He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life
He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life
Mohammed Ali
Brené Brown has inspired millions with her books and talks, and her insights into courage and self-love are more vital than ever during these challenging times. So, we’re taking a look at some of the best Brené Brown quotes to give you a boost of confidence and hope.
Brown, a Texas-based social researcher and storyteller, has spent years studying courage, vulnerability, shame and empathy. She’s written five bestselling books, including The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly and Dare to Lead, and her first TED Talk, “The Power of Vulnerability,” has racked up more than 40 million views.
Through her research and talks, Brown explores a quality she calls ‘Wholeheartedness,’ which she defines as “engaging with our lives from a place of worthiness.”
“When you get to a place where you understand that love and belonging, your worthiness, is a birthright and not something you have to earn, anything is possible,” Brown said in a 2012 interview with the TEDBlog. “Keep worthiness off the table. Your raise can be on the table, your promotion can be on the table, your title can be on the table, your grades can be on the table. But keep your worthiness for love and belonging off the table. And then ironically everything else just takes care of itself.”
Read on for 75 of Brown’s most inspiring quotes on self-worth, love and vulnerability.
1. “Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them–we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.”
2. “Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.”
3. “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.”
4. “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.”
Related: Excerpt from Brené Brown’s Rising Strong: The Physics of Vulnerability
5. “If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.”
6. “The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.”
7. “If you trade your authenticity for safety, you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment and inexplicable grief.”
8. “Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.”
9. “What we know matters but who we are matters more.”
10. “Nostalgia is also a dangerous form of comparison. Think about how often we compare our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed.”
11. “I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.”
12. “What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude.”
13. “When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated. This is why we sometimes attack who they are, which is far more hurtful than addressing a behavior or a choice.”
14. “Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection.”
15. “If you want to make a difference, the next time you see someone being cruel to another human being, take it personally. Take it personally because it is personal!”
16. “Numb the dark and you numb the light.”
17. “The willingness to show up changes us. It makes us a little braver each time.”
18. “Stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don’t belong. You will always find it because you’ve made that your mission. Stop scouring people’s faces for evidence that you’re not enough. You will always find it because you’ve made that your goal. True belonging and self-worth are not goods; we don’t negotiate their value with the world. The truth about who we are lives in our hearts. Our call to courage is to protect our wild heart against constant evaluation, especially our own. No one belongs here more than you.”
19. “Compassionate people ask for what they need. They say no when they need to, and when they say yes, they mean it. They’re compassionate because their boundaries keep them out of resentment.”
20. “Until we can receive with an open heart, we’re never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help.”
21. “Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.”
22. “One of the greatest barriers to connection is the cultural importance we place on ‘going it alone.’ Somehow we’ve come to equate success with not needing anyone. Many of us are willing to extend a helping hand, but we’re very reluctant to reach out for help when we need it ourselves. It’s as if we’ve divided the world into “those who offer help” and “those who need help.” The truth is that we are both.”
23. “Just because someone isn’t willing or able to love us, it doesn’t mean that we are unlovable.”
Related: Brené Brown’s Netflix Special Is Out! The 5 Best Quotes From the Queen of Vulnerability
24. “You cannot shame or belittle people into changing their behaviors.”
25. “Nothing has transformed my life more than realizing that it’s a waste of time to evaluate my worthiness by weighing the reaction of the people in the stands.”
26. “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
27. “Who we are and how we engage with the world are much stronger predictors of how our children will do than what we know about parenting.”
28. “To love ourselves and support each other in the process of becoming real is perhaps the greatest single act of daring greatly.”
29. “No one reaches out to you for compassion or empathy so you can teach them how to behave better. They reach out to us because they believe in our capacity to know our darkness well enough to sit in the dark with them.”
30. “Those who feel lovable, who love and who experience belonging simply believe they are worthy of love and belonging.”
31. “Courage is like—it’s a habitus, a habit, a virtue: You get it by courageous acts. It’s like you learn to swim by swimming. You learn courage by couraging.”
32. “We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time.”
33. “Sometimes when we are beating ourselves up, we need to stop and say to that harassing voice inside, ‘Man, I’m doing the very best I can right now.’”
34. “I believe that owning our worthiness is the act of acknowledging that we are sacred. Perhaps embracing vulnerability and overcoming numbing is ultimately about the care and feeding of our spirits.”
