53 Inspiring Self-Esteem and Self-Love Quotes

Some things may be equally essential but nothing is more important than a healthy sense of self-esteem and loving yourself.

Why?

In my experience, three of the most important reasons are:

You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward.

Life becomes simpler and lighter. When you love yourself more then things simply become lighter and easier. You won’t make as many mountains out of molehills (or out of plain air) as you used to. Or beat yourself up or drag yourself down over mistakes or temporary setbacks.
You’ll have more inner stability and self-sabotage less. When your opinion of yourself goes up then you’ll stop trying to get so much validation and attention from other people. You become less needy and find an inner stability even when your world might be negative or uncertain at times.
The increasing self-esteem and self-love also makes you feel more deserving of good things in life and so you’ll self-sabotage less and go after what you deep down want with more motivation and focus than ever before.
You’ll be happier. The main reason why value my self-esteem so highly, why I write about this topic so often and have created a whole 12-week course around it is simply because it has made my own life so much happier and more fun.

But instead of sharing my own thoughts and experiences like I usually do I’d like to take a different approach today.

I’d like to share 53 of the most inspiring, thought provoking and uplifting thoughts from the past 2400 years on getting to know yourself, raising your self-esteem and finding a self-love.

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection”
– Buddha
“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
“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”
– Mark Twain
“Never be bullied into silence. 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
“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
“Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand-break on.”
– Maxwell Maltz
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.”
– Jean Shinoda Bolen
“Self-care is never a selfish act—it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others.”
– Parker Palmer
“When you adopt the viewpoint that there is nothing that exists that is not part of you, that there is no one who exists who is not part of you, that any judgment you make is self-judgment, that any criticism you level is self-criticism, you will wisely extend to yourself an unconditional love that will be the light of the world.”
– Harry Palmer
“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
“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
“Our self-respect tracks our choices. Every time we act in harmony with our authentic self and our heart, we earn our respect. It is that simple. Every choice matters.”
– Dan Coppersmith
“People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people’s minds, as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues.”
– Elizabeth Gaskell
“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
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
– Howard Washington Thurman
“Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.”
– Malcolm S. Forbes
“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face.”
– Helen Keller
“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”
– Louise L. Hay
“To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance”
– Oscar Wilde
“Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.”
– André Gide
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”
– William James
“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
“You’re always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company.”
– Diane Von Furstenberg
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
– Carl Gustav Jung
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
“The better you feel about yourself, the less you feel the need to show off.”
– Robert Hand
“I think everybody’s weird. We should all celebrate our individuality and not be embarrassed or ashamed of it.”
– Johnny Depp
“You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are.”
– Yogi Bhajan
“It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.”
– W.C. Fields
“There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling leaves and remember that it is enough to be taken care of by myself.”
– Brian Andreas
“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”
– Benjamin Spock
“Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.”
– Lao-Tzu
“People who want the most approval get the least and the people who need approval the least get the most.”
– Wayne Dyer
“There is nothing noble about being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.”
– Hindu Proverb
“I found in my research that the biggest reason people aren’t more self-compassionate is that they are afraid they’ll become self-indulgent. They believe self-criticism is what keeps them in line. Most people have gotten it wrong because our culture says being hard on yourself is the way to be.”
– Kristen Neff
“Your problem is you’re… too busy holding onto your unworthiness.”
– Ram Dass
“The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you but yourself.”
– Rita Mae Brown
“She lacks confidence, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on the reflections of herself in the eyes of others. She does not dare to be herself.”
– Anais Nin
“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 light from within.”
– Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“If you aren’t good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you’ll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren’t even giving to yourself.”
– Barbara De Angelis
“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“It’s surprising how many persons go through life without ever recognizing that their feelings toward other people are largely determined by their feelings toward themselves, and if you’re not comfortable within yourself, you can’t be comfortable with others.”
– Sidney J. Harris
“There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
– Anaïs Nin
“It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else’s eyes.”
– Sally Field
“When I loved myself enough, I began leaving whatever wasn’t healthy. This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits – anything that kept me small. My judgement called it disloyal. Now I see it as self-loving.”
– Kim McMillen
“The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours – it is an amazing journey – and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.”
– Bob Moawad
“Self-pity gets you nowhere. One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world making the most of one’s best.”
– Harry Emerson Fosdick
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
– George Eliot

What is your favorite quote on self-love and self-esteem? Feel free to share the best one(s) you have found in this article or in your life in the comments section below.