Self Affirmation Quotes

• The anxiety of fate is conquered by the self-affirmation of the individual as an infinitely significant microcosmic representation of the universe .

  Paul Tillich

  Fate, Self, Anxiety

  Paul Tillich (1968). “The Courage To Be”

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• In a man like Friedrich von Schlegel the courage to be as an individual self produced complete neglect of participation, but it also produced, in reaction to the emptiness of this self-affirmation, the desire to return to a collective. Schlegel, and with him many extreme individualists in the last hundred years, became Roman Catholics. The courage to be as oneself broke down, and one turned to an institutional embodiment of the courage to be as a part.

  Paul Tillich

  Men, Self, Years

  "The Courage to Be" by Paul Tillich, (p. 117), 1952.

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• In the history of literature there are many great enduring works which were not published in the lifetimes of the authors. If the authors had not achieved self-affirmation while writing, how could they have continued to write?

  Gao Xingjian

  Writing, Self, Literature

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• Individualism is the self-affirmation of the individual self as individual self without regard to its participation in its world. As such it is the opposite of collectivism, the self affirmation of the self as part of a larger whole without regard to its character as an individual self.

  Paul Tillich

  Character, Self, Opposites

  Paul Tillich (1988). “Writings on religion”

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• Beauty is not skin-deep; it can be a means of self-affirmation, a true indicator of personality and confidence.

  Aimee Mullins

  Mean, Self, Personality

  "L’Oreal Announces New Ambassador: Aimee Mullins". www.hollywoodnews.com. February 20, 2011.

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• The essence of spirituality does not consist in a specialised or narrow interest in some imagined part of life, but in a certain enlightened attitude to all the various situations which obtain in life. It covers and includes the whole of life. All the material things of this world can be made subservient to the divine game, and when they are thus subordained they become auxiliary to the self-affirmation of the spirit.

  Meher Baba

  Attitude, Self, Essence

  "Discourses, Volume I". Book by Meher Baba, 1967.

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• What we need are poems that interrogate the world of pronouns, open up possibilities of language and life; forms of politics that support and encourage self-affirmation.

  Judith Butler

  Self, Support, Needs

  Source: transadvocate.com

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• Mystical identification transcends the aristocratic virtue of courageous self-sacrifice. It is self- surrender in a higher, more complete, and more complete and more radical form. It is the perfect form of self-affirmation.

  Paul Tillich

  Sacrifice, Self, Perfect

  Paul Tillich (1968). “The Courage To Be”

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• We must stand up and say, "I'm black and I'm beautiful," and this self-affirmation is the black man's need, made compelling by the white man's crimes against him.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Beautiful, Men, Self

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.199, Beacon Press

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• Having expressed the rage against the laws and conditions that oppressed them - maybe even excess anger in the beginning was directed at men they came in contact with, because it had been pent up too long - women now come from a new position of easier, more comfortable self-affirmation and empowerment. Women are given to tolerance and are more able to love. I hope it happens also to men.

  Betty Friedan

  Men, Law, Self

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• It's no accident that most of the great black spokespersons and leaders understood the centrality of self-affirmation, self-respect and self-love.

  Cornel West

  Self, Leader, Black

  Source: articles.latimes.com

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• Self-affirmation cannot be found in love; it is a prior condition of genuine love.

  Jo Coudert

  Genuine Love, Self, Affirmation

  Jo Coudert (2003). “Advice from a Failure”, p.158, iUniverse

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• I think there's a weird self-affirmation thing that happens in popular music in general. It seems like every song I hear on the radio is like, "Listen to me roar!" or "This is my fight song!"

  Conor Oberst

  Song, Fighting, Thinking

  "Desaparecidos' Conor Oberst: We're perfectly prepared for people to hate what we're saying". Interview with Jessica Goodman, ew.com. July 7, 2015.

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• Absolute faith is not the place of self-affirmation, but the place of self-negation. Life of faith is not limited to our spiritual life. What is important is how our spiritual sensitivity is applied to our relative environment.

  Sun Myung Moon

  Spiritual, Self, Important

  "The Way of God's Will" by Sun Myung Moon, (Chapter 3-2 Life of Faith), 1980.

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• The internationalization of art becomes a factor contributing to the estrangement of art from the artist. The sum of works of all times and places stands against him as an entity with objectives and values of its own. In turn, since becoming aware of the organized body of artworks as the obstacle to his own aesthetic self-affirmation, the artist is pushed toward anti-intellectualism and willful dismissal of the art of the past.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Art, Past, Self

  Harold Rosenberg (1983). “Art on the Edge: Creators and Situations”, p.137, University of Chicago Press

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• Power is required for communication. To stand before an indifferent or hostile group and have one's say, or to speak honestly to a friend truths that go deep and hurt these require self-affirmation, self-assertion, and even at times aggression. ... My experience in psychotherapy convinces me that the act which requires the most courage is the simple communication, unpropelled by rage or anger, of one's deepest thoughts to another.

  Rollo May

  Hurt, Communication, Simple

  Rollo May (1998). “Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence”, p.245, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Islam united all heresies persecuted in Byzantine Empire and synthesised them well into a conseffion that later became a symbol of Arab self-affirmation.

  Lev Gumilev

  Self, Islam, Byzantine

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• A win gives one a feeling of self-affirmation, and success - a feeling of self-expression, but only a sensible harmonization between these urges can bring really great achievements in chess.

  Oleg Romanishin

  Success, Winning, Self

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• What has to be given up is not the I, but that drive for self-affirmation which impels man to flee from the unreliable, unsolid, unlasting, unpredictable, dangerous world of relation into the having of things.

  Martin Buber

  Men, Self, Dangerous World

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• I wish more of us could understand that our increasing isolation, no matter how much it seems to express pride and self-affirmation, is not the answer to our problems. Rather, the answer is a revival of our ancient commitment to God, who rules over all the peoples of the world and exalts no one over any other, and to the moral and spiritual values which were once legendary in America. We must reach out our hand in friendship both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy.

  Arthur Ashe

  Spiritual, Commitment, Pride

  "Days of Grace: A Memoir". Book by Arnold Rampersad and Arthur Ashe, p. 186, 1993.

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• Communism... is the genuine resolution of the antagonism between man and nature and between man and man; it is the true resolution of the conflict between existence and essence, objectification and self-affirmation, freedom and necessity, individual and species. It is the riddle of history solved and knows itself as the solution.

  Karl Marx

  Men, Self, Essence

  Karl Marx, Lawrence H. Simon (1994). “Marx: Selected Writings”, p.71, Hackett Publishing

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