“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."

[The New Statesman, February 25, 1933]”
― Cyril Connolly

“A busy, vibrant, goal-oriented woman is so much more attractive than a woman who waits around for a man to validate her existence.”
― Mandy Hale, The Single Woman–Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass: Embracing Singleness with Confidence

“God is a mean-spirited, pugnacious bully bent on revenge against His children for failing to live up to his impossible standards.”
― Walt Whitman

“I love classic beauty. It’s an idea of beauty with no standard.”
― Karl Lagerfeld

“Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to.”
― Alfred A. Montapert

“The world is not ready for some people when they show up, but that shouldn't stop anyone.”
― Ashly Lorenzana

“Cynics are - beneath it all - only idealists with awkwardly high standards.”
― Alain de Botton

“Someone out there is looking for exactly what you've got…and will never try and undercut your value or question your worth. Some things in life just can’t be bartered over or placed on the sale rack – and your self-worth is at the top of the list.”
― Mandy Hale, The Single Woman–Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass: Embracing Singleness with Confidence

“God is the only being who is good, and the standards are set by Him. Because God hates sin, He has to punish those guilty of sin. Maybe that's not an appealing standard. But to put it bluntly, when you get your own universe, you can make your own standards.”
― Francis Chan, Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God

“[O]ne person's 'barbarian' is another person's 'just doing what everybody else is doing.”
― Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others

“If we don't fight for what we 'stand for' with our passionate words and honest actions, do we really 'stand' for anything?”
― Tiffany Madison, Black and White

“When we stake a claim to the needs and wants of our life, we may easily fail to live up to the standards of others. Empathy and connectedness, however, might bridge the gap, by stirring our consciousness of the sensitive queries and by assessing the intricate framework of our surroundings with their countless, prickly nitty-gritties. ("Absence of Desire")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“We are sometimes astounded by the behavior of emotional outlaws, as they act in line with their own standards, but proceed like bulls-in-a-china-shop, create one heck of a mess in their living environment and bring about shocking disturbing dissensions, ever since their inner construction clashes with our emotional architecture. (“Disruption”)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Life is a time span where people mostly do not see the wood for the trees, wondering what may be the accurate answers to the numerous questions that they have assembled throughout their life, how they might prevent their perception from contradicting the reality of the world of their daily experience and how they can find out the actual standards to measure the soundness of their assumptions. Whichever way, no matter how they ponder, they have no other choice than keeping on looking for Waldo or for Wally. (“How high is too far?”)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“How should one keep a balanced spirit, if the standards in our lives and in the world are constantly reshuffled? Come rain or shine, let’s not fear our own shadow or desperately simmer down whistling in the dark, but let’s speak up and make our point, and comprehend ourselves in our surroundings, with our very own individuality. (“Was it all worthwhile?”)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Look around you at the people you spend the most time with and realize that your life can’t rise any higher than your friendships.”
― Mandy Hale, The Single Woman–Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass: Embracing Singleness with Confidence

“If you're going to do something, strive to do it better than anyone else. Do it all the way. If you're going to half-ass it, why bother?”
― Ashly Lorenzana

“When you are asked to love everybody indiscriminately, that is to love people without any standard, to love them regardless of whether they have any value or virtue, you are asked to love nobody.”
― Ayn Rand

“I don't settle in any other area of my life when it comes to excellence, so why should I lower my standards when it comes to boys?”
― Adriana Trigiani, Viola in Reel Life

“Raise your quality standards as high as you can live with, avoid wasting your time on routine problems, and always try to work as closely as possible at the boundary of your abilities. Do this, because it is the only way of discovering how that boundary should be moved forward.”
― Edsger W. Dijkstra

“If you don't set a baseline standard for what you'll accept in life, you'll find it's easy to slip into behaviours and attitudes or a quality of life that's far below what you deserve.”
― Anthony Robbins

“Aspire to decency. Practice civility toward one another. Admire and emulate ethical behavior wherever you find it. Apply a rigid standard of morality to your lives; and if, periodically, you fail ­ as you surely will ­ adjust your lives, not the standards.”
― Ted Koppel

“Don't judge the past by the standards of today. It won't work. They're incompatible.”
― Rachel Mead

“Women Empowerment Reminder of The Day. Always respect yourself as a woman. You attract what you are, so be very mindful of how you’re representing yourself. If you want respect, you must first learn how to respect yourself, first. Attracting negative attention is never a good thing. Be a woman of substance! Be a woman that both women and men respect, admire, and look up to. Don’t disrespect yourself by lowering your standards and accepting just anything that comes your way. It’s okay to be single! If you want a relationship of substance, you can’t keep entertaining people and things that mean you no good. Think about it! It’s all up to you.”
― Stephanie Lahart

“If you have people who treat you badly in your life, they will be a human shield against people who will treat you well. If that’s not true then we should apply it to marriage and start saying to woman who are being put down or beaten, “you gotta stay with him because he needs you and he has been your husband for 20 years for heaven sakes. You just have to work to love him more and so on.” This is the advice they gave to woman like 200 fucking years ago and it was abusive advice.

I view the parent child relationship (This just not my made up perspective.) it is the least voluntary relationship. At least the woman who got married chose to get married. We don’t choose our parents. The highest standards of behavior are required for parents and no one else. There is no one else whose standards of behavior need be higher than parents and so often parents get away with the lowest possible standards of behavior with regards to their children.”
― Stefan Molyneux

“The cult of friendship disturbs me. It's like our quality is supposed to be measured by the number of friends we have. For me, it's quite the inverse. When somebody says "I'm friends with everyone" I just assume they have the spine of your average jellyfish and the integrity of your average soap dish.

"I have tons of close friends!" Ok, then you obviously have no standards. "I've slept with lots of people!" Good, I will shake your hand from inside this Hazmat suit. It's like you have to have friends or you're nothing, and you gotta have lots of friends, and the more friends you have the more value you have. This Is a way of lowering our standards to fit in.

I'm a big fan of quality over quantity. Everyone wants to look at their life like it's a beer commercial they can just climb into. The larger the circle of friends the more alcohol is involved to blind yourself to the fact that you cant stand most of these assholes.”
― Stefan Molyneux

“As with marathon runs and lengths of toilet paper, there had to be standards to measure up to.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“The typical atheist rebels against God as a teenager rebels against his parents. When his own desires or standards are not fulfilled in the way that he sees fit, he, in revolt, storms out of the house in denial of the Word of God and in scrutiny of a great deal of those who stand by the Word of God. The epithet 'Heavenly Father' is a grand reflection, a relation to that of human nature.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Let them be what they want to be. Make yourselves what you want to be.”
― Harshvardhan Malpani

“The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a rejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism; and the bold sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the law of consciousness abides.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson Self Reliance