
I am often impressed with those that admit their ignorance, for it is the first step towards breaking out of the prison called freedom.
— Lionel Suggs
The Zen Monk Kyō Has Changed His Name to Mujū Dōryū. I Wrote This Verse to Celebrate The Great Prospects That Lie Before HimUnwillingness to remain in the ruts of former Buddha patriarchs Unsurpassed aspiration and fierce passion to achieve the Way These are precisely the qualities found in a true Zen monk Attained the very moment you "have been there and back.
— Baisao, The Old Tea Seller: Life and Zen Poetry in 18th Century Kyoto
The difference between going where you are needed and going where you are called is purely based upon diligent prayer and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
— M.J. Stoddard
Mankind's biggest blunder, ignorance. Mankind's second, infallible.
— M.T. Dismuke
People who speak or act in an ordinary fashion are most likely to be those who have been the recipients of higher experiences. But because they do not rage around, wild-eyed, people think that they are very ordinary folk and therefore not aware of anything unknown to the general run of man.
— Idries Shah, Reflections
The Enlightenment may have made its most lasting impact in the way we live and think today through its social history. Our institutions and laws, our conception of the state, and our political sensitivity all stem from Enlightenment ideas… Remarkably enough, at the center of these ideas stands the age-old concept of natural law. Much if the Enlightenment’s innovation in in political theory may be traced to a change in the interpretation of that concept.
— Louis Dupré
Life sucks. Enlightenment is getting over it.
— Ari Delta
We are always the same age inside. 
— Gertrude Stein
Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit
— E.E. Cummings
I laugh at myself. I don't take myself completely seriously. I think that's another quality that people have to hold on to... you have to laugh, especially at yourself.
— Madonna
Look well into thyself
—  there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.
I'm not insecure. I've been through way too much f**king sh*t to be insecure. I've got huge balls. But I've been humbled. That makes you grateful for every day you have.
— Drew Barrymore
No matter what a woman looks like, if she's confident, she's sexy
— Paris Hilton
Why should I care what other people think of me? I am who I am. And who I wanna be.
— Avril Lavigne
To us — richer and cleverer than everyone else!
— Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora
And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery…and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything.
— Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
My self-confidence can be measured out in teaspoons mixed into my poetry, and it still always tastes funny in my mouth.
— Sarah Kay
If my mind can conceive it, My heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it!
— Jesse Jackson
How we love others is affected by how we love ourselves, and for the first time in a long time, I was whole.
— Richelle Mead, Succubus Revealed
Humans punish themselves endlessly for not being what they believethey should be. They become very self-abusive, and they use other people to abuse themselves as well.
— Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
Noble and great. Courageous and determined. Faithful and fearless. That is who you are and who you have always been. And understanding it can change your life, because this knowledge carries a confidence that cannot be duplicated any other way.
— Sheri Dew
Criticism is just someone else’s opinion. Even people who are experts in their ﬁelds are sometimes wrong. It is up to you to choose whether to believe some of it, none of it, or all of it. What you think is what counts.
— Rodolfo Costa, Advice My Parents Gave Me: and Other Lessons I Learned from My Mistakes
Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion.
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Other Writings
In the darkest hours we must believe in ourselves.
— Terry Goodkind, Faith of the Fallen
To be around someone whose self-confidence is more than what our first glance led us to expect is seductive.
— Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone
Self-confidence is not the same thing as ego. This is not to say that the two don’t (frequently) dance hand in hand down the street, pushing over old ladies in crosswalks and kicking baby kittens. But they are definitely not the same entity. Ego is thinking you have all the answers. Self-confidence is knowing you don’t have the answers, but being pretty sure that you will be able to find them.
— Maggie Stiefvater
What makes you think that I give a shit about your self-confidence?
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
I can see us, living in the woods, her wearing that A, me with a S maybe, S for silent, S for stupid, for scared. S for silly. For shame.
— Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak
And don't you let your guard down for a second because you think anything's inevitable.
— Suzanne Collins, Gregor and the Code of Claw
Zaphod marched quickly down the passageway, nervous as hell, but trying to hide it by striding purposefully.
— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Being comfortable with who you are is the ultimate threat.
— Sean Beaudoin, You Killed Wesley Payne
If I am not for myself who is for me?
— Hillel Danziger
To underestimate oneself is as much an exaggeration of one's powers than the other.
— Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
the sight of me is good for sore eyes
— Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
I'm just a kid, Chiron," I said miserably. "What good is one lousy hero against something like Kronos?"Chiron managed a smile. '"What good is one lousy hero'? Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain said something like that to me once, just before he single-handedly changed the course of your Civil War.
— Rick Riordan, The Sea of Monsters
Suddenly I register that St. Clair is shorter than Josh. Much shorter. It’s odd I didn’t notice earlier, but he doesn’t carry himself like a short guy. Most are shy or defensive, or some messed-up combination of the two, but St. Clair is confident and friendly and—
— Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss
Envy comes from people’s ignorance of, or lack of belief, in their own gifts.
— Jean Vanier
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us
— Henry Stanley Haskins
... I will get a First Class Honors degree and I will become a scientist... And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery of Who Killed Wellington? and I found my mother and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything.
— Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
To have self confidence is great, but to maintain self confidence is even greater
— G.S. Alag
And lose my cock, balls and prostate? Are you kidding me? Honey, I’m still all man. I’m just a man with decoration,” Tommy had explained before turning with a flounce and practically floating out of the room in his heels.
— Vicktor Alexander, A Very Tate Christmas
Practice positive and affirming self-talk.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Identify confident people whom you admire and respect and notice what they do differently to project such confidence. Learn by observing role models.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Walk the talk and project confidence. If at first you don’t feel confident, fake it until you make it.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Yes, learning curves can be painful, exhausting, trying, scary, and intimidating. How did you learn to ride a bike? One pedal, one balance, one turn, and one step at a time.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Confidence is not a goal or a final ending point where you arrive and then stop once you reach it. Rather, it is the satisfaction and reward you achieve by stretching to, and beyond, the best of your abilities.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Building self-confidence is like building a muscle. Your confidence grows in response to your intensity of usage and the level of performance you require from it. If you don’t use it, you may lose it. Stretch, flex, life, and build!
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
You will build confidence by continuing to put yourself into new and innovative situations where you can learn new skills, grow your education, test your strengths, and improve your abilities.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Steer clear of negativity and set boundaries so that when people bring it on, you can engage your force-field to deflect their distracting energy.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
As you jump new hurdles, you gain greater confidence. Confidence can be achieved like any other practiced skill.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Just because you may not feel confident about doing something now does not mean you will not master it later with ease.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Building confidence is an ongoing process and something that can be accomplished over time.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
\“Self-confident people are mindful about spending their time, energy, and interests on things that truly matter.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Just because you don't know how to do something now does not mean you can't learn how to do it later.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
If you are lacking confidence in something, just keep trying and don’t give up.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Nurture a balanced perspective and don’t “sweat the small stuff.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Get outside your comfort zone. Stretch beyond your norm and try new things.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Set goals to create a clear sense of purpose and direction.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Embrace change and practice flexibility. It will make you more agile in adapting to new people and situations.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Dress confidently in clothes that make you feel great about yourself. When you look better you feel better.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
If you want to appear more confident—speak slowly, articulately, clearly, and deliberately. Communicating with clarity will not only help you build more confidence in yourself, but it will inspire respect from others.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Use your body language and posture to project confidence. Shift your physiology into a more powerful pose or position and your mindset will follow.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Think and act positively by focusing on the positives in yourself, other people, and situations.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Self-confident people take the initiative to move forward in the direction of their dreams.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Self-confident people don’t make their self-esteem, self-image, happiness, or self-confidence dependent on another person’s approval, validation, or acceptance.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Self-confident people are proud of their accomplishments, but can remain humble without bragging.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Self-confident people face their fears head-on and are willing to take risks.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Self-confident people Know that obstacles are only temporary setbacks.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Self-confident people tend to be optimistic thinkers and focus on the positives.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Self-confident people are mindful about spending their time, energy, and interests on things that truly matter.
