Quotes about self-reliance

Ralph Waldo Emerson - The Complete Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion it is easy in solitude to live after our own but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Rania Al Abdullah -

Pessimism doesn’t change the reality it prolongs the status quo. And it brings everyone down. It’s only ever lose-lose. Optimism and faith coupled with pragmatism change the reality. Self-belief and self-reliance change the reality. Boldness to explore new ideas changes the reality. A vision powered by effort and energy changes the reality.

Greer Macallister - The Magician's Lie

You want to set me free? Do it. You want to turn me in? You can do that too. You're the only one with the choice. And that bullet in your back doesn't mean you've got any less choice than you ever did. Live free of fear if you want to. We all carry something inside us that could kill us yours just has a name. You want to change your life? Change it. You have no less of a right to be happy than the rest of us.

Flannery O'Connor - Wise Blood

I preach there are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else's, but behind all of them, there's only one truth and that is that there is no truth... No truth behind all truths is what I and this church preach! Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place... In yourself right now is all the place you've got.

Carlos Castañeda -

The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.

Dr. Seuss - The Places You’ll Go!

Oh the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all.

Darren Shan - Hell's Heroes

You can't hang around waiting for somebody else to pull your strings. Destiny's what you make of it. You have to face whatever life throws at you. And if it throws more than you'd like, more than you think you can handle? Well then you just have to find the heroism within yourself and play out the hand you've been dealt. The universe never sets a challenge that can't be met. You just need to believe in yourself in order to find the strength to face it.

Kahlil Gibran -

You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore...But let there be spaces in your togetherness...Love one another, but make not a bond of love. Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not of the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Kerry E. Wagner -

you don't have to worry about burning bridges, if you're building your own

Lailah Gifty Akita - Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

Self-education is lifelong curiosity.

Thomas Davidson -

Associate with noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty. But learn to be happy alone. Rely upon your own energies, and so not wait for, or depend on other people.

T.F. Hodge - From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph Over Death and Conscious Encounters with "The Divine Presence"

The vision teller tells the vision to unguarded minds' of prey. The programmed.

Beth Lewis - The Wolf Road

One a' them rules is don't go trusting another man's path...People do it, they do what their mommies and daddies did, they make them same mistakes, they have them same joys and hurts, they just repeating. Trees don't grow exactly where their momma is; ain't no room...I weren't following no one up through life.

Greta Garbo - Greta and Cecil

There are some who want to get married and others who don't. I have never had an impulse to go to the altar. I am a difficult person to lead.

Mae West - 548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said

Marriage is a fine institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.

Sophocles - Oedipus Rex

Fear? What has a man to do with fear? Chance rules our lives, and the future is all unknown. Best live as we may, from day to day.

Michael Chabon - The Yiddish Policemen's Union

I don't care what is written," Meyer Landsman says. "I don't care what supposedly got promised to some sandal-wearing idiot whose claim to fame is that he was ready to cut his own son's throat for the sake of a hare-brained idea. I don't care about red heifers and patriarchs and locusts. A bunch of old bones in the sand. My homeland is in my hat. It's in my ex-wife's tote bag.

Michael Grant - Gone

I believe in free will. I think we make our own decisions and carry out or own actions. And our actions have consequences. The world is what we make it. But I think sometimes we can ask God to help us and He will.

Nancy Kress - Steal Across the Sky

You think intelligence and grit can succeed by themselves, but I'm telling you that's a pretty illusion.

Sunday Adelaja -

Your self-reliance, self-appraisal and self- perception depends on how successful you are at knowing who God has created you to become

Beverly Engel - The Right to Innocence

You may be operating from the belief that you must do everything yourself because no one will ever be there for you. Or you may think that if you never speak up you’ll avoid being rejected. Both these fears no longer apply to you today as an adult. If you never reach out for help, you will continue to deprive yourself.

Gary Hopkins -

Being your own light ensures that you will never need another to pull you out of darkness again.

Chaim Potok - In the Beginning

He looked down at the books. There was a long silence. Then he raised his eyes and directed his gaze at Gershon, and Gershon did not look away. "I will tell you, Loran what is of importance is not that there may be nothing. We have always acknowledged that as a possibility. What is important is that if indeed there is nothing, then we should be prepared to make something out of the one thing we have left to us -- ourselves. I do not know what else to tell you, Loran. No one is in possession of a

Shane Eric Mathias - Creative and Purposeful Life

We must endeavor to be whole, whether in or out of a relationship, basing happiness on our own internal resources rather than relying on someone else to full the perceived gaps in our lives.

