Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie
Which we ascribe to heaven.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Many men are like unto sausages: Whatever you stuff them with, that they will bear in them.
—Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1883–1945) Soviet Novelist, Short-story Writer
Other people’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality.
—Les Brown
All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do…. Build, therefore, your own world.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Confidence is what you have before you understand the problem.
—Woody Allen (b.1935) American Film Actor, Director
Ninety-two percent of the stuff told you in confidence you couldn’t get anyone else to listen to.
—Franklin P. Adams (1881–1960) American Columnist, Radio Personality, Author
If you really put a small value upon yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price.
—Unknown
Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
—Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American Self-Help Author
True prosperity is the result of well-placed confidence in ourselves and our fellow man.
—Unknown
I’ve always seen myself as a winner, even as a kid. If I hadn’t, I just might have gone down the drain a couple of times. I’ve got something inside of me, peasant like and stubborn, and I’m in it ’til the end of the race.
—Truman Capote (1924–84) American Novelist
Nothing reduces the odds against you like ignoring them.
—Robert Brault
An axe at home saves hiring a carpenter.
—Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist
One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.
—Arthur Ashe (1943–93) American Tennis Player
He who would be well taken care of must take care of himself.
—William Graham Sumner (1840–1910) American Polymath, Academic, Historian, Sociologist, Anthropologist
Life for both sexes is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. More than anything… it calls for confidence in oneself…And how can we generate this imponderable quality most quickly? By thinking that other people are inferior to oneself.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
All confidence is dangerous, if it is not entire; we ought on most occasions to speak all, or conceal all. We have already too much disclosed our secrets to a man, from whom we think any one single circumstance is to be concealed.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
The wise don’t expect to find life worth living; they make it that way.
—Unknown
Confidence on the outside begins by living with integrity on the inside.
—Brian Tracy (b.1944) American Author, Motivational Speaker
Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.
—Vince Lombardi (1913–70) American Football Coach
Oliver Wendell Holmes once attended a meeting in which he was the shortest man present. “Dr. Holmes,” quipped a friend, “I should think you’d feel rather small among us big fellows”. “I do,” retorted Holmes, “I feel like a dime among a lot of pennies”.
—Unknown
Let us have a care not to disclose our hearts to those who shut up theirs against us.
—Francis Beaumont (1584–1616) English Elizabethan Dramatist
There are cases in which a man would be ashamed not to have been imposed upon. There is a confidence necessary to human intercourse, and without which men are often more injured by their own suspicions, than they could be by the perfidy of others.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Whoever does not respect confidence will never find happiness in their path.
—Common Proverb
Nothing is a greater impediment to being on good terms with others than being ill at ease with yourself. – Balzac, Honore De
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
The quality of wit inspires more admiration than confidence
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic.
—Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) Finnish Composer
A secure individual … knows that the responsibility for anything concerning his life remains with himself—and he accepts that responsibility.
—Harry Browne (1933–2006) American Politician, Investor, Writer
When I have been unhappy, I have heard an opera … and it seemed the shrieking of winds; when I am happy, a sparrow’s chirp is delicious to me. But it is not the chirp that makes me happy, but I that make it sweet.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.
—Stephen Spender (1909–95) English Poet, Critic
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