— Susan C. Young
Charisma and charm are endearing qualities which go hand in hand to make others feel “lighter, happier, and a little in love” when they are around you.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
People with the gift of charm exude a delightful demeanor—an attractive likability that enwraps you in their warmth.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
When they are authentically engaged, their positive impressions create memorable moments and leave a lasting impact. Physical beauty becomes irrelevant because their exuberance and engagement bring out the beauty in you.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
People who exude genuine charm & charisma seem to possess a heightened sensitivity to the feelings of others—delivering gentle manners, gracious compliments, and sincere interest.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
They emanate an essence of caring, love, and compassion towards the people they know, and generously extend their aura to the new people they encounter.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Their engaging manner is grounded in consideration as they seek to get along well with others. People who exhibit charisma and charm are also said to be alluring, bewitching, captivating, magnetic, fascinating, enchanting, and seductive.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Charisma (presence, poise, magnetism) and charm (enchantment, attraction, fascination) are behaviors which can be learned and practiced.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
There are differing opinions as to whether charisma and charm are innate qualities which we are born with or learned personality styles. I believe it is a combination of both. Young children demonstrate a propensity for this enthusiasm. However, smart adults realize that they can get further in life when they develop these special traits.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
These people do exist and are a pleasure to know. Their keen communication skills are attentive to what you want, what you are thinking, saying, or not saying. They want to hear how you are and what you’ve been up to.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
The key is to keep charisma and charm positive and underpinned with sincere and good intentions.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
While it may seem to be a mysterious, ineffable quality—charisma is enhanced and enriched by a person’s attitude and confidence, their aims and optimism, expressive body language, and natural effervescence.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Your charisma and charm can make your moments more memorable for amazing first impressions.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
What do confidence and command look like when you see them? Moving one step past a healthy self-esteem, they project an air of authority, respect, and deliberate intention.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Confidence is silent, cool, self-assurance.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Developing a commanding presence is essential for leadership and a powerful impact.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
There can be a fine line between being confident and cocky.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
True confidence is not something that can always be determined by a first impression. It may take a few interactions to detect whether a person is full of false bravado or if they are the "real McCoy.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Their confidence gives those they lead the assurance that their words and their actions are reliable.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
We tend to listen to the people who believe in their own words as opposed to those who don’t. When we feel their conviction, they earn our buy-in.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Even something as simple as ending a sentence with the tone of a question mark rather than a period can diminish a person’s authority and credibility.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
In our natural world, it is the strongest of the species that claim their space, seek out new territories, explore their surroundings, and learn how to survive and thrive. It is those same qualities that enable us to apply confidence and command to transcend the mediocre and achieve outstanding results.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
When you feel low self-confidence, it is usually the result of the negative thoughts your inner critic whispers in the darkness of your mind.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
When your inner critic undermines your confidence, inner conflict, anxiety, and agitation take over. It tells you that you are not good enough, smart enough, handsome enough, worthy enough, or basically just plain NOT enough. It takes a toll on your self-confidence, doesn’t it?
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
If your self-talk leans toward the negative, the continual bashing will become debilitating
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Notice when negativity spins in your head and disrupt it immediately before it has a chance to take hold and stick.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Even the smartest and most successful of people will experience lower self-confidence occasionally, but the difference is that they deliberately shift out of it and refuse to stay there.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Self-confident people Inspire confidence in others
—  they would much rather build people up than tear them down.
Confidence is silent, humble self-assurance. Moving one step past a healthy self-esteem, confidence projects an air of authority, trust, and respect—a commanding, respected presence.
— Susan C. Young, The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact
Can I ask you something?" you said. "How did you ever survive that scandal?"She said, "I refused to be shamed.""How did you do that?" you asked. "When they came at me, I kept coming," she said.
— Gabrielle Zevin, Young Jane Young
Belief in yourself is more important than endless worries of what others think of you. Value yourself and others will value you. Validation is best that comes from within.
— Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Dreams in a Time of War
If a kid looks like he doesn't give a shit, it's not because he doesn't believe in himself anymore; it's because no one else believes in him.
