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A little respect goes a long way.
By Emily Francos — Written on Jul 24, 2020
It's hard sometimes to maintain a sense of pride and stay motivated about your life.
But this is something that you so desperately need in your life day in and day out, and these self-respect quotes will help get you back on track.
Believe me, I know everyone struggles with self-esteem every so often, especially if you have been torn down by other people all of your life. Bullies are bad and they are out there to destroy those they are threatened by. But the trick is to not let what they say come close to hurting your self-respect.
You just have to come to terms with who you are and start loving yourself. It is a difficult process, especially if you don't feel worthy, but you are always worthy of your own respect.
You have to start reminding yourself that you are the only one that can take away your self-respect. No one else can. Always take the time and make sure you are not cracking when it comes to your self-respect. This is one thing that should be impenetrable. You live with yourself on a daily basis, so you must love yourself, warts and all.
Remember, the more you respect yourself, others will respect you on the same level too. It's all about appearances and how you present yourself from the inside and out. Show that you respect yourself.
Now, if you have a hard time each day with your self-respect, you need to be able to look at motivational quotes that will help you realize your full potential.
50 Best Motivational Self-Respect Quotes
1. “They cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
2. “Respect yourself and others will respect you.” ― Confucius
3.“Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends.” ― Aberjhani, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry
4. “Happiness is the highest form of self-respect. A person who allows himself to be happy shows his self-respect.” ― Maery Rubin
5. “There is only one real misfortune: to forfeit one's own good opinion of oneself. Lose your complacency, once betray your own self-contempt and the world will unhesitatingly endorse it.” ― Thomas Mann
6. “I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.” ― Rita Mae Brown
7. “Do not be scared to say "I love you" to yourself. Stand in front of the mirror and look at yourself and say to yourself as loudly as you can "I love you. I respect you for what you have faced in life. And I love you for what you have become.” ― Avijeet Das
8. “People treat you the way you treat yourself. So, when you humiliate yourself, they make sure you get the same treatment.” ― Michael Bassey Johnson, The Infinity Sign
9. “One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.” ― Shannon L. Alder
10. “Having self-esteem is easy, obtaining self-respect is the real challenge.” ― Jeffrey Fry
11. “The goal is not to show how great you are to others, but how vulnerable you are to yourself.” ― Maxime Lagacé
12. "Self-respect is the noblest garment with which a man may clothe himself, the most elevating feeling with which the mind can be inspired.” ― Samuel Smiles
13. “Your integrity, your dignity, your honor - they aren't for sale. Not ever. Not to anyone.” ― James Patterson, Guilty Wives
14. “Every woman that finally figured out her worth, has picked up her suitcases of pride and boarded a flight to freedom, which landed in the valley of change.” ― Shannon L. Alder
15. “Not being yourself is the worst form of self-disrespect.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
16. “She might be without country, without nation, but inside her there was still a being that could exist and be free, that could simply say I am without adding a this, or a that, without saying I am Indian, Guyanese, English, or anything else in the world.” ― Sharon Maas, Of Marriageable Age
17. “Most people live in two extremes. One is poor self-image, and the other one is arrogance, which is overly high self-image. Both of these are not in touch with the reality of who you are. Self-respect is right in the middle and seems to be the hardest to maintain. It is hard because self-image by itself is a temporary phenomenon” ― Raju Ramanathan, Souls From Mercury: Chakra Magic: Empowering Relationships
18. “Stand up for who you are. Respect your Self and ignite the divine sparks in you. Access your powers. Choose your rights and work together with others to bring blessings into the lives.” ― Amit Ray
19. “You got nothin' to lose but your self-respect.” ― Wendelin Van Draanen, Flipped
20. “You have to stop worrying about whether people like you. Some people don't even like themselves.” ― Andrena Sawyer
21. “Staying silent is like a slow growing cancer to the soul and a trait of a true coward. There is nothing intelligent about not standing up for yourself. You may not win every battle. However, everyone will at least know what you stood for—YOU.” ― Shannon L. Alder
22. “If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Insulted and Humiliated
23. “I want to feel proud and happy about my selflessness. But what happens when being selfless takes away a big part of your self?” ― Jaye Robin Brown, Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit
24. “The only person that deserves a special place in your life is someone that never made you feel like you were an option in theirs.” ― Shannon L. Alder
25. “Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The tricks that work on others count for nothing in that very well-lit back alley where one keeps assignation with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions. One shuffles flashily but in vain through one's marked cards- the kindness done for the wrong reason, the apparent triumph which involved no real effort, the seemingly heroic act into which one had been shamed.” ― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem
26. “It's easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own record. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence--such easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence.” ― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
27. "'Self-Respect' respects boundaries, yours or other's. 'Ego' is so full of self, it sees no boundaries.” ― Wordions
28. “All at once it occurs to me that I'm the one who needs to give myself the break, to accept myself for who I am.” ― Liza M. Wiemer, Hello?
29. “The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” ― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays
30. “When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everyone will respect you.” ― Lao Tzu
31. “Most people spend their lives doing one of two things to their emotions: numbing or venting. Self-loving people do something very different—they accept each emotion as a piece of communication and they try to decode it. This way, emotions can become important guideposts on the journey of self-discovery, rather than annoying roadblocks.” ― Vironika Tugaleva
32. “Compassion is essential, but it’s not a substitute for self-expression, or self-respect, or self-compassion. Emotional self-care is also essential, but gently soothing our wounds does not replace communicating about them.” ― Vironika Tugaleva
33. “Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life — is the source from which self-respect springs.” ― Joan Didion, On Self-Respect
34. “I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.” ― Theodore Roosevelt
35. “Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.” ― Abraham Joshua Heschel
36. “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
37. “Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
38. “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” ― Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book
39. “People can have their opinions about everything in the world, but people's opinions end where the tip of my nose begins. Your opinions of others can only go so far as to where their own shoreline is. The world is for your taking, but other people are not. One is only allowed to have an opinion of me, if that person is done educating him/herself on everything about me. Before people educate themselves on everything about you, they're not allowed to open their venomous mouths and have an opinion about you.” ― C. JoyBell C.
40. “Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and self-respect is the chief element in courage.” ― Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
41. “You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right -- that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don't. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that.” ― Toni Morrison
42. “Walk tall, or baby don't walk at all.” ― Bruce Springsteen
43. “I cannot compromise my respect for your love. You can keep your love, I will keep my respect.” ― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words
44. “Me myself is enough to manage.” ― Lailah Gifty Akita
45. “Compulsively saying 'Sorry' is often a reflection of wanting to apologize for our very existence. I used to say the word 'sorry' when there was no need for me to do so. It became a habit and reflected my chronic toxic shame, low self-worth and low self-esteem.” ― Christopher Dines, Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way
46. “Everyone deserves to feel beautiful. It is your God-given right to look in the mirror and love what you see. Never mind the imperfections -we're all imperfect, after all. But people tend to get so caught up in what they are lacking, they forget to appreciate all that they have.” ― Jenna Moreci, Eve: The Awakening
47. “Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.” ― Adrienne Rich
48. “Courage is an act of grace when it is not required; it originates from an inner necessity to honor, love, and cherish people, and respect oneself.” ― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
49. “Imagine the feeling of catching yourself loving yourself without trying. It's like catching a sunset out of the corner of your eye. It will stop you.” ― Kamal Ravikant
50. “I may not be good enough for you, but I am good enough for me.” ―
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Emily Francos is a writer who covers relationships, pop culture, and news topics.