posted October 30, 2007 10:37 PM         

"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."

-- Sydney J. Harris

"We have the need to be accepted and to be loved by others, but we cannot accept and love ourselves. The more self-love we have, the less we will experience self-abuse. Self-abuse comes from self-rejection, and self-rejection comes from having an image of what it means to be perfect and never measuring up to that ideal. Our image of perfection is the reason we reject ourselves the way we are, and why we don't accept others the way they are."

-- Don Miguel Ruiz

"There is no freedom like seeing myself as I am and not losing heart."

-- Elizabeth J. Canham

"If we could learn to like ourselves, even a little, maybe our cruelties and angers might melt away."

-- John Steinbeck