— Shaun David Hutchinson, We Are the Ants
London? Paris? Berlin? Zurich? Maybe Brussels, center of the young union? They all strive to outdo one another culturally, architecturally, politically, fiscally. But Rome, it should be said, has not bothered to join the race for status. Rome doesn't compete. Rome just watches all the fussing and striving, completely unfazed, exuding an air like: 'Hey- do whatever you want, but I'm still Rome. I am inspired by the regal self-assurance of this town, so grounded and rounded, so amused and monumental, knowing that she is held securely in the palm of history. I would like to be Rome when I am an old lady.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
We live in a society of {more, faster, and extra.} So we feel the need to respond {more, faster, and extra.} Such a useless exercise. So much joy can be found in slowing down.
— Emily Ley, Grace, Not Perfection: Embracing Simplicity, Celebrating Joy
To be truly stylish (as opposed to merely "in style", which is the opposite) is to be unabashedly one's self, without reference to the fashions and demands of a sweltering crowd.
— Michael Harris, Solitude: A Singular Life in a Crowded World
They will never believe that an ordinary girl could do such an extraordinary thing," Genevieve worried. "What would I tell them?""Tell them there is no such thing as an ordinary girl," said Bloom (Bloom)
— Doreen Cronin and David Small
Real Love for ourselves by definition includes every aspect of our lives—the good, the bad, the difficult, the challenging past, the uncertain future, as well as all the shameful, upsetting experiences and encounters we’d just as soon forget.
— Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection
They will never believe that an ordinary girl could do such an extraordinary thing," Genevieve worried. "What would I tell them?""Tell them there is no such thing as an ordinary girl," said Bloom.
— Doreen Cronin and David Small
The biggest challenge in life is often to love ourselves
— Melanie Greenberg
Still, everyone at the party tried it because no one wants to admit that gazpacho tastes like partially melted tomato ice cream. The problem was that by the time they swallowed their spoonful of soupsicle the waiter was gone, causing all of them to stand in their elegant attire while awkwardly holding a dirty spoon like a terrible, unwanted accessory. Some people laid their empty spoons on windowsills or on the ground when they though no one was looking, but most just looked with quiet desperation for a waiter who might never return and were forced to hold the spoons at their sides, seemingly pretending that the spoons were cigarettes or small fancy dogs. I saw one woman look around expectantly for a minute and when she realized no one was coming back for the spoon she just shrugged and tossed it in the pool. It seemed slightly bitchy, but you have to respect that level of I-have-no-fucks-left-to-give-about-silverware-that-doesn't-even-belong-to-me. With that one spoon drop she told everyone at the party, "If you aren't going to take care of your shit them I'm sure as hell not going to take responsibility for it.
— Jenny  Lawson, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things
I stand out not because I am six feet tall,But because I feel six feet tall.
— Anthony T. Hincks
... I am done being in love with you." "Why?""I am in love with someone else. Someone who needs it more than you." "Who?" "Me.
— Nikita Gill, Your Body is an Ocean: Love and Other Experiments
Thus we arrive at the problem of the relation of religion to the negation of sexual desire. Sexual debility results in a lowering of self-confidence. In one case it is compensated by the brutalization of sexuality, to maintain sexual repression, in the other by rigid character traits. The compulsion to control one's sexuality, to maintain sexual repression, leads to the development of pathologic, emotionally tinged notions of honor and duty, bravery and self-control. But the pathology and emotionality of these psychic attitudes are strongly at variance with the reality of one's personal behavior. The man who attains genital satisfaction, is honorable, responsible, brave, and controlled, without making much of a fuss about it. These attitudes are an organic part of his personality. The man whose genitals are weakened, whose sexual structure is full of contradictions, must continually remind himself to control his sexuality, to preserve his sexual dignity, to be brave in the face of temptation, etc. The struggle to resist the temptation to masturbate is a struggle that is experienced by every adolescent and every child, without exception. All the elements of the reactionary man's structure are developed in this struggle. It is in the lower middle classes that this structure is reinforced most strongly and embedded most deeply. Every form of mysticism derives it's most active energy and, in part, also it's content from this compulsory suppression of sexuality.
— Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
Happiness and self-confidence can be the by-products of other things, but they cannot really be goals unto themselves.
