more quotes, quotations and passages on confidence

I am somebody. I am me. I like being me.
And I need nobody to make me somebody.

Louis L'Amour

I've never met a person, I don't care what his or her condition, in whom I could not see possibilities. I don't care how much people may consider themselves failures, I believe in them, for they can change the thing that is wrong in their lives anytime they are prepared and ready to do it. Whenever they develop the desire, they can take away from their lives the things that are defeating them. The capacity for reformation and change lies within. Preston Bradley

One can inspire a group of others only if one oneself is filled with confidence and hope of success. Floyd V. Filson

Calm self-confidence is as far from conceit as the desire to earn a decent living is remote from greed. Channing Pollock

People are timid and apologetic; they are no longer upright; they dare not say "I think," "I am," but quote some saint or sage. They are ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks on
great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.

Cicero

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If you face life without confidence in your own powers, you succumb
too easily to setbacks and adversity; you lack the will to persevere.

Nathaniel Branden
Self-Esteem Every Day

There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem,
the more likely one will treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity.
People who do not experience self-love have little or no capacity to love others.

Nathaniel Branden

Only the person who has faith in him or
herself is able to be faithful to others.

Erich Fromm

The way in which we think of ourselves has everything
to do with how our world sees us.

Arlene Raven

Experience tells you what to do; confidence allows you to do it.

Stan Smith

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have "perfect" confidence in yourself and your abilities? Complete confidence that allowed you to know that you could do whatever you needed to do? I wonder that often, for it must be a great feeling.

I'm not that far from it, though, and I know that one of the greatest strides I've ever taken in developing confidence in myself has had to do with accepting two things: I'm good at what I do well, and there are certain things that I don't do well at all.

It used to be that I never gave myself credit for being able to do what I did well. I would compare myself to others who did things much better than I, never allowing myself to admit that they had had a lot more experience at whatever it was than I had. At times I was even hyper-critical of myself, a trait that proved to be nothing but destructive.

But I know now that there are plenty of things that I do very well. I may not be the best at what I do, but I am very good at some particular things, and I give myself credit for that, and I always try to improve my skills. I can write, I can build things, I can develop a website, and I can do those things well. Those things I can't do well--play the guitar and sing, for example, I do for fun now, not to try to excel.

We live in a culture that overvalues the concept of excelling. Many people lose confidence in themselves not because they're not able to do things well, but because they're not able to excel. One student of mine once told me that she didn't have any confidence in her writing because the papers that she read by the other students were so much better than hers. What she didn't realize was that she was sitting next to one of the best writers I've ever seen in a college composition course, and she always read this student's papers first. The student who didn't have confidence in her writing was also a very good writer--by far the second-best in the class--but she had lost confidence because she was comparing herself to a much better writer.

There's nothing wrong with trying to excel. But if your best isn't as good as someone else's, don't allow yourself to lose confidence--either work harder to reach a new best, or accept that that's the way things are, as long as you're giving your all. The line from the "Desiderata" says it all: "You are a child of the universe; no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here." Accepting this idea as truth should give you all the confidence you need.

As I said earlier, I'm not that far from complete confidence, and that confidence comes from knowing my strengths and weaknesses and accepting them. I also know I'm not in anything alone--I have friends and family and God behind me, no matter what I do, and with that kind of support, why wouldn't I be confident?

Articles and book excerpts on confidence:

Alex tom walsh
Getting away from Comparisons Alan Loy McGinnis

confidence

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are.
The people who get on in this world are they who get up and look
for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

George Bernard Shaw

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.
Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.

Helen Keller

Search and you will find that at the base and birth of every great
business organization was an enthusiast, a person consumed
with earnestness of purpose, with confidence in his or her powers,
with faith in the worthwhileness of his or her endeavors.

B.C. Forbes

If one burdens the future with one’s worries, it cannot
grow organically. I am filled with confidence, not that I
shall succeed in worldly things, but that even when things
go badly for me I shall still find life good and worth living.

Etty Hillesum

Learn to depend upon yourself by doing things in
accordance with your own way of thinking.

Grenville Kleiser

Never grow a wishbone, daughter,
where your backbone ought to be.

