Nathaniel Branden quotes

" The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance. " # Change

" Live with integrity, respect the rights of other people, and follow your own bliss. " # Integrity # Love # Leaders and Leadership

" Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves. " # Reputation # Character # self-esteem

" "In order to have any sense of control over our own life, we need to know that we’re able to make sense out of our experience, in all of its many aspects. It’s the need that religion addresses, that philosophy addresses... if you have a moral code that you do your best to live up to, other things being equal, it’s very positive in its consequences for your self esteem, even if the moral code is in some ways mistaken. If you conscientiously try to live it to the best of your ability, that would have a salutary effect on your self-esteem. If you violate it, it would have a negative effect on your self-esteem. But suppose you have nothing to violate, no worldview—that absence will limit your self-esteem, because you need to feel aligned with reality. You need feel that you are in appropriate contact with the real world. Now your theory of what the real world is might be right or wrong. But so long as you are able to believe that you are in contact with the real world and are acting on that knowledge, your self-esteem benefits... Regardless, upsetting as it may be to orthodox Objectivists, I think you can show that in the short run and in [a coerced] environment, a person who has some overarching faith has a better chance of surviving. But I wouldn’t explain that all away by saying ignorance is bliss. The point is to understand what function a belief system provides. Then you can understand why an imperfect one is sometimes beneficial"[8] " # Action

" "[H]e has been a very underestimated man by his opponents. I think that his understanding and handling of our relationship with the Soviet Union was brilliant. Gorbachev himself gives Reagan credit for effectively ending the Cold War. Are there areas where I would disagree with him? Sure. He was opposed to abortion. He did not believe in total laissez-faire capitalism. He did build up our national debt enormously. But I tell you one thing he did that impressed me so much it almost wipes everything else off the mat. It’s something I found thrilling beyond words. And that was: he was in Russia, and he gave a speech in the University of Moscow. And the theme of the speech was to explain to the people there what American capitalism is. Here is the president of the United States, in a distinguished university in a country with whom we’ve had hostile relationships for decades—getting up, and in the most passionate yet totally non-belligerent way, explaining what economic freedom means, what capitalism means. It was so extraordinary in the moral clarity that he brought to his presentation that I’ll remember it, with great admiration, forever."[9] " # America

" For the rational, psychologically healthy man, the desire for pleasure is the desire to celebrate his control over reality. For the neurotic, the desire for pleasure is the desire to escape from reality. " # Pleasure # Neurosis # Psychology

" To preserve an unclouded capacity for the enjoyment of life is an unusual moral and psychological achievement. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the prerogative of mindlessness, but the exact opposite: It is the reward of self-esteem. " # self-esteem # Love # Life and Living

" Reason and emotion are not antagonists. What seems like a struggle between two opposing ideas or values, one of which, automatic and unconscious, manifests itself in the form of a feeling. " # Conflict # Reason # Ideas

" "Most of the failings of Objectivism all pertain directly or indirectly to issues of psychology."[1] " # Enthusiasm

" "Most of the time, I regard the judgment of people as a waste of time. I regard the judgment of behavior as imperative."[10] " # Judgment and Judges