We need to unlearn our respect for education, since it has undermined our respect for ourselves. It's worth taking time to demistify it. [...] All the things an adolescent can be [...] are reduced to a three digit number. [...] We too can decide how to value our education instead of letting them value us.

Self-esteem isn't everything; it's just that there's nothing without it

Self-esteem is the basis of any democracy

I think we each come out of the womb with some unique way of looking at the world and if we don't express it, we loose faith in ourselves.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to thee that shall make thee break thy word or lose thy self-respect.

But I think that because they trusted themselves and respected themselves as individuals, because they knew beyond doubt that they were valuable and potentially moral units -- because of this they could give God their own courage and dignity and then receive it back. Such things have disappeared perhaps because men do not trust themselves anymore, and when that happens there is nothing left except perhaps to find some strong sure man, even though he may be wrong, and to dangle from his coattails.