Too much esteem for self-esteem.

Time to take it down a notch.

"If you can dream it, you can achieve it."

"Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude." Etc. etc.

"MY FUTURE IS BRIGHT and never will it dim."

"I like to consider myself a rare breed. I'm very spontaneous and random… I'm determined and goal oriented. My destiny is laid ...

Lower self-confidence might make you more successful.

Says this item in the Harvard Business Review. 1. Lower self-confidence makes you pay attention to negative feedback and be self-critical......

"TV can boost self-esteem of white boys... Self-esteem of white girls, black kids decreases with TV consumption."

Put that on your list of things a study said . With the definition of self-esteem being an overall feeling of self-worth, Harrison told CNN,...

"Talking about ourselves—whether in a personal conversation or through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter—triggers the same sensation of pleasure in the brain as food or money..."

A new study. Generally, acts of self disclosure were accompanied by spurts of heightened activity in brain regions belonging to the meso-lim...

A public school teacher told her students "Republicans are stupid."

What's the worst part of that ? The worst part about a teacher saying "Republicans are stupid" is... She should not take a par...

Men who take paternity leave without doing at least half of the baby care.

That would be nearly all of them, if we are to believe this study: Only three of 109 male faculty members surveyed reported that they did ha...

"For a time, our culture celebrated the rebel and the outsider."

"The most miserable of my correspondents fit this mold. They were forever in revolt against the world and ended up sourly achieving lit...

Person-based praise and process-based praise — are you praising your kids the best way?

"The parents who gave more process-praise had children who believe their intelligence and social qualities could be developed and they ...

Did you know there was a serious author who was being ridiculed in Jack Handey's "Deep Thoughts"?

Yes. His name was Hugh Prather, and he published a book called "Notes to Myself" in 1970. It included things like: ¶“Another day t...

"Meetings between great men don't always result in elevated colloquies; sometimes they tend towards the crudely basic."

For example: When Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald met in Paris, at Le Dingo Bar on the rue Delambre in April 1925, Hemingway was disco...

"I hate the Brooklyn Museum."

Wrote Palladian in the comments to yesterday's post with Lincoln and the nude slave. They have wonderful collections ruined by ham-hand...

Can a fat woman win Miss England?

This is like the perennial question whether a plus-size can ever win "America's Next Top Model." Anyway, Chloe Marshall is a ...

When laws meant to help really hurt — and what would it take for the NYT to quote Ronald Reagan on the subject?

Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt give some vivid illustrations of the way well-intended laws can backfire: The Americans With Disabil...

"People who are already large are getting larger and on the other side is this shrinking ideal."

That's a quote from eating-disorder expert Cynthia M. Bulik, in Robin Givhan's excellent article describing super-thin runway models...

The Self-Esteem Dentist v. A Creature Unlike Any Other.

Dentist Larry Rosenthal has had it with relationship guru author Ellen Fein: "If she had a life, she wouldn't be harassing him,...

"I don't buy the argument that, 'Oh, I wouldn't have acted so racist or anti-semitic if I'd known this film was being shown in America.'"

Says Sacha Baron Cohen about the people who are suing him over the film "Borat": "This wasn't Candid Camera," he sa...

The mature-woman porn genre.

Eh... The NYT is covering it , so I'm flagging it for you. Maybe you're interested in the 50-year-old "administrative assistant...

So your 5-year-old boy wants to dress like a girl....

How far should you go in supporting him? What if you're the teacher and the parents send him to kindergarten wearing a dress? Doctors, ...