Quotes on Approval

Most fears of rejection rest on the desire for approval from other people. Don't base your self-esteem on their opinions.

But the most obvious fact about praise — whether of God or anything — strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it.

President Bush has embarked on an eight-day tour of the continent. He hopes this one goes better than the other ones he's made recently. Obviously he's not doing that well in North America [on screen: '36% Approval'], his South American trip had a few bumps [on screen: 'Angry mobs of torch-carrying bumps'], Europe seems to think the president doesn't care what they think, but hey, who cares what they think? They could at least thank him for what he's done for their burning effigy industry.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

When anyone starts out to do something creative - especially if it seems a little unusual - they seek approval, often from those least inclined to give it. But a creative life cannot be sustained by approval, any more than it can be destroyed by criticism - you learn this as you go on.

When we consistently suppress and distrust our intuitive knowingness, looking instead for authority, validation, and approval from others, we give our personal power away.

Any person or organization depends ultimately on public approval, and is therefore faced with the problem of engineering the public's consent to a program or goal.

Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner.

If the society today allows wrongs to go unchallenged, the impression is created that those wrongs have the approval of the majority.

It's always easier to apologize for something you've already done than to get approval for it in advance.

Because your brain uses information from the areas around the blind spot to make a reasonable guess about what the blind spot would see if only it weren't blind, and then your brain fills in the scene with this information. That's right, it invents things, creates things, makes stuff up! It doesn't consult you about this, doesn't seek your approval. It just makes its best guess about the nature of the missing information and proceeds to fill in the scene.

Common experience shows how much rarer is moral courage than physical bravery. A thousand men will march to the mouth of the cannon where one man will dare espouse an unpopular cause . . . True courage and manhood come from the consciousness of the right attitude toward the world, the faith in one's purpose, and the sufficiency of one's own approval as a justification for one's own acts.

When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.

To serve as prime minister while being too mindful of the approval rating is like serving as a prime minister on a roller coaster. What is important, I believe, is that I really act on promises that I make and leave results. Leave a track record and show that to the Japanese public, who will, at the end of the day, I hope, appreciate it.

If approval was a criterion in this country, nothing would ever get done.

I'm looking to no man walking this earth for approval of what I'm doing.

Many people think of perfectionism as striving to be your best, but it is not about self-improvement; it's about earning approval and acceptance.

When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat.

Acting, I found, was the biggest charge I ever had. What other artist has it so good? Approval so quick?

One of the statistics that always amazes me is the approval of the Chinese government, not elected, is over 80 percent. The approval of the U.S. government, fully elected, is 19 percent. Well, we elected these people and they didn't elect those people. Isn't it supposed to be different? Aren't we supposed to like the people that we elected?

Some recent philosophers seem to have given their moral approval to these deplorable verdicts that affirm that the intelligence of an individual is a fixed quantity, a quantity that cannot be augmented. We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism; we will try to demonstrate that it is founded on nothing.