I really liked reading this book,it was enlightening and more focused on gentle encouragement.
Favourite quotes:
“We know more about risks and dangers than when we first hopped on our bike as children. Our greater understanding makes us more anxious. But it shouldn’t blunt our boldness,our ability to go for it. Having confidence in ourselves requires us to keep the heart that we had as children- a child’s soul in the mind of an adult.”
“While self esteem is based on our assessment of our own value,self confidence is tied to our capacity for action,our ability to venture forth despite our doubts,to take risks in a complex world. To find the courage to adventure into the outside world,you have to have an inner assurance.”
“Without others,we could not develop our humanity;without others,we could not become what we are.”
“If we didn’t have the good fortune to grow up in a nurturing emotional environment,it’s never too late to form the bonds that we lacked early on. But it does require knowing oneself well enough to realise that these bonds are missing and need to be compensated for.”
“…confidence takes time to achieve. It develops in tandem with growing competence that,as it becomes integrated in stages and incorporated,has a liberating effect. Confidence is not innate but something that is largely acquired.”
“Often,when our confidence is at a low ebb,we start to think that we lack talent,that we aren’t good at what we do,when in fact it’s just a matter of not having trained enough. Whenever doubt starts to gain the upper hand,whenever we’re afraid that we won’t measure up,the best thing to do is to bolster our confidence by actively developing our skills,rather than invoking some hypothetical lack of talent.”
“To truly listen to ourselves,the important thing is for none of our faculties to predominate over the others. If our reason dominates,then we’ll obey our reason. If our emotions take over,we’ll follow them. When none of our faculties overshadows the others,then what we listen to and have confidence in is ourselves. We are all capable of doing this.”
“Knowing how to listen to yourself also means not giving into a sense of urgency….
One of the ways to free ourselves from the tyranny of urgency is to make the distinction between urgency and importance. Many things are urgent, but not all are important. Simply remembering this distinction can sometimes be liberating, and it doesn’t stop us from continuing to do what we need to do in a limited amount of time.”
“Self confidence had no real meaning in the pre-Revolutionary world,except as it applied to a few aristocrats with a chivalric turn of mind. Self confidence is a modern concept,an upshot of democratic ideals and the writings of the Enlightenment philosophers.”
“The self is multiple,paradoxical,changing:it’s when we are mindful of its complexity that we experience our freedom, and this realisation can come with the feeling that a dam has burst. We are no longer dominated by just one part of ourselves that tyrannises us from the inside. Nor are we in thrall to a truth that descends to us from the heavens,dictating to us from the outside. We are freed twice over:we finally trust ourselves.”
“We sense that at the heart of beauty there is a force at work that is greater than ourselves, a force that we have confidence in. We are not looking at beauty that is external to us. Instead we feel traversed by a power that is as much within us as without. At that point, we are no longer simple spectators of the world’s beauty. We are made aware of our own presence in the world. We had forgotten it, and now beauty has brought it back to our minds:we live in this world.”
“Our lives constantly force us to arbitrate between competing courses of action….
But no one can make the decision for us,and it is incumbent on us to be up to the task when a decision is called for…
You can’t have self confidence without mastering the difficult art of making decisions…
To choose is to choose logically,rationally,after an investigation that has Red the element of uncertainty to practically nothing….
To choose is to know before acting. To decide is to act before knowing.”
“The more we consent to the possibility of error,the more we experience ourselves as free beings,capable of acting decisively. To have confidence in oneself is to learn to love one’s freedom,rather than to be afraid of it. There’s a special joy in knowing that one is capable of it.”
“If god’s existence could be established by scientific reasoning,by a system of equations or by pointing to the intricate workings of the world,then there would be no need for belief:his existence would belong to the field of knowledge.”
“To decide is to take a stand at the heart of uncertainty,at the heart of life itself. Each time we consciously make a decision, we learn how to trust ourselves a bit more.”
“When we make things, we make ourselves….
We are made to construct,manipulate,work,experience our faculties in contact with the world, and alter matter to develop ourselves and our talent. It’s in relation to matter that our mind reveals its true nature. That is why we feel lost,strangers to ourselves,when we no longer make anything with our ten fingers…
To make things with your hands,your intelligence, and your heart:this is the road to a sturdy self confidence.”
“We must act,of course,as much as possible on the things that depend on us,but being self confident means that we must also have confidence in the things that don’t depend on us and that our actions may set in motion.”
“If I know what I aspire to,where I am and where I am going, I won’t compare myself to people who aspire to something else. And I won’t feel myself in competition with people who start at a different point and work toward different goals than I do.”
“There is is no user manual for a human life. In fact,that’s why we’re free and can choose the meaning of our existence.”
“Life is living up to its reputation when it veers from what we expect of it-whether for good or ill. If it corresponded to our expectations,it wouldn’t be life but a program executing its pre-planned course - and we couldn’t trust it.”
“Have confidence in your critical judgment. Of course,you’ll have moments of doubt. It’s harder to follow your own reason than the well-worn path of prejudice. But that’s how you’ll raise yourself up.”