Self-worth quotes

Solitude of Self, address delivered January 18, 1892; exact full-text witness reviewed on Wikisource. Stanton opens her central argument by shifting from familiar suffrage claims to 'the individuality of each human soul,' grounding political and educational equality in individual conscience, citizenship and responsibility rather than generic self-help.

Darkwater, “Credo.” The passage uses Du Bois’s period language of race and lineage within a broader declaration of human brotherhood, service, justice and liberty.

Character, Chapter I, “Influence of Character,” Project Gutenberg #2541. Near the opening, Smiles contrasts admiration for genius with the more durable respect secured by character, framing the latter as a power of conduct rather than intellect alone.

The Power of Truth, “People Who Live in Air-Castles.” The military imagery is metaphorical and belongs to a critique of substituting fantasy for execution.

Song of Myself, 1882 text; the line sits amid Whitman’s celebration of bodily and spiritual acceptance.

Woman in the Nineteenth Century, in Fuller’s account of “Miranda”; this is the narrator’s description of the illustrative figure rather than a standalone autobiographical maxim.

Shirley; narrative reflection in a novel rather than direct personal testimony. The image of inner brightness is literary metaphor and is retained as such.

Of Peace of Mind, section II, Aubrey Stewart translation in Minor Dialogues Together with the Dialogue on Clemency (1889), cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #64576 and the complete Wikisource transcription. Seneca tells Serenus to have confidence in himself and believe he is proceeding on the right path while defining the steady condition he calls peace of mind.

Sartor Resartus, Book II, Chapter IX, “The Everlasting Yea,” printed page 156 / Wikisource scan leaf 188 in The Works of Thomas Carlyle, Centenary Edition, Vol. I (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896). “The Ideal is in thyself” occurs in the same spiritual-enfranchisement passage, where Teufelsdröckh argues that the present “Actual” supplies the material to shape an inward Ideal. This collection retains that fictional, metaphysical and explicitly religious frame rather than converting it into modern clinical or self-esteem doctrine.

“The Old Stoic,” in Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell; Project Gutenberg #1019. The poem uses a deliberately severe persona and should not be treated as a complete ethical system.

Solitude of Self; Stanton uses an imagined solitary-island example to separate a woman’s individual rights from the incidental roles society may assign her.

The Conscious Lovers, represented in Project Gutenberg #55922, Indiana speaking to Bevil Jr. The play was first performed and published in 1722. The sentence is fictional character dialogue and is therefore preserved under Indiana’s local dramatic voice rather than flattened into Steele autobiography.

Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil, “Credo,” originally published in 1920. Project Gutenberg #15210. The sentence continues with freedom of association, movement, thought, dream and work “uncursed by color.”

A Voice from the South, “Womanhood a Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress of a Race,” Project Gutenberg #61741 / Wikisource 1892 text. The sentence belongs to Cooper's Black feminist argument about representation, education and racial uplift; it is not a generic claim that one individual literally represents every Black person.

The Conservation of Races, Academy Creed, point 6; Project Gutenberg #5685. This is Du Bois’s own programmatic statement. The essay’s broader nineteenth-century racial theory remains historical context and is not presented as current biological science.

The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. The sentence continues by contrasting inner qualities with social reputation.

How to Succeed, chapter “Hold Up Your Head,” in the Project Gutenberg text; the book’s period language and success philosophy are preserved as historical self-development writing.

The World I Live In (1908), Chapter XII, “The Larger Sanctions,” printed page 160, Project Gutenberg #27683. Keller states that blindness has no limiting effect upon mental vision while defending the role of imagination, correspondence and inherited language in apprehending realities beyond immediate sensation.

Essays of Montaigne, Book I, Chapter XXXVIII, ‘Of Solitude,’ Charles Cotton translation edited by William Carew Hazlitt (1877); Project Gutenberg Volume 06 #3586 / Complete Essays #3600. Montaigne’s self-possession sentence occurs in his discussion of inward independence and making a retreat that does not leave the self owned by external obligations.

The Human Machine, discussion of using experience for self-command. Bennett’s claim is philosophical self-training advice; it does not imply that every failure is beneficial or emotionally easy.

The Diary of a Nobody, “Introduction by Mr. Pooter”; Project Gutenberg #1026. Charles Pooter asks why his diary should not be published even though he is not a “Somebody,” establishing the novel’s fictional self-important diarist before Chapter I begins. This is Pooter’s comic narrative voice, not autobiographical testimony by George or Weedon Grossmith.

The Victorious Attitude; this sentence appears in Marden’s sustained argument that loss of self-faith is more damaging than the loss of possessions or an individual undertaking.

The Human Machine, later discussion of self-training. “Machine” is Bennett’s extended metaphor for the person’s mental and emotional habits; the line is not a biomedical model.

