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People need self-respect, but self-respect must be earned -- it cannot be self-respect if it's not earned -- and the only way to earn anything is to achieve it in the face of the possibility of failing.

— Charles Murray

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Notes from Wikiquote

Crown Forum (2012); ISBN13: 9780307453426.

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More quotes by Charles Murray

You're out of touch with reality in that regard.

Educational romanticism asks too much from students at the bottom of the intellectual pile, asks the wrong things from those in the middle, and asks too little from those at the top.

The United States Congress, acting with large bipartisan majorities, at the urging of the President, enacted as the law of the land that all children are to be above average.

I want to dismantle all the bureaucracies that dole out income transfers, whether they be public housing benefits or Social Security or corporate welfare, and use the money they spend to provide everyone over the age of 21 with a guaranteed income, deposited electronically every month into a bank account.

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The wise treat self-respect as non-negotiable, and will not trade it for health or wealth or anything else.

Thomas Szasz The Second Sin (1973)

Self-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue.

John Herschel A Toolbox for Humanity : More Than 9000 Years of Thought (2004)

Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival.

Martha Gellhorn Travels with Myself and Another: A Memoir (1978)

If you want to be respected by others the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Insulted and the Injured (1861)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Charles Murray (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.