quotations and passages on confidence

I am somebody. I am me. I like being me. And I need nobody to make me somebody.

Louis L'Amour

Every great discovery I ever made,
I gambled that the truth was there,
and then I acted in faith until I could prove its existence.

Arthur H. Compton

Ralph Waldo Emerson

People are timid and apologetic; they are no longer upright;
they dare not say "I think," "I am," but quotes some saint or sage.
They are ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose.
These roses under my window make no reference to former roses
or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day.

Calm self-confidence is as far from conceit as
the desire to earn a decent living is remote from greed.

Channing Pollock

Confidence is that feeling by which
the mind embarks on great and honorable courses
with a sure hope and trust in itself.

Cicero

There is overwhelming
evidence that the higher
the level of self-esteem,
the more likely one will
treat others with respect,
kindness, and generosity.
People who do not
experience self-love
have little or no capacity
to love others.

Nathaniel Branden

Only the person who has faith in him or herself is able to be faithful to others.

Erich Fromm

Experience tells you what to do; confidence allows you to do it.

Stan Smith

The way in which we think of ourselves has everything
to do with how our world sees us.

Arlene Raven

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have "perfect" confidence in yourself and your abilities? Complete confidence that allowed you to know that you could do whatever you needed to do? I wonder that often, for it must be a great feeling.

I'm not that far from it, though, and I know that one of the greatest strides I've ever taken in developing confidence in myself has had to do with accepting two things: I'm good at what I do well, and there are certain things that I don't do well at all.

It used to be that I never gave myself credit for being able to do what I did well. I would compare myself to others who did things much better than I, never allowing myself to admit that they had had a lot more experience at whatever it was than I had. At times I was even hyper-critical of myself, a trait that proved to be nothing but destructive.

But I know now that there are plenty of things that I do very well. I may not be the best at what I do, but I am very good at some particular things, and I give myself credit for that, and I always try to improve my skills. I can write, I can build things, I can develop a website, and I can do those things well. Those things I can't do well--play the guitar and sing, for example, I do for fun now, not to try to excel.

We live in a culture that overvalues the concept of excelling. Many people lose confidence in themselves not because they're not able to do things well, but because they're not able to excel. One student of mine once told me that she didn't have any confidence in her writing because the papers that she read by the other students were so much better than hers. What she didn't realize was that she was sitting next to one of the best writers I've ever seen in a college composition course, and she always read this student's papers first. The student who didn't have confidence in her writing was also a very good writer--by far the second-best in the class--but she had lost confidence because she was comparing herself to a much better writer.

There's nothing wrong with trying to excel. But if your best isn't as good as someone else's, don't allow yourself to lose confidence--either work harder to reach a new best, or accept that that's the way things are, as long as you're giving your all. The line from the "Desiderata" says it all: "You are a child of the universe; no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here." Accepting this idea as truth should give you all the confidence you need.

As I said earlier, I'm not that far from complete confidence, and that confidence comes from knowing my strengths and weaknesses and accepting them. I also know I'm not in anything alone--I have friends and family and God behind me, no matter what I do, and with that kind of support, why wouldn't I be confident?

HOME - contents - Full Life Online
abundance - acceptance - achievement - action - adversity - aging - anticipation - appreciation - attitude - authenticity
awareness - balance - beauty - being yourself - beliefs - body - character - children - Christianity - coincidence
commitment - common sense - community - compassion - compliments - compromise - confidence - conscience
contentment - courage - creativity - death - determination - earth - ego - encouragement - enthusiasm - eternity
faith - family - flowers - forgiveness - freedom - friendship - fun - gardening - gentleness - giving - God - goodness
grace - gratitude -growing up - happiness - healing - helpfulness - home - hope - humility - imagination
integrity - joy - kindness - laughter - learning - letting go - life - listening - love - marriage - miracles - mystery
nature - now - open-mindedness - opportunity - optimism - patience - peace - perseverance - perspective
play - prayer - principle - purpose - religion - rest - role models - sadness - self - self-respect - serving others - silence
simplicity - spirit - success - time - today - truth - values - war - wisdom - wonder - work - worship
spring - summer - fall - winter - Christmas - Thanksgiving - New Year - zen sayings
obstacles to living life fully - e-zine archives - quotations contents

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are.
The people who get on in this world are they who get up and look
for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

George Bernard Shaw

Learn to depend upon yourself by doing things in accordance with your own way of thinking.

Grenville Kleiser

Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.

Clementine Paddleford

I've never met a person, I don't care what his or her condition, in whom
I could not see possibilities. I don't care how much people may consider
themselves failures, I believe in them, for they can change the thing
that is wrong in their lives anytime they are prepared and ready to do it.
Whenever they develop the desire, they can take away from their lives
the things that are defeating them. The capacity for reformation
and change lies within.

Preston Bradley

One can inspire a group of others
only if one oneself is filled with confidence and hope of success.

Floyd V. Filson

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.

Helen Keller

Search and you will find that at the base and birth of every great
business organization was an enthusiast, a person consumed
with earnestness of purpose, with confidence in his or her powers,
with faith in the worthwhileness of his or her endeavors.

B.C. Forbes

If one burdens the future with one’s worries,
it cannot grow organically. I am filled with confidence,
not that I shall succeed in worldly things, but that even
when things go badly for me I shall still find life good and worth living.

Etty Hillesum

Hold up your head! You were not made for failure, you were made for victory; go forward with a joyful confidence in that result sooner or later, and the sooner or later depends mainly on yourself.

Anne Gilchrist

Twelve Rules for Building Self-Confidence

1. Focus on your potential instead of your limitations.
2. Determine to know the truth about yourself.
3. Distinguish between who you are and what you do.
4. Find something you like to do and do well, then do it over and over.
5. Replace self-criticism with regular, positive self-talk.
6. Replace fear of failure with clear pictures of yourself functioning successfully and happily.
7. Dare to be a little eccentric.
8. Make the best possible peace with your parents.
9. Determine to integrate the body and spirit.
10. Determine to live above neurotic guilt.
11. Cultivate people who help you grow.
12. Refuse to allow rejection to keep you from taking the initiative with people.

Alan Loy McGinnis