The Prophet, “On Children.”

The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich (1848), represented in Project Gutenberg’s Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough. Philip speaks to Elspie during their courtship conversation after she says she does not want to become “a lady.” The line is fictional verse dialogue and is kept under Philip’s local voice rather than treated as Clough autobiography.

Ulysses, near the close of the poem.

The Wisdom of Life; Schopenhauer argues that personality has a more direct relation to happiness than property, rank, or external opinion.

The Majesty of Calmness, “The Dignity of Self-Reliance.” Jordan’s ideal of independence is period self-development writing; it does not require isolation or refusal of legitimate help.

Solitude of Self; this clause occurs inside Stanton’s argument for education, civic voice, economic opportunity, and emancipation from enforced dependence.

Dhammapada 157, Chapter XII “Self,” in Max Müller’s translation; the verse explicitly joins self-regard with watchfulness and ethical discipline.

How to Succeed, “Hold Up Your Head”; Marden follows a Lincoln anecdote by arguing that self-respect depends on deserving one’s own approval.

Solitude of Self; Stanton develops an extended navigation metaphor to argue that every person must be equipped for the emergencies and decisions of an individual life.

Eighty Years and More (1898), Chapter XIV, “Views on Marriage and Divorce,” Project Gutenberg #11982. Stanton introduces the surrounding passage as “my latest thought on this question” from The Arena of April 1894, then argues that marriage and divorce should be judged from individual sovereignty and individual happiness. The 1898 memoir remains the represented source while the embedded 1894 article origin is preserved.

The Power of Truth, “The Courage to Face Ingratitude.” Project Gutenberg #56020; first published August 1902. Jordan’s standard is moral perseverance, not indifference to all criticism.

Up from Slavery, Chapter XIV, “The Atlanta Exposition Address,” Project Gutenberg #2376. The sentence occurs inside Washington’s reproduced 1895 Atlanta Exposition address, where he argues for the dignity of common labour and beginning economic development from practical foundations.

As a Man Thinketh, “Thought and Purpose.”

Self-Control, Its Kingship and Majesty, later discussion of individual possibility. The sentence is motivational rhetoric about human potential rather than a measurable universal prediction.

The Majesty of Calmness, “The Dignity of Self-Reliance.” The represented 1900 work is public domain; the investment metaphor belongs to Jordan’s conduct-of-life rhetoric, not financial advice.

Walt Whitman, 'Song of the Open Road,' section 5 in the represented 1882 Leaves of Grass text. 'I am larger, better than I thought, I did not know I held so much goodness' follows the speaker's declaration of being loosed from imagined limits. It remains poetic first-person self-discovery rather than empirical psychology.

The Victorious Attitude, chapter on faith; Marden explicitly distinguishes other people’s good opinion from the faith in oneself he calls imperative.

Eighty Years and More (1898), Chapter XIV, “Views on Marriage and Divorce,” Project Gutenberg #11982. This sentence immediately follows Stanton’s individual-sovereignty claim inside her quoted April 1894 Arena article: she contrasts older state/family primacy with the Christian claim of individual conscience and judgment. The passage is historical reform argument, not modern constitutional or family-law doctrine.

Our Mutual Friend, Book III, Chapter IX (“Somebody Becomes the Subject of a Prediction”), verified against Project Gutenberg #883 and the stable Wikisource chapter transcription. John Rokesmith (the Secretary) says “No one is useless in this world ... who lightens the burden of it for any one else” after Bella Wilfer calls herself useless. This row preserves the represented primary-text wording and is the same underlying passage as the older modernized catalog variant; it remains fictional dialogue rather than Dickens autobiography or modern psychological evidence.

As a Man Thinketh, “Visions and Ideals.”

The Souls of Black Folk, “Of Our Spiritual Strivings.” Project Gutenberg #408. The sentence follows Du Bois’s definition of double-consciousness and belongs to his analysis of Black American life under the color line.

Self-Reliance, in Emerson’s discussion of genuine action rather than virtue performed as spectacle.

Song of Myself, 1882 text; Whitman immediately compares this unapologetic stance with elementary laws that never apologize.

The Power of Truth, “The Way of the Reformer.” The qualifying language about rights and duties is retained because it prevents the individualist passage from being reduced to purely self-centered advice.

The Victorious Attitude, opening chapter; the rhetoric is deliberately motivational and reflects early twentieth-century success literature rather than an empirical psychological claim.

Poems of Power, “I Am,” published 1903; Project Gutenberg #6667. The poem is explicitly spiritual and metaphysical, so the line remains poetic purpose language rather than proof of a predetermined cosmic assignment.

The Professor, early first-person narration by the fictional William Crimsworth. The novel was published posthumously in 1857; the line is character narration, not Brontë autobiography.