Self love is paramount to making your life happy and fulfilling. Without self love, more often than not, you will end up attracting situations in your life that are not in alignment with your true desires leading to deep dissatisfaction and a sense of lack.
So what exactly is self love? Self love entails understanding yourself, accepting yourself, valuing yourself, believing in yourself, forgiving yourself, taking care of yourself and always putting yourself first.
So does self love makes you selfish? Not at all, self love makes you authentic; it helps you shed the pretense and connect with your true self. And when you present your true authentic self to others, you are being anything but selfish.
Also, it is only through loving yourself are you capable of loving others, it is only in understanding yourself do you begin to understand others (through empathy), it is only by valuing yourself do you learn to value others, it is in forgiving yourself can you forgive others, and it is only by accepting yourself as you are do you learn to accept others as they are. So self love is anything but selfish. It is the greatest act of selflessness you can ever undertake.
Yes, it does sound paradoxical, but as Lao Tzu says in the Tao, “Most of life’s greatest truths are paradoxical in nature“.
Quotes on self love
The following is a list of 18 self love quotes that have the power to transform.
1. “As I began to love myself I freed myself of anything that is not good for my health – food, people, things, situations, and everything that drew me down and away from myself.” – Charlie Chaplin
When you do not love yourself, you get stuck in this loop of seeking external validation. You end up being with people who do not match up to your level of consciousness and hence doing things that you do not truly love. In other words, you start living an un-authentic life. You put on a fake persona just to fit in where you do not belong.
But once you approve of yourself, you automatically start to let go of things that drag you down and start attracting things that are prudent to your well being. That is exactly what this quote by Charlie Chaplin is all about.
Also Read: 8 Simple Ways To Boost Self Love
2. “How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you” – Rupi Kaur
This is a really powerful quote by Rupi Kaur on the power of self love. It’s an unsaid rule of nature that you cannot get something that you feel you do not deserve. When you don’t love yourself, you are conveying a message to the universe that you do not deserve love and hence you are going to attract people into your life who reflect this belief back to you.
But all this changes the instant you begin to love and value yourself. When you realize your true worth and start to value yourself, others automatically start to value you.
Also Read: 25 Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes On Self Love (Very Deep And Insightful)
3. “Document the moments you feel most in love with yourself – what you’re wearing, who you’re around, what you’re doing. Recreate and repeat.” – Warsan Shire
This quote by Warsan Shire contains a simple yet very effective tip on increasing self love. Become conscious of how various things make you feel (people, settings, situations etc.) and start to make a note of things that make you feel good and ones that make you feel bad. Invest more of your time and energy into doing things that make you feel good.
Slowly start attracting more of these things into your life by focusing your attention on these things and by removing your attention from things that do not serve you.
4. “It’s all about falling in love with yourself and sharing that love with someone who appreciates you, rather than looking for love to compensate for a self love deficit.” – Eartha Kitt
When you do not love yourself, you lack the ability to love another. And the love that you get from others cannot keep you fulfilled for long. Soon enough, you will end up feeling a sense of lack, a void that just does not seem to get filled. Also in relationships where one partner feels a lack of self love, an imbalance is created where one partner is always seeking and other is always giving. Eventually, the person who is giving is going to feel burnt out.
But when both partners already love themselves and feel complete within, you can give and take freely with both of you enriching each other’s life with love.
Also Read: 8 Ways to be Happy In a Relationship.
5. “One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others. – Bell Hooks”
People spend years thinking of the perfect loving partner. One who is fully accepting of them, gives unconditional support, is ever present, is ever giving, is totally dedicated and showers them with love and affection at all times.
But people often forget that one person who is actually capable of giving this kind of unconditional love – is their own self.
So give yourself the unconditional love, support and approval that you think of receiving from that perfect partner. Once you do that, you will feel complete within and will no longer look on the outside for fulfillment. What you receive from the outside will only be an added extra to what you already have.
6. You can never love anybody if you are unable to love yourself. – maxim
You cannot give someone something that you do not already have. It’s only when you have love within can you share it with someone else. If someone where to give you love, you will only depend on that somebody to keep making you feel loved without realizing that the love that you seek is already within you. You will also not be able to reciprocate the love you receive. This is how an emotional dependency is formed. So the ultimate secret to a healthy and fulfilling relationship is self love in both partners.
7. Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself. – Bell Hooks
You attract people into your life who reflect back to you, your beliefs about yourself. If you do not believe that you deserve love, you will find yourself in relationships where this belief gets reinforced.
The only way to break free from this cycle is to start looking within and to let go of all the negative and limiting beliefs that you hold about yourself. Embrace and accept yourself fully. By doing that, you open the door to attract the right kind of loving relationships into your life that you truly deserve.
Also Read: 4 Steps To Let Go Of Past Regrets.
