Confidence Quotes

I have now finished the first draft of my Confidence book. 42 000 words. I can barely believe it myself. Before I started writing it, I did a lot of research, as you do. One of the things I did, was to collect quotes about Confidence. My plan was to use them in the book to underline certain statements I made.

Before I started writing it, I did a lot of research, as you do. One of the things I did, was to collect quotes about Confidence. My plan was to use them in the book to underline certain statements I made.

However, somewhere along the line, I started worrying about committing plagiarism. I found out only one thing for sure and that is that only books written before 1923 are entirely copyright-free. Everything else may be copyrighted.

So I decided not to use any quotes at all in the book, to be on the safe side. I did not much feel like writing to each author to get permission to add the quote in question to my book.

So I ended up with a long list of carefully chosen quotes about self-confidence and nowhere to use them.

I did not want them to go to waste completely, so here they are, starting with one of my all-time favourites:

“Life is ten percent what you experience and ninety percent how you respond to it.” Dorothy M. Neddermeyer 

“Why should we worry about what others think of us, do we have more confidence in their opinions than we do our own?” Brigham Young

“Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.” Theodore Roosevelt

“To establish true self-esteem we must concentrate on our successes and forget about the failures and the negatives in our lives.” Denis Waitley

“A healthy self-love means we have no compulsion to justify to ourselves or others why we take vacations, why we sleep late, why we buy new shoes, why we spoil ourselves from time to time. We feel comfortable doing things which add quality and beauty to life.” Andrew Matthews

“Don’t rely on someone else for your happiness and self-worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can’t love and respect yourself – no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are – completely; the good and the bad – and make changes as YOU see fit – not because you think someone else wants you to be different.”Stacey Charter

“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.”  Marie Curie

“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” Louise L. Hay

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”  Marianne Williamson

“Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.” Eleanor Roosevelt

“If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.” Fred Rogers

“We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies.”  Roderick Thorp

“You have no control over other people’s taste, so focus on staying true to your own.” Tim Gunn

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Low self-confidence isn’t a life sentence. Self-confidence can be learned, practiced, and mastered – just like any other skill. Once you master it, everything in your life will change for the better.” Barrie Davenport 

“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” e.e. cummings 

“You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” Eleanor Roosevelt

 “Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”  Golda Meir

“Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. ” M. Scott Peck

“Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself.” Harvey Fierstein

“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.” Lucille Ball

“I say, dress to please yourself. Listen to your inner muse and take a chance. Wear something that says ‘Here I am!’ today.” Iris Apfel

“Confidence… thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt

“Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.” Laozi

I hope that you found at least one in there that resonated with you. For, me it is back to the painful process of editing.