Clementine Paddleford

I once had a client tell me how much she wanted to be a dancer. So I said,
“Why don’t you go out there and dance? Audition for every show that comes
along, and take lessons from all the top instructors.”
Her response was, “No, I don’t have any confidence. As soon as my confidence
has increased, then I’m going to be a great dancer.”
That’s getting it all mixed up. The key to a positive self-image is confidence, and
it doesn’t just happen. The only way to get the confidence to be a great anything
is by first going out and doing it, then doing it again and again. Confidence comes
from behavior, from choosing to take risks, from not worrying about failing, from
not being so obsessed with whether somebody else is going to laugh at you,
from not being afraid to fall down.

Wayne Dyer
Happiness Is the Way

Remember, happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have;
it depends solely upon what you think. So start each day by thinking of all
the things you have to be thankful for. Your future will depend very largely
on the thoughts you think today. So think thoughts of hope
and confidence and love and success.

Dale Carnegie

Hold up your head! You were not made for failure, you were made
for victory; go forward with a joyful confidence in that result sooner
or later, and the sooner or later depends mainly on yourself.

Anne Gilchrist

Twelve Rules for Building Self-Confidence

1. Focus on your potential instead of your limitations.
2. Determine to know the truth about yourself.
3. Distinguish between who you are and what you do.
4. Find something you like to do and do well, then do it over and over.
5. Replace self-criticism with regular, positive self-talk.
6. Replace fear of failure with clear pictures of yourself functioning successfully and happily.
7. Dare to be a little eccentric.
8. Make the best possible peace with your parents.
9. Determine to integrate the body and spirit.
10. Determine to live above neurotic guilt.
11. Cultivate people who help you grow.
12. Refuse to allow rejection to keep you from taking the initiative with people.

Alan Loy McGinnis

confidence

Every great discovery I ever made, I gambled that the truth was there,
and then I acted in faith until I could prove its existence.

Arthur H. Compton

If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race
of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started.

Marcus Garvey

You can't make yourself feel positive, but you can choose how to
act, and if you choose right, it builds your confidence.

Julien Smith
The Flinch

Does everyone feel this way? When I was young, I was perpetually
overconfident or insecure. Either I felt completely useless, unattractive,
and worthless, or that I was pretty much a success, and everything I did
was bound to succeed. When I was confident, I could overcome the
hardest challenges. But all it took was the smallest setback for me to be
sure that I was utterly worthless. Regaining my self-confidence had
nothing to do with success. . . whether I experienced it as a failure
or triumph was utterly dependent on my mood.

Bernhard Schlink
The Reader

Whenever I came into the room, she'd light up, so happy to see me. No one
ever in the course of my entire life was ever as happy to see me as she was.
Looking back, now, I realize that you only ever need one person who lights
up that way when you enter a room. One person is
all it takes to give a kid confidence.

Adriana Trigiani
Don't Sing at the Table

Confidence is going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and taking the tartar sauce with you.

Zig Ziglar

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Confidence only means something when you're talking about a task that's difficult. If the task is easy--something like making toast--you wouldn't even use the word confident. It would sound pretty weird to say, "I'm very confident I'm going to be able to toast this slice of bread." If the task is easy, you just do it without thinking about it.

Now here's what the inner world of confident people is really like as they face difficult tasks. They don't think, I'm going to be successful. They think, I accept what I bring to this. I'm not going to be perfect. I might run into difficulties. But whatever happens I'll find a way to cope. I'll keep working at it until things turn out good enough. I'm not going to worry about things I have no control over. I'll be okay whatever happens.

So when it comes to things that are difficult, confidence is all about feeling at home. Deep in the heart of confidence is a shrug, not a swagger.

Mira Kirshenbaum
Everything Happens for a Reason

When I was young, I thought confidence could be earned with
perfection. Now I know that you don't earn it; you claim it.
And you do that by loving the wacky, endlessly optimistic,
enthusiastically uninhibited free spirit that is the essence
of style, the quintessence of heart, and uniquely you.

Cecelie Berry

It is confidence in our bodies, minds, and spirits that allows
us to keep looking for new adventures, new directions to grow
in, and new lessons to learn--which is what life is all about.

Oprah Winfrey