Self-Respect

Self-respect is one of the absolute essentials for living a sincere and happy life. Self-respect is more than self-approval. It is much more than self-satisfaction. It is much more than self-love. It is something that cannot be simulated; it is something for which there is no substitute.

Sincere self-respect is something almost sanctified in its sense of rightness within⎯rightness with principles, with conscience, with the counsels and commandments of God, with the real and lasting values of life.

It is something that comes to him who can face his fellows with a sincere sense of cleanliness, honor, and honesty, and his loved ones with truth and love and loyalty; to him who can honestly say he is seeking to be his best, and who does not seek to deceive himself.

This sincere kind of self-respect is worth more than can be calculated. It makes life good. It makes sleep sweet. And with it comes an awareness of a real relationship to Him who made us in His own image.

“Self-respect is the noblest garment with which a man may clothe himself….” “Self-distrust [on the other hand] is the cause of most of our failures.” “…nor can he reasonably expect the confidence of others,” said Samuel Johnson, “who too apparently distrusts himself.” “Every one stamps his own value on himself.”

“I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration,” said Abraham Lincoln, “that if at the end,…I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.”

And finally this word from Marcus Aurelius: “Never esteem anything as of advantage to thee that shall make thee break thy word or lose thy self-respect.”