Jodi Picoult - Handle with Care

It was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it. I knew what happened when you let yourself get close to someone, when you started to believe they loved you: you'd be disappointed. Depend on someone, and you might as well admit you're going to be crushed, because when you really needed them, they wouldn't be there. Either that, or you'd confide in them and you added to their problems. All you ever really had was yourself, and that sort of sucked if you were less than r

Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self-Reliance

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

David Gemmell - Fall of Kings

Trust your instincts, and make judgements on what your heart tells you. The heart will not betray you.

Ralph Waldo Emerson -

My life is not an apology, but a life. It is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. My life should be unique; it should be an alms, a battle, a conquest, a medicine.

Richie Norton -

Wealth isn't about money. It's about options...and you always have options. Choose wisely. Live wealthy.

Lailah Gifty Akita -

Engrave on your heart; love, hope and faith.

Pandora Poikilos - My Brains Have Stepped Out

We are so accustomed to the comforts of "I cannot", "I do not want to" and "it is too difficult" that we forget to realize when we stop doing things for ourselves and expect others to dance around us, we are not achieving greatness. We have made ourselves weak.

Dan Groat - A Punctual Paymaster

Governments have absolutely no interest in self-reliance. It defeats one of the purposes for their existence. They encourage and thrive on dependency. The more of it they sell, the more necessary they are, and the more power and money they need.

Colson Whitehead - The Underground Railroad

Versifying left her cold. Poems were too close to prayer, rousing regrettable passions. Waiting for God to rescue you when it was up to you. Poetry and prayer put ideas in people's heads that got them killed, distracting them from the ruthless mechanism of the world.

Gary Hopkins -

If you make time for the nonsense, good or bad, it will continue to seek you out.

Gary Hopkins -

Healing ultimately comes down to whether or not you have made the decision to do so.

Lailah Gifty Akita - Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

Those who are weak in spirit, desire to make others weaker.While the strong spirit, desire to empower others to be stronger.

Lailah Gifty Akita - Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

Never compete with any man but yourself. Seek to develop yourself.

Gary Hopkins -

Chances are no matter how bad your troubles seem to be, someone somewhere, with less resilience, has successfully conquered a more severe version of your problems.

George R.R. Martin - A Game of Thrones

He was a pitiful thing. He had always been a pitiful thing. Why had she never seen that before? There was a hollow place inside her where her fear had been.

Rainer Maria Rilke - Duino Elegies

Isn’t it time that, loving, we freed ourselves from the beloved, and, trembling, endured:as the arrow endures the bow, so as to be, in its flight, something more than itself?

Rainer Maria Rilke - Duino Elegies

Isn't it time that, in love, we freed ourselves from the loved one and, trembling, endured:as the arrow endures the string, collecting itselfto be more than itself as it shoots?

Lailah Gifty Akita - Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

The greatest thing to conquer is self.

David Anthony Durham - Acacia: The War with the Mein

She would never be caught unprepared again, she swore to herself. She would never trust. Never love. Never put faith in other human beings again. She would learn all she could of the shape and substance of the world, and she would find a way to survive in it.

Nenia Campbell - Locked and Loaded

I can take care of myself,” I said hotly.“Darlin, you don't even know how to pleasure yourself.

Susan B. Anthony -

I think the girl who is able to earn her own living and pay her own way should be as happy as anybody on earth. The sense of independence and security is very sweet.

Ogwo David Emenike -

Courage, self-reliance and decisiveness are the main traits that define a man.

Lailah Gifty Akita - Think Great: Be Great!

Knowledge of thyself is the greatest enlightenment.

Haroutioun Bochnakian - The Human Consensus and The Ultimate Project Of Humanity

Democracy is a continuous, open process of civility.A democracy can never be “done”; updating democracy can never be over.Democracy can be nothing else but a continuous process, because we use it to organize our life, and life is nothing but a continuous process.Democracy can be compared to an operating system or an anti-virus software; if it does not get perpetually updated, it becomes obsolete very fast.Trusting the updates or the “improvements” of democracy to the elected and the owned mass m

Elizabeth Cady Stanton - Solitude of Self

We ask no sympathy from others in the anxiety and agony of a 
broken friendship or shattered love. When death sunders our nearest
 ties, alone we sit in the shadow of our affliction. Alike mid the greatest 
triumphs and darkest tragedies of life we walk alone. On the divine 
heights of human attainments, eulogized and worshiped as a hero or 
saint, we stand alone. In ignorance, poverty, and vice, as a pauper or
criminal, alone we starve or steal; alone we suffer the sneers and rebuffs
of our fel

Joe Frazier -

Life doesn't run away from nobody. Life runs at people.

Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self-Reliance and Other Essays

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

Haroutioun Bochnakian - The Human Consensus and The Ultimate Project Of Humanity

All monotheisms should return to their respective times with our thanks for everything.This is no longer their time.If they stay, they will suffer and make us suffer.If they really love humanity, they should step aside and let humanity outgrow them.This is the time when humanity needs to learn about thinking and acting collectively for his collective, or else no monotheism-presented God can ever save him.

Ronald Reagan -

A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.

James Carlos Blake - The House of Wolfe: A Border Noir

We don't permit anyone to tell us our business, nor do we wish to tell anyone his. The same goes for moral outlooks. Don't tread on us and we won't on you. We're a tolerant, liberty-loving bunch, we Wolfes.

Kate Bolick - Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own

Being single is like being an artist, not because creating a functional single life is an art form, but because it requires the same close attention to one's singular needs, as well as the will and focus to fulfill them. Just as the artist arranges her life around her creativity, sacrificing conventional comforts and even social acceptance, sleeping and eating according to her own rhythms, so that her talent thrives above all else, nurtured the way a child might be, so a single person has to thi

Sarah Dessen - Lock and Key

Sure, it sucked to be lost, but I'd long ago realized I preferred it to depending on anyone else to get me where I needed to go. That was the thing about being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened- good, bad, or anywhere in between- it was always, if nothing else, all your own.

William Wordsworth - The Prelude

Here must thou be, O man,Strength to thyself — no helper hast thou here —Here keepest thou thy individual state:No other can divide with thee this work,No secondary hand can interveneTo fashion this ability. 'Tis thine,The prime and vital principle is thineIn the recesses of thy nature, farFrom any reach of outward fellowship,Else 'tis not thine at all.

Eve Ensler -

Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep out alone under the stars. Learn how to drive a stick shift. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say no when you don’t want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide whether you want to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important than finding out what you’re doing here. Believe in kissing.

Haroutioun Bochnakian - The Human Consensus and The Ultimate Project Of Humanity

DIVINE NECESSITY creates “others” even among family members who become good to be killed by family members…HUMAN NECESSITY commands man to resurrect the supposed reason for which God supposedly shattered humanity in Babylon:The “Covenant” among men.

Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass

Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.You must travel it by yourself.It is not far. It is within reach.Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.

Elbert Guillory -

The idea of freedom is complex and it is all-encompassing. It’s the idea that the economy must remain free of government persuasion. It’s the idea that the press must operate without government intrusion. And it’s the idea that the emails and phone records of Americans should remain free from government search and seizure. It’s the idea that parents must be the decision makers in regards to their children's education — not some government bureaucrat.But most importantly, it is the idea that the

Piper Kerman - Orange Is the New Black

How could I admit that the All-American Girl's force field of stoicism and self-reliance and do-unto-others-and-keep-smiling wasn't working, wasn't keeping pain and shame and powerlessness away? From a young age I had learned to get over - to cover my tracks emotionally, to hide or ignore my problems in the belief that they were mine alone to solve. So when exhilarating transgressions required getting over on authority figures, I knew how to do it. I was a great bluffer. And when common, everyda

John Piper - Future Grace

When you take all three categories of temptation to self-reliance – wisdom, might and riches – they form a powerful inducement toward the ultimate form of pride, namely, atheism. The safest way to stay supreme in our own estimation is to deny anything above us. This is why the proud preoccupy themselves with looking down on others. A proud man is always looking down on things and people and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you. But to preserve p

Charlotte Eriksson -

People keep asking what I do for a living and I keep saying that I don’t believe in making a living. That it’s a concept that has been twisted. I tell them I believe in making a life and money is a distracting object if there’s anything left at the end of the day and I just want to go on well. Make it through the day. So I smile and raise my glass and they laugh and take my hand, saying ”here’s to the youth”, pointing at me. And I might just be youngand naivefor I still believe in the freedom of

Chris Matakas - My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

In the history of history, there has never been someone with your particular genetic make-up or life experiences. This being the case, we have no reference points with which to compare ourselves, and therefore it is futile to attempt to measure yourself relative to others.

Lailah Gifty Akita - Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

Refuse to worry. Cast your anxiety upon the Lord. He cares for you.

Lailah Gifty Akita - Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

The happiness you seek can be found within yourself.

Ralph Waldo Emerson -

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.

Mary Elizabeth Braddon - Lady Audley's Secret

Phoebe Marks was a person who never lost her individuality. Silent and self-contained, she seemed to hold herself within herself, and take no colour from the outer world.

Richard Proenneke - One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey

I enjoy working for my heat. I don't just press a button or twist a thermostat dial. I use the big crosscut saw and the axe, and while I'm getting my heat supply I'm working up an appetite that makes simple food just as appealing as anything a French chef could create.

