Quotes About Self-governance

What if I don't want a leader? Where does that vote go? I do good on my own. I don't want to be led.

The reason I don't want anyone to control me is not because I want to be in control. I don't want anyone to control me because I don't want anyone to control anyone.

Everybody ought to be given a chance to do whatever they want, but be responsible for their own actions.

A long time ago, I made me a rule. I let people do what they want to do.

We're not going to meddle in the internal life of other peoples and other governments, because we don't want them meddling in ours.

I believe in small government and people taking care of themselves.

I want almost no laws, I want the smallest government possible. I don't want anyone telling anyone what to do.

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and if they will not adapt to me, I adapt to them.

I have my own laws and my own court to judge me, and I refer to these rather than elsewhere.

There is no need for arms, physical violence, material constraints. Just a gaze. An inspecting gaze, a gaze that each individual under its weight will end by [internalising] to the point that they are their own overseer, each individual thus exercising surveillance over, and against themself.

I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven't tried that for a while. Maybe this time it'll work.

Free people were not ruled. Freedom had first to be valued before its existence could be demanded.

You are not struggling to rule, but to give others a chance at ruling their own lives. So stop ruling and let them live those lives.

I follow my own mind and judgment.

Find the autonomy in your work. Autonomy is key to feeling good about the work you do, no matter what kind of work it is.

How dare anything tamper with our innate structure? Who the hell was it to decide what was right and wrong with us?

We do not choose political freedom because it promises us this or that. We choose it because it makes possible the only dignified form of human coexistence, the only form in which we can be fully responsible for ourselves. Whether we realize its possibilities depends on all kinds of things — and above all on ourselves.

We have lived as slaves most of our lives. We do not know how to make choices

On Mars, Venus, Mercury, and the moons of Jupiter, human beings were more free—free to found their own petty nations and ruin their own lives their own way. But

make my decisions based on what I intended, not just on what someone else wanted me to do or what I thought would please them.

You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not'ing more dan de shark well goberned.

I prefer to regard myself as one who has the ability and the mental and nervous equipment to make his own laws and act according to them rather than accept the laws that suit the lowest common denominator of the people.

She's come to you this time of her own accord, and crossed our threshold of her own free will. May she always be free, just as she is today.

Under a decades-old agreement, Palestinian refugee camps are supposed to administer and police themselves. Lebanese troops are technically not allowed to enter them.