8. “Letting ourselves be forgiven is one of the most difficult healings we will undertake. And one of the most fruitful.” – Stephen Levine
As this quote rightly points out, forgiveness is at the core of self love because, through forgiveness comes self acceptance.
You need to forgive yourself completely by letting go of the past. You can learn from the past, but do not hold on to it. Whenever you get thoughts of blame, let them go. Know that everyone makes mistakes and that you are no longer the person you used to be. As you learn to forgive yourself, you also start to forgive others and hence start to release them from your life so you can attract the right kind of people in the future.
9. “I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.” ― Rita Mae Brown
Conformity is nothing more than pleasing others to seek approval. And when you are dependent on others to give you approval and love, then you start to live an unauthentic life. You will need to keep pretending or putting on a facade to keep everyone pleased. And in the process, you become unhappy cause you are no longer living the life that you desire. When you love yourself, you feel complete within and you no longer have a need to seek approval from others. Now you are no longer a conformist and you can start to live the life that you truly desire.
10. “Become your own best friend.” – maxim
What does a best friend do? A best friend is supportive, is always there for you, is fully accepting of you, believes in you, is forgiving, never blames you and gives you good insight.
When you expect all these things from someone else, why not expect these things from your own self? Why can’t you be your own best friend? When you love yourself, you become your best friend.
11. “If you celebrate your differentness, the world will, too.” – Victoria Moran
The things that make you different are the things that make you unique. And believe it or not, these are your greatest strengths. Learn to look at them as your strengths and you will start to see their true value. By celebrating your uniqueness, you encourage others to do the same and that is a gift of liberation you can give to others.
12. “The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself.” – Steve Maraboli
Isn’t that true? The person you spend the most time with is yourself. So shouldn’t your relationship with this person be perfect? A perfect relationship primarily involves a deeper understanding of yourself, accepting yourself, letting go of self blame, valuing yourself, believing in yourself and giving utmost priority to you dreams and desires.
13. “People who love themselves come across as very loving, generous and kind; they express their self-confidence through humility, forgiveness and inclusiveness.” ― Sanaya Roman
When you love yourself, you are no longer dependent on others for approval and hence you automatically become confident. You are no longer jealous of the other and hence you develop humility. You no longer have feelings of hate toward yourself or toward the other and hence you learn forgiveness, you start to understand yourself and in the process become more empathetic and generous. It all begins with loving yourself.
14. “We can’t be so desperate for love that we forget where we can always find it; within.” – Alexandra Elle
No love that you get from outside can match the love you feel for yourself.
If you do not feel love within, the love you receive from outside will never seem enough and you will always find yourself looking for that perfect person to make you feel loved. But no matter who you find, you will always feel a lack within. This lack can only be filled when you discover you own inner love.
When you connect with this love, it will make you whole again. You will no longer be desperate looking for love on the outside as you will have enough love on the inside.
15. “Do not waste your energy trying to change opinions. Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.” ― Tina Fey
Do not waste your time and energy trying to make other people understand you. Just because someone does not understand you, does not lessen your value or your life purpose.
The only person who needs to understand you is yourself. Spend time getting to know yourself. This is your journey and it is you alone who needs to make sense of it.
Also Read: 101 Inspiring Quotes On Being Yourself.
16. “Never use someone’s approval as a thermometer for your self-worth.” ― Jacqueline Simon Gunn
You can never love yourself if you base your self worth on other people’s approval. Instead, you will need to mold your life to please others just to seek their approval. This way, you start leading an unauthentic life. The only approval you need is from yourself. Self approval trumps a million approvals from the outside. So approve of yourself today, become self validated.
17. “You’ll never know who you are unless you shed who you pretend to be.” ― Vironika Tugaleva
When you are constantly seeking validation, approval and love from other people, you eventually will need to live according to their wishes. You start living an unauthentic life which leads to deep dissatisfaction in the long run. The only way to become free from this is to become conscious of your mentality and discard these limiting thought patterns and beliefs. Once you become free from these beliefs, you can get in touch with your true nature.
Discarding these limiting beliefs and connecting with your true nature is the greatest act of self love.
18. “I am not in this world to live up to your expectations and you are not in this world to live up to mine.” – Fritz Perls
True self love is realizing that just like you don’t have to live up to other people’s expectations, they don’t have to live up to yours either.
As you are growing up, you feel obligated to live up to the expectations of your parents, teachers and peers. Even though that is fine when you are young, living this way is not sustainable once you enter adulthood. Constantly trying to live up to other people’s expectations will make you a people pleaser, someone who has to put on a mask and live a life that others what them to live. And when you live an unauthentic life, you really cannot love yourself. So it is imperative that you become free from this limiting mindset and embrace your true self.
Hopefully some of these self love quotes deeply resonated with you and inspired you to start looking within and reconnect with your true self. If you believe you are living an unauthentic life completely dependent on others for approval and validation, then this has got to change. It’s time to become self validated by consciously practicing self love.