Richard Proenneke -

I don't confuse my digestive system, I just season simple food with hunger

Iain Pears - The Dream of Scipio

She was looking for something I could never give her." Again his dark eyes bored into Julia's mind. "You have something of the same about you, young woman. Take my advice: Don't think you will find it in another person. You won't. It's not there. You must find it in yourself.

Daniel De Leon -

Poverty breeds lack of self-reliance.

Lisa Murkowski -

Freedom comes from strength and self-reliance.

Napoléon Bonaparte -

If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.

Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching

When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everyone will respect you.

Neal Stephenson - Zodiac

If you've put yourself in a position where someone has to see you in order for you to be safe - to see you, and to give a fuck - you've already blown it.

Haroutioun Bochnakian - The Human Consensus and The Ultimate Project Of Humanity

Some humans are made to trust in their supernatural Creator(s) to watch over them, make their lives better, protect them from each other, maybe even save them from themselves and their own actions…Listen, and listen well to that huge silenced inner voice of yours;It should be heard along with all the others. Here is what I heard from mine:“Until proof of the existence of a loving Monotheism-presented God or any supernatural Creator, it is man who will watch over man;We have nobody elseJust usJus

Paula Stokes - The Art of Lainey

Standing up for yourself is about more than flinging barbed-wire insults around. Its about picking your battles, knowing when to fight, knowing exactly what and who is worth fighting for.

Lauren Oliver - Delirium

I'd rather die my way than live yours.

Socrates -

To find yourself, think for yourself.

Katharine Hepburn -

I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. I've just done what I damn well wanted to, and I've made enough money to support myself, and ain't afraid of being alone.

Thomas Szasz -

The proverb warns that, 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.

Charlotte Brontë - Jane Eyre

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading. It vexes me to choose another guide.

Carolyn Ives Gilman - Halfway Human

Powerlessness is such a lure, such a poisonous lure.

Penny Reid - Neanderthal Seeks Human

Furthermore, I preferred to only have cravings I could satisfy without the requirement or assistance of another person. This was, after all, the definition of self-reliance.

Neith Boyce -

What women are concerned in is developing their own individuality, and hence they refuse to call any man master, be he husband or spiritual guide. Personal freedom is more precious to them than the protection of the best men. The women they envy are not those who are simply wives and mothers, but those who by honest intelligent work have attained distinction in any line of effort, and whose creed has been self-reliance.

Plato - The Republic

It is only just that anything that grows up on its own should feel it has nothing to repay for an upbringing which it owes no one.

Trisha Leigh - Winter Omens

You can love people, and you can befriend them, but the only person you can ever one hundred percent depend on is yourself.

Armistead Maupin - More Tales of the City

The hell of it is, I know the answer. The answer is that you never, ever, rely on another person for your peace of mind. If you do, you're screwed but good. Not right away, maybe, but sooner or later. You have to -- I don't know --you have to learn to live with yourself. You have to learn to turn back your own sheets and set a table for one without feeling pathetic. You have to be strong and confident and pleased with yourself and never give the slightest impression that you can't hack it withou

M.C. Humphreys -

What’s the most difficult thing you can do? Live simply. ‘Cause in order to be self-sufficient, you got to get well near everybody else to work for you.

Elton Trueblood - Abraham Lincoln: Lessons in Spiritual Leadership

The profound paradox is that the great man became more confident in his approach to others, including the man of his own Cabinet, but he recognized that his major confidence was not himself but in Another.

Jim Butcher - The Aeronaut's Windlass

It was why no sane cat allowed kits to come anywhere near human beings. Humans seemed to feel that it was perfectly acceptable to teach kits to accept food from their hands as a matter of course, rather than teaching them the importance of hunting skill and self-reliance.

Chris Matakas - My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

All these men recognized what they themselves valued, and lived according to these values regardless of their relationship to the values of their community. Each lived according to what brought them happiness and peace rather than commonplace prescriptions of the multitudes.

Epicurus -

The time when you should most of all withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

Henry David Thoreau - Walden

Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.

Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self-Reliance

Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. We come to them who weep foolishly, and sit down and cry for company, instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric shocks, putting them once more in communication with their own reason. The secret of fortune

Greg Gutfeld - Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You

The real American ideal of cool which is building businesses, protecting freedom at home and abroad, taking responsibility for your actions, and leaving other people alone to live as they damn well please.

Rose Wynters - Phase One: Identify

He glanced at James before continuing. “If you're going to survive this, the first rule you need to learn is never count on anyone but yourself. Never. People make mistakes, and the zombies are fast. They don't need to sleep or eat anything but us. Don't leave your protection in the hands of someone else.