Quotes & Sayings About Self Esteem And Beauty

Vogue began to focus on the body as much as on the clothes, in part because there was little they could dictate with the anarchic styles ... In a stunning move, an entire replacement culture was developed by naming a 'problem' where it had scarcely existed before, centering it on the women's natural state, and elevating it to the existential female dilemma ... The number of diet-related articles rose 70 percent from 1968 to 1972 ... The lucrative 'transfer of guilt' was resurrected just in time. — Naomi Wolf

Things that are attached to the body do not just add beauty to the body or probably enhances the self confidence of the man within, but they are also the very reasons for pride and excessive self confidence — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

People don't need enormous cars; they need admiration and respect. They don't need a constant stream of new clothes; they need to feel that others consider them to be attractive, and they need excitement and variety and beauty. People don't need electronic entertainment; they need something interesting to occupy their minds and emotions. And so forth. Trying to fill real but nonmaterial needs-for identity, community, self-esteem, challenge, love, joy-with material things is to set up an unquenchable appetite for false solutions to never-satisfied longings. A society that allows itself to admit and articulate its nonmaterial human needs, and to find nonmaterial ways to satisfy them, world require much lower material and energy throughputs and would provide much higher levels of human fulfillment. — Donella H. Meadows

Spokespeople sell women the Iron Maiden and name her "Health": if public discourse were really concerned with women's health, it would turn angrily upon this aspect of the beauty myth. — Naomi Wolf

The stronger that women grow, the more prestige, fame, and money is accorded to the display professions: They are held higher and higher above the heads of rising women, for them to emulate. — Naomi Wolf

As we open our hearts to others, we begin to discover the truth of our own inner beauty, inner strength and inner light. — Susan Jeffers

The beauty myth is always actually prescribing behaviour and not appearance. — Naomi Wolf

Believe in yourself and the beauty of your dreams. — Lailah Gifty Akita

N our perfection-obsessed, air-brushed society, it can be tempting to measure our self-worth against its set of impossible standards. However, organic beauty is in the flaws that make us vulnerable, human and fallible. We are here to learn, evolve and grow. We do not need to become perfect to be worthy of love, there is no such thing. We can not love others when we are withholding love and acceptance from ourselves. We can not criticize ourselves and then reach with open arms to give and receive love from others. It has to start from within, radiating outward. We need to learn how to be unconditionally loving, accepting and forgiving of ourselves, first, if we wish to forge healthy and loving relationships with others. — Jaeda DeWalt

I used to never get in a swimsuit. I used to feel so embarrassed about my skin and scars. I'm over that, it wasted too much of my time and I missed out on too much. — Stephanie Nielson

Aging in women is 'unbeautiful' since women grow more powerful with time, and since the links between generations of women must always be broken. — Naomi Wolf

[Women's magazines]ignore older women or pretend that they don't exist; magazines try to avoid photographs of older women, and when they feature celebrities who are over sixty, 'retouching artists' conspire to 'help' beautiful women look more beautiful, ie less than their age...By now readers have no idea what a real woman's 60 year old face looks like in print because it's made to look 45. Worse, 60 year old readers look in the mirror and think they are too old, because they're comparing themselves to some retouched face smiling back at them from a magazine. — Dalma Heyn

At the core of your heart, you are perfect and pure. No one and nothing can alter that. — Amit Ray

It's really very simple. If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful, what have you given her? It's no more than a fact and it has cost you nothing. But if you tell an ugly woman she is beautiful, you offer her great homage of corrupting the concept of beauty. To love a woman for her virtues is meaningless. She's earned it, it's a payment, not a gift. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake - and that is a real tribute of love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your reason, your integrity and your invaluable self-esteem ... What's love, darling, if it's not self-sacrifice? — Ayn Rand

Today a woman must ignore her reflection in the eyes of her lover, since he might admire her, and seek it in the gaze of the God of Beauty, in whose perception she is never complete. — Naomi Wolf

Western women have been controlled by ideals and stereotypes as much as by material constraints. — Naomi Wolf

If your self esteem really does depend on how you look, you're always going to be insecure. There's no way you can get around it. Even if you get the perfect body, you're going to age. At some point, you have to take control, shift the focus, and decide that who you are, what you can contribute to the world, what you do and say is so much more important than how you look — Portia De Rossi

As soon as a woman's primary social value could no longer be defined as the attainment of virtuous domesticity, the beauty myth redefined it as the attainment of virtuous beauty. It did so to substitute both a new consumer imperative and a new justification for economic unfairness in the workplace where the old ones had lost their hold over newly liberated women. — Naomi Wolf

To live in a culture in which women are routinely naked where men aren't is to learn inequality in little ways all day long. So even if we agree that sexual imagery is in fact a language, it is clearly one that is already heavily edited to protect men's sexual
and hence social
confidence while undermining that of women. — Naomi Wolf

For too long, and despite what people told me, I had fallen for what the culture said about beauty, youth, features, heights, weights, hair textures, upper arms. — Anne Lamott

The beauty myth of the present is more insidious than any mystique of femininity yet: A century ago, Nora slammed the door of the doll's house; a generation ago, women turned their backs on the consumer heaven of the isolated multiapplianced home; but where women are trapped today, there is no door to slam. The contemporary ravages of the beauty backlash are destroying women physically and depleting us psychologically. If we are to free ourselves from the dead weight that has once again been made out of femaleness, it is not ballots or lobbyists or placards that women will need first; it is a new way to see. — Naomi Wolf

