People are like stained - glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you but yourself.
I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.
Self-respect is the fruit of discipline.
In my day, we didn't have self-esteem, we had self-respect, and no more of it than we had earned.
The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs.
Respect yourself and others will respect you.
I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black: it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect.
The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends.
I think the greatest thing in the world is to believe in people.
A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself.
I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.
Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.
When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.
Self-respect cannot be hunted. It cannot be purchased. It is never for sale. It cannot be fabricated out of public relations. It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that, knowing the good, we have done it; knowing the beautiful, we have served it; knowing the truth we have spoken it
Friendship- my definition- is built on two things. Respect and trust. Both elements have to be there. And it has to be mutual. You can have respect for someone, but if you don't have trust, the friendship will crumble.
As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, he is trash.
To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.
or simply:
