"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."
— Dr. Seuss

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

"If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together.. there is something you must always remember. you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. but the most important thing is, even if we're apart.. I'll always be with you."
— A.A. Milne

"You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric."
— Bertrand Russell

"Confidence is ignorance. If you're feeling cocky, it's because there's something you don't know."
— Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl)

"Accept who you are; and revel in it."
— Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson)

"The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages."
— Virginia Woolf

"Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn't have it in the beginning."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that... I believe in what I do, and I'll say it."
— John Lennon

"I laugh at myself.
I don't take myself completely seriously.
I think that's another quality that people have to hold on to... you have to laugh, especially at yourself.
-Madonna."
— Madonna

"And no one will listen to us until we listen to ourselves."
— Marianne Williamson

"Never dull your shine for somebody else."
— Tyra Banks

"Believe in yourself and there will come a day when others will have no choice but to believe with you."
— Cynthia Kersey

"When someone tells me "no," it doesn't mean I can't do it, it simply means I can't do it with them."
— Karen E. Quinones Miller

"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is out light, not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?" Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world and there is nothing enlightened about shrinking, so that others won't feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some, it is in everyone. As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others. "
— Nelson Mandela

"If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I will never be tricked into it."
— Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)

"There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do."
— Marianne Williamson

"Don't worry about who doesn't like you, who has more, or who's doing what."
— Erma Bombeck

"Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy."
— Norman Vincent Peale

"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."
— Carlos Castaneda

"And suddenly she knew exactly why Catherine had fallen in love with him. It wasn't that he was unusually attractive, or ambitious, or even charming. He was partly those things, but more important, he seemed to live life on his own terms."
— Nicholas Sparks (Message in a Bottle)

"I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself."
— Michel de Montaigne

"Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"Self-consciousness kills communication."
— Rick Steves

"He owned an expensive camera that required thought before you pressed the shutter, and I quickly became his favorite subject, round-faced, missing teeth, my thick bangs in need of a trim. They are still the pictures of myself I like best, for they convey that confidence of youth I no longer possess, especially in front of a camera."
— Jhumpa Lahiri (Unaccustomed Earth)

"The LORD is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?
When evil men advance against me
to devour my flesh,
when my enemies and my foes attack me,
they will stumble and fall.
Though an army besiege me,
my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me,
even then will I be confident. -Psalm 27:1-3, NIV"
— Various

"Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence. And it is fragile. It can be blackened by fear, and superstition. By the year 2050, when the conflict began, the world had fallen upon fearful, superstitious times."
— Bernard Beckett (Genesis)

"The customer is always right' may have become a standard motto in the world of business, but the idea that 'the audience is always right,' has yet to make much of an impression on the world of presentation, even though for the duration of the presentation at least, the audience is the speaker's only customer."
— Max Atkinson (Lend Me Your Ears: All You Need to Know about Making Speeches and Presentations)