— Julie Lythcott-Haims, How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success
So many people are able to do something in life, but when they compare what they have done to their larger environment, they feel they have not done anything!
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, Religion, Philosophy and life
There are times when a girl needs sexy. That's the thing no one ever tells you. Sexy can be both a weapon and a wall of defense.
— Kristen Callihan, Idol
We are not impotent. We can choose how we allow circumstances and experiences to influence us. We can change our interpretation of what happened and we can adjust our response to this interpretation.
— Margaretha Montagu, French Women's Confidence Secrets
High walls and deep precipices on your path or hard rocks and big holes are not real obstacles! There is only one real obstacle on your path: Absence of self-confidence!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
We are doing ourselves no favors when we look to the crowd to tell us where we are.
— Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path
Basketball Rule #5When you stopplayingyour gameyou've alreadylost.
— Kwame Alexander, The Crossover
Fitness determines productivity.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
I don’t have perfect teeth. I’m not stick thin. I want to be the person who feels great in her body and can say that she loves it and doesn’t want to change anything.
— Emma Watson
Be your authentic self! Who you truly are
—  not who you learned to be.
A woman stood in front of her with the peculiar poise that comes before the discovery of age and after the loss of innocence.
— Donald Kingsbury, Courtship Rite
Don’t think for a moment that you’ve gotta be perfect to be paid.
— Clifford Cohen
But I'll tell you a secret. You know what boys like? A woman who's happy with herself. Who's not making herself miserable with the Jane Fonda videotapes and complaining all the time about whether this part or that one's too big. And you know what else they like? She leaned in close, whispering into her granddaughter's ear. Good food.
— Jennifer Weiner, Little Earthquakes
You do not own me. I do not own you.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Empowered Women 101: If he’s with you, it’s a given that he finds you attractive. Don’t talk him out of his attraction by highlighting all your flaws and spending your time cutting down other women's qualities that you are jealous of. A real women focuses on what she has and fixes what she doesn't like. She doesn't blame people for not seeing what she doesn't always see in herself.
— Shannon L. Alder
He recalls a lot of family worry about what he was going to do, and while he still sent in the occasional sketch to radio shows, he acknowledges that his confidence was extremely low. Despite his subsequent success and wealth, this propensity for a lack of confidence has continued.“I have terrible periods of lack of confidence,” he explains. “I just don’t believe I can do it and no evidence to the contrary will sway me from that view. I briefly did therapy, but after a while I realised it is just like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can’t fix the weather—you just have to get on with it.”So has that approach helped him? “Not necessarily,” he shrugs.
— Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
If you can believe in yourself, you can soar with great wings far beyond the sky.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
I believe in my sacred self.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Self confidence is greatest tool for success.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
One paper boasted that its subscription and advertising numbers proved that America did not need the social change it rival paper advocated.
— Harold Holzer, Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion
In this world of stars, I just want to be different
— Lust (DreadLock Monsta)
In your heart there's a way around the criticizers, minimizes, and judgmental people that hurt you. When it's understood their self-confidence is very low. It's then you can pray for them, that they find peace, and allow all righteousness to come from Jesus Christ. Amen.
— Ron Baratono
Walk on your own sacred path.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Lincoln jibed that a general INVADED Canada without resistance and out-vaded it without pursuit.
— Harold Holzer, Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion
Faith in thy self is mustard seed of success.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
The difficulties of life don't stop attacking your self-worth and self-confidence, you just have to repair and fortify every time. Recall and recite it; tell yourself what you are worth.
— Innocent Mwatsikesimbe, The Vision
[He] said don't let them take you over. Walk into the room knowing you are the best. Shoulders back, chin up. Their attitudes will totally change.
— Misty Copeland
I don't need him to comfort me or tell me it's okay. I can make it okay, myself.Maybe that was what happened when you faced the very worst thing in the world.She'd lost her family and her old life and maybe even her childhood, but she'd found herself.And that would have to do.
— L.J. Smith, Secret Vampire
I feel like oversized trousers on sale, not even made of good material, that no one wants to buy. They just hang in there hoping that someone someday will compromise for its low cost.
— Pawan Mishra, Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy