Quotes About Self-reliance

Other kids—blind date with someone's brother. Me? A blind date with a wrench.

Do not let other people invade your personality. Remember that every human being is a unique phenomenon, and worth developing. You will meet many who have no resources of their own, and who will try to fasten themselves upon you. You will find others eager to tell you what to do and think and be. But it is better to go apart and