self-respect

ESSAY On Self-Respect by Joan Didion, 1961

excerpts:

"The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others - who are, after all, deceived easily enough; has nothing to do with reputation, which... is something people with courage can do without... To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent... Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home."

re-spect in literal translation means to look back at, implying that, to have self-respect, is to have the ability to look back at oneself and self worth.