Quotes About Self-reliance

Trust no one, make your own future, love with all your heart.

A woman who acts as if she knows what she's doing gets what she wants.

In books, no one helped a girl who didn't help herself and every fairy tale ended with the same lessons. Trick your energy, do what you must, believe in enchantments, save yourself.

I had made the decision to stick with life as I knew it, which meant I was alone. But at least I wasn't dumped or betrayed.

It doesn't matter what people tell you. It doesn't matter what they might say. Sometimes you have to leave home. Sometimes, running away means you're headed in the exact right direction.

A human being born into a cold, indifferent world will regard his situation as the only possible one.

If an adult has not developed and mind of his own, then he will find himself at the mercy of the authorities for better or worse, just as an infant finds itself at the mercy of its parents. Saying no to those more powerful will always seem to threatening to him.

But I hope you will -- use your brains. Use your brains. Don't be distracted. Once you make that mistake, of being -- distracted, over a man, your life will never be your own. You will get the burden, a woman always does.

I gave him a gentle uncomprehending look in return. I am a grown-up woman now; let him unbury his own catastrophes.

You save yourself or you remain unsaved

She was armed to the teeth for any onslaught of sympathy.

Nikt nie mo?e wyratowa? drugiego cz?owieka. Ka?dy musi ratowa? si? sam albo jest stracony.

I was raised by a solitary woman to be a solitary child, and that was, I now saw, what I had hopelessly become.

In many ways I was an independent woman. For years I'd made my own choices, paid my own bills, shoveled my own snow.

we are the ones we have been waiting for

Why any woman give a shit what people think is a mystery to me.

You got to fight them, Celie, she say. I can't do it for you. You got to fight them for yourself. I don't say nothing. I think bout Nettie, dead. She fight, she run away. What good it do? I don't fight, I stay where I'm told. But I'm alive.

Don't wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you've got to make yourself.

the God of woman is autonomy

A little love, a little buckshot, that's how I'd say handle yourself.

When life descends into the pit I must become my own candle Willingly burning myself To light up the darkness Around me.

But one thing I do thank her for, for teaching me to learn for myself, by reading and studying and writing a clear hand.

each of us has knowledge of how to live life differently that no one taught us, and that we can find this knowledge inside ourselves and put it to use.

You got to fight them, Celie,' she say. 'I can't do it for you. You got to fight them for yourself.