The reputation you have with yourself - your self-esteem - is the single most important factor for a fulfilling life.

Most of the time, I regard the judgment of people as a waste of time. I regard the judgment of behavior as imperative.

To love is to see myself in you and to wish to celebrate myself with you. What I love is the embodiment of my values in another person. Love is an act of self-assertion, self-expression and a celebration of being alive.

The highest compliment one can be paid by another human being is to be told: 'Because of what you are, you are essential to my happiness.'

It's not that achievements prove our worth but rather that the process of achieving is the means by which we develop our effectiveness, our competence at living.

It would be hard to name a more certain sign of poor self-esteem than the need to perceive some other group as inferior.

Whether your focus is on preserving and strengthening family ties in a world of increasingly unstable relationships, gaining access to a decent job, growing and evolving as a person, or guiding a company through the stormy seas of a fiercely competitive global marketplace-whether your goals are material, emotional, or spiritual-the price of success is the same: thinking, learning. To be asleep at the wheel-to rely only on the known, familiar, and automatized-is to invite disaster.