35. “We don’t have to do all of it alone. We were never meant to.”
36. “How can we expect people to put value on our work when we don’t value ourselves enough to set and hold uncomfortable boundaries?”
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37. “Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.”
38. “Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.”
39. “Wholehearted living is about engaging with our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion and connection to wake up in the morning and think, ‘No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.’”
40. “Research tells us that we judge people in areas where we’re vulnerable to shame, especially picking folks who are doing worse than we’re doing. If I feel good about my parenting, I have no interest in judging other people’s choices. If I feel good about my body, I don’t go around making fun of other people’s weight or appearance. We’re hard on each other because we’re using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived shaming deficiency.”
41. “Boundaries—You respect my boundaries, and when you’re not clear about what’s okay and not okay, you ask. You’re willing to say no.”
42. “Are you the adult that you want your child to grow up to be?”
43. “Stay in your own lane. Comparison kills creativity and joy.”
44. “Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.”
45. “Never underestimate the power of being seen.”
46. “Fitting in is one of the greatest barriers to belonging. Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be in order to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.”
47. “I define a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.”
48. “Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surrender to uncertainty.”
49. “Love is uncertain. It’s incredibly risky. And loving someone leaves us emotionally exposed. Yes, it’s scary, and yes, we’re open to being hurt, but can you imagine your life without loving or being loved?”
50. “We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong.”
51. “We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.”
52. “We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.”
53. “When I let go of trying to be everything to everyone, I had much more time, attention, love, and connection for the important people in my life.”
54. “Just because we didn’t measure up to some standard of achievement doesn’t mean that we don’t possess gifts and talents that only we can bring to the world. Just because someone failed to see the value in what we can create or achieve doesn’t change its worth or ours.”
55. “Boundaries are hard when you want to be liked and when you are a pleaser hellbent on being easy, fun, and flexible.”
56. “We’re all grateful for people who write and speak in ways that help us remember that we’re not alone.”
57. “People may call what happens at midlife ‘a crisis,’ but it’s not. It’s an unraveling—a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you’re ‘supposed’ to live. The unraveling is a time when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and to embrace who you are.”
58. “When we’re anxious, disconnected, vulnerable, alone, and feeling helpless, the booze and food and work and endless hours online feel like comfort, but in reality they’re only casting their long shadows over our lives.”
59. “Now I understand that in order to feel a true sense of belonging, I need to bring the real me to the table and that I can only do that if I’m practicing self-love.”
60. “We can talk about courage and love and compassion until we sound like a greeting card store, but unless we’re willing to have an honest conversation about what gets in the way of putting these into practice in our daily lives, we will never change. Never, ever.”
61. “When we own our stories, we avoid being trapped as characters in stories someone else is telling.”
62. “Generosity is not a free pass for people to take advantage of us, treat us unfairly, or be purposefully disrespectful and mean.”
63. “The mark of a wild heart is living out the paradox of love in our lives. It’s the ability to be tough and tender, excited and scared, brave and afraid—all in the same moment.”
64. “You will always belong anywhere you show up as yourself and talk about yourself and your work in a real way.”
65. “Stillness is not about focusing on nothingness; it’s about creating a clearing. It’s opening up an emotionally clutter-free space and allowing ourselves to feel and think and dream and question.”
66. “Daring is not saying, “I’m willing to risk failure.” Daring is saying, “I know I will eventually fail and I’m still all in.”
67. “Show up for people in pain and don’t look away.” Parade Daily
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68. “We don’t judge people when we feel good about ourselves.”
69. “If we want to make meaning, we need to make art. Cook, write, draw, doodle, paint, scrapbook, take pictures, collage, knit, rebuild an engine, sculpt, dance, decorate, act, sing—it doesn’t matter. As long as we’re creating, we’re cultivating meaning.”
70. “The connection that we forge by judging and mocking others is not real connection.”
71. “When we’re kind to ourselves, we create a reservoir of compassion that we can extend to others.”
72. “Our children learn how to be self-compassionate by watching us, and the people around us feel free to be authentic and connected.”
73. “How much we know ourselves is extremely important but how we treat ourselves is the most important.”
74. “Pain will subside only when we acknowledge it and care for it.”
75. “The imperfect book that gets published is better than the perfect book that never leaves my computer.”
