Quotes About Self-reliance

Some days I would go without any fire at all, and eat raw frozen meat and melt snow in my mouth for water.

I don't go to the doctor except when I'm very ill, and when I go to India, I drink a drop of local water.

Somehow I kept my head above water. I relied on the discipline, character, and strength that I had started to develop as that little girl in her first swimming pool.

I grew up in a house with no running water, 16 miles from the closest place that had a post office. I had a very parochial view of the world.

I took the process of doing as much myself as I could like a duck to water. I set up my own label and publishing, etc, and it was a fun learning curve two decades ago.

You are the master of your own ship, pal. There are lots of people who fall into troubled waters and don't have the guts or the knowledge or the ability to make it to shore. They have nobody to blame but themselves.

I didn't jump onto anyone else's coattail and ride their wave.

I don't follow waves or trends or emotions.

Having a baby on my own is a dream come true, but in my world, there's no sheepish spouse on his way home from a work trip to offer me a stretch of alone time.

Sometimes I feel like John Wayne.

Once upon a time, America was a self-reliant John Wayne society where a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Now, America has become an over-lawyered society where nobody takes responsibility for mistakes because it is more profitable to claim victimhood and reach for a lawyer.

When you don't have anybody to take care of you, then you could go both ways: You could do whatever you want, or you could take charge and be your own parent.

We were spoiled in many ways, but we were always taught to understand the value of the dollar. If there was something we wanted, we had to earn it. Even in college, we were very fiscally responsible. I had 300 bucks a month; anything I wanted beyond that, I had to work for.

Now, I'm back to my old ways: Needing to be the leader, needing to score.

To keep that absolute freedom we cannot be obliged to anyone.

We can believe we are being self-reliant and independent, and yet there is still clearly an overarching destiny, a Great Maker. So when we say we have faith in ourselves, we cannot really separate the small self from the large self.

We cannot perform our tasks to the best of our power, unless we think well of our own capacity.

We cannot live, suffer or die for somebody else, for suffering is too precious to be shared.

No one will do for you what you need to do for yourself. We cannot afford to be separate. We have to see that all of us are in the same boat.

But we cannot rely on foreign help indefinitely.

Others can challenge and motivate us, but we must reach down deep into our souls and call forth our God-given intelligence and capabilities. We cannot do this when we depend on the efforts of someone else.

We cannot let ourselves be infantalized. We cannot let ourselves be stereotyped.

I could never identify with that word, 'weak.'

In business, you have to be strong. If you are weak, people are going to take advantage.