Quotes About Self-reliance

I learned to love my son without wanting to possess him and I learned how to teach him to teach himself.

Girl, you're going to be all right. You haven't forgotten the essentials. You know about defending yourself. All you have to do now is remember … sometimes you have to defend yourself from yourself.

If you don't protect yourself, you look like a fool asking somebody else to protect you.

On my way out of the house one morning she said, "Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait." Another time she reminded me that "God helps those who help themselves.

Independence is a heady draft, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does.

it. The only way you can be taken advantage of is if you think you can get something for nothing.

Harlem Hopscotch One foot down, then hop! It's hot. Good things for the ones that's got. Another jump, now to the left. Everybody for hisself. In the air, now both feet down. Since you black, don't stick around. Food is gone, the rent is due, Curse and cry and then jump two. All the people out of work, Hold for three, then twist and jerk. Cross the line, they count you out. That's what hopping's all about. Both feet flat, the game is done. They think I lost. I think I won.

If you don't protect yourself, you look like a fool asking somebody else to protect you. [..] A woman needs to support herself before she asks anyone else to support her.

under my eye, but not my thumb.

Of course I could drive. Idiots and lunatics drove cars, why not the brilliant Marguerite Johnson?

It is my neck and my life. I will live it whole or not at all." He

But, don't let anybody make you do something you don't think is right. Your mother already raised you. Stay steady. And if that makes somebody mad, they can scratch their mad place and get glad.

As a Black American woman, I could not sit with easy hands and an impassive face and have my future planned. Life in my country had demanded that I act for myself or face terrible consequences.

Hell, girl, everybody feels sorry for you, but nobody owes you a damn thing.

They don't give me welfare. I take it.

You're my daughter. Don't take tea for the fever. You are your own woman.

I can change by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.

I got my own back.

If you ever wake up and see the light and decide you want me back? You're going to have to crawl.

I'm glad to hear that what belongs to me can't be swayed by the pretty words of others.

Life works however the hell you make it work.

I'll take that as my cue to mind my own business

Yo no soy cabezota. Mi forma de hacer las cosas siempre es mejor.

One of the biggest mistakes girls can make concerning their romantic life is sitting around waiting for their prince to find them, rather than getting out there and finding him themselves.