#esteem

Women are far and away the bigger consumers of fiction than men, but men are still far and away the more reviewed, the more critically esteemed, the more respected. That can get frustrating. ↗

— Jennifer Weiner

#bigger #consumers #critically #esteemed #far

I emphasize self-esteem, self-confidence, and dignity, not as an ideal, but as a real test of community organization. Without leadership development, community organizations do not have staying power. ↗

— Paul Wellstone

#development #dignity #emphasize #i #ideal

Among politicians the esteem of religion is profitable; the principles of it are troublesome. ↗

— Benjamin Whichcote

#esteem #politicians #principles #profitable #religion

For there are two kinds of forgiveness in the world: the one you practice because everything really is all right, and what went before is mended. The other kind of forgiveness you practice because someone needs desperately to be forgiven, or because you need just as badly to forgive them, for a heart can grab hold of old wounds and go sour as milk over them. ↗

— Catherynne M. Valente

#healing #heartbreak #love #self-esteem #sincerity

You will act like the sort of person you conceive yourself to be. ↗

— Maxwell Maltz

#self-image #self-improvement #life

Most urgently, women's identity must be premised upon our "beauty" so that we will remain vulnerable to outside approval, carrying the vital sensitive organ of self-esteem exposed to the air. ↗

— Naomi Wolf

#approval #beauty #carrying #exposed #identity

I’m nothing great. But I’m a rose… I’m a rose whether I’m admired or not, I’m a rose whether anyone’s crazy about me or not… Like I said, nothing great. Just a rose… But, do you know what it means to be a rose, my friend? Being a rose means ‘freedom.’ It means not existing by the praises of Others or not ceasing to exist by their disapproval. ↗

— Serdar Özkan

#self-acceptance #self-esteem #freedom

Whatever is deeply, essentially female--the life in a woman's expression, the feel of her flesh, the shape of her breasts, the transformations after childbirth of her skin--is being reclassified as ugly, and ugliness as disease. These qualities are about an intensification of female power, which explains why they are being recast as a diminution of power. At least a third of a woman's life is marked with aging; about a third of her body is made of fat. Both symbols are being transformed into operable condition--so that women will only feel healthy if we are two thirds of the women we could be. How can an "ideal" be about women if it is defined as how much of a female sexual characteristic does not exist on the woman's body, and how much of a female life does not show on her face? ↗

— Naomi Wolf

#aging #beauty #body-image #cosmetic-surgery #cosmetics

Aging in women is 'unbeautiful' since women grow more powerful with time, and since the links between generations of women must always be broken. ↗

— Naomi Wolf

#body-image #culture #eating-disorders #images #self-esteem

Women are mere "beauties" in men's culture so that culture can be kept male. When women in culture show character, they are not desirable, as opposed to the desirable. A beautiful heroine is a contradiction in terms, since heroism is about individuality, interesting and ever changing, while "beauty" is generic, boring, and inert. While culture works out moral dilemmas, "beauty" is amoral: If a woman is born resembling an art object, it is an accident of nature, a fickle consensus of mass perception, a peculiar coincidence--but it is not a moral act. From the "beauties" in male culture, women learn a bitter amoral lesson--that the moral lessons of their culture exclude them. ↗

— Naomi Wolf

#beauty #images #self-esteem #art