I knew with certainty now - I could say no, and he would stop. Above all, I felt the fierce beauty of the choice. I knew now what it was that had held me from falling into my desire to be with him fully: I first needed to make sure he was a man who would respect my 'No. — Aspen Matis

The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon us ... During the past decade, women breached the power structure; meanwhile, eating disorders rose exponentially and cosmetic surgery became the fastest-growing specialty ... pornography became the main media category, ahead of legitimate films and records combined, and thirty-three thousand American women told researchers that they would rather lose ten to fifteen pounds than achieve any other goal ... More women have more money and power and scope and legal recognition than we have ever had before; but in terms of how we feel about ourselves physically, we may actually be worse off than our unliberated grandmothers. — Naomi Wolf

When you watch Olympic athletes in competition, does your self-esteem plummet? Of course not. On the contrary, you feel wonder and admiration; you're inspired that such exceptional individuals exist. So why can't we feels the same way about beauty? — Ted Chiang

Women are mere "beauties" in men's culture so that culture can be kept male. When women in culture show character, they are not desirable, as opposed to the desirable. A beautiful heroine is a contradiction in terms, since heroism is about individuality, interesting and ever changing, while "beauty" is generic, boring, and inert. While culture works out moral dilemmas, "beauty" is amoral: If a woman is born resembling an art object, it is an accident of nature, a fickle consensus of mass perception, a peculiar coincidence
but it is not a moral act. From the "beauties" in male culture, women learn a bitter amoral lesson
that the moral lessons of their culture exclude them. — Naomi Wolf

Style comes from knowing who you are and who you want to be in the world; it does not come from wanting to be somebody else, or wanting to be thinner, shorter, taller, prettier. — Nina Garcia

When I was growing up, we didn't have this super-skinny, flawless image to compete with. I find it unfortunate that young women may look at those images and think that is the ideal of beauty. It can cause a lot of problems and self-esteem issues if we don't remind girls that being healthy and exactly who you are is the main thing. I'm grateful I didn't grow up with those images. — Kellee Stewart

Healthy emotions come in all sizes. Healthy minds come in all sizes. And healthy bodies come in all sizes. — Cheri K. Erdman

Mastery over the body - its impulses, its needs, its size - is paramount; to lose control is to risk beauty, and to risk beauty is to risk desirability, and to risk desirability is to risk entitlement to sexuality and love and self-esteem. — Caroline Knapp

Is the beauty myth good to men? It hurts them by teaching them how to avoid loving women. It prevents men from actually seeing women. It does not, contrary to its own professed ideology, stimulate and gratify sexual longing. In suggesting a vision in place of a woman, it has a numbing effect, reducing all senses but the visual, and impairing even that. — Naomi Wolf

Do you love yourself? The test is simple. Do you look at others and see anything besides another beautiful human being? Do you see somebody who is more beautiful or less beautiful than you? If so, look down a little deeper and ask yourself why. It may be painful. The whys usually are. Do it anyway. — Dan Pearce

The most empowering, important belief is the belief in yourself, your capabilities, your strength, your choice, and your most infinite, most divine, most beautiful worth. — Connie Kerbs

If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful, what have you given her? It's no more than a fact and it has cost you nothing. But if you tell an ugly woman that she is beautiful, you offer her the great homage of corrupting the concept of beauty. To love a woman for her virtues is meaningless. She's earned it, it's a payment, not a gift. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake - and that is a real tribute of love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your reason, your integrity and your invaluable self-esteem. — Ayn Rand

Despite our battered exterior and in spite of the festering scars and rank filth that overlays it, there is underneath it all the pristine likeness of God Himself. And we would be wise to cast an eye not on the marred exterior, but to be fixed on the glorious interior. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Consumer culture is best supported by markets made up of sexual clones, men who want objects and women who want to be objects, and the object desired ever-changing, disposable, and dictated by the market. The beautiful object of consumer pornography has a built-in obsolescence, to ensure that as few men as possible will form a bond with one woman for years or for a lifetime, and to ensure that women's dissatisfaction with themselves will grow rather than diminish over time. Emotionally unstable relationships, high divorce rates, and a large population cast out into the sexual marketplace are good for business in a consumer economy. Beauty pornography is intent on making modern sex brutal and boring and only as deep as a mirror's mercury, anti-erotic for both men and women. — Naomi Wolf

I think the beauty industry is a stepping stone in terms of pageants that will give you a launching pad to be seen. For people to understand who you are and what you stand for ... I think it teaches self esteem and self worth. And it also encourages you to have a more philanthropic viewpoint of the world. — Kenya Moore

Beauty' is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the West is is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact. — Naomi Wolf

True beauty radiates not from outer cosmetics, but from the simple joy of making a difference for those that need your voice, passion, and time without expecting or wanting anything in return ... — Deborah Barnes

You need bravery for compassion. In the picture of your soul, the bravery points are the most beautiful. — Amit Ray

I did it because you are a beautiful, desirable woman, and a long time ago, someone made you think you weren't. I'm not saying a few lessons from me can undo everything, but I want you to see a little bit of what I see when I look at you. — Elizabeth Harmon

No one can repair your self-esteem for you. Your spouse cannot fix it. Your parents cannot fix it. Your boss cannot fix it. No amount of success or beauty enhancements can fix it. You have to fix it by changing the way you see yourself. You have to choose to see yourself accurately, to see life as a classroom, and commit to the policy that you have the same value no matter how you perform. It is time to claim the power to do this and not let anyone take your self-esteem from you again. — Kimberly Giles