No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

One who is in love with himself has at least this advantage -- he won't encounter many rivals.

It frequently happens that the value of a thing lies in the fact that someone has possessed it. A very ordinary thing acquires a new value, if it has been possessed by some famous person. In any museum we will find quite ordinary things -- clothes, a walking-stick, a pen, pieces of furniture -- which are only of value because they were possessed and used by some great person. It is the ownership which gives them worth. It is so with the Christian. The Christian may be a very ordinary person, but he acquires a new value and dignity and greatness because he belongs to God. The greatness of the Christian lies in the fact that he is God's.

Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

· Beyond Barbie: According to a study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, popular action figures like G.I. Joe appear to be pumping steroids. In the 1960's, Joe had biceps equal to those of the average man - about 12 inches. In 1997 Joe had bulked up to an astounding 26 inch arm girth. Such large arms dwarf Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire, whose pipes measure in at a paltry 20 inches. (Time, May 31, 2000 p. 26)

When Americans and Australians rated themselves on more than seventeen hundred psychological qualities, four traits emerged as salient. The adjectives that defined these four seminal traits were all undesirable and, by implication, bad. They were (1) quarrelsome and spiteful; (2) impulsive and undisciplined; (3) withdrawn and untalkative; and (4) hypersensitive and emotional. [The reference is to Ashton, Lee, and Goldberg, "A Hierarchichal Analysis of 1,710 English Personality-Descriptive Adjectives", <i>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology</i> 87 (2004): 707-721.]