Quotes About Self-reliance

Not that folks disliked me or that I ever went around being mean, but folks never did get close to me and it was most likely my fault. There was always something standoffish about me. I liked folks, but I liked the wild animals, the lonely trails, and the mountains better.

It is a living. It is enough. I am free. The nights are long and quiet, the mornings cool and bright, I live with the sun, the moon, and the stars. The air is fresh where I am, and there is no one to hurry me or to demand this or that of me.

We Sackett boys never killed anything we didn't need to eat unless it was coming at us. A mountain man tries to live with the country instead of against it.

My father had lived through wars and troubles, and it left him with a sense that nothing lasted but what a man made of himself.

Ma'am,' I said, 'I'd have liked it, having you for a ma.

If they didn't accept him, the hell with them - he could go his own way.

You will remember that we won our freedom because we were armed. We were not a simple peasantry unused to weapons. The men who wrote our Constitution knew our people would be safe as long as they were armed.

What we did not possess we had to make for ourselves or learn to do without, but the little I learned helped me to build a defense against the change that time would surely bring, to teach me that to live was to change, and that change was the one irrevocable law. Nothing remained the same.

the way of men. One fights one's battles alone, not asking mercy nor expecting help.

spring and enough grass to last the burros for quite some time. After a careful scouting around, he made a fire of dead mesquite, which made almost no smoke, and fixed some coffee. When he had eaten, Dunbar gathered up his pan, pick, shovel, and rifle and moved out. He was

I was fed a little. I was given water. And I was visited by no one.

One would be a man alone, and alone he must fight and die, or fight and live.

listen to the advice of others but to act only on my own beliefs, and to make my own decisions.

The Indian must not lose pride in what he does, in his handicraft, for if he loses pride he will no longer build, his art will fail him, and he will completely be dependent upon others.

for what man does not love that which he himself has built?

I have only strength and ingenuity, and neither trade nor land.

I had already learned to listen to the advice of others but to act only on my own beliefs, and to make my own decisions.

I had my father's contempt for the courtier who suspends his life from the fingertips of those in power, looking for morsels. I would be beholden to no man.

Always give yourself an edge, boy. You may never need it, but it saves a lot of worry. Learn to depend on yourself, and if you expect nothing from anybody else you will never be disappointed.

Mother Atkinson thought that every one should have a trade, or something to make a living out of , for rich people may grow poor, you know, and poor people have to work.... so when I saw how happy and independent those young ladies were, I wanted to have a trade, and then it wouldn't matter about money, though I like to have it well enough.

The emerging woman ... will be strong-minded, strong-hearted, strong-souled, and strong-bodied...strength and beauty must go together.

I don't like favors; they oppress and make me fell like a slave. I'd rather do everything for myself, and be perfectly independent.

I love my liberty too well to be in a hurry to give it up for any mortal man.

I'm happy as I am, and love my liberty too well to be in a hurry to give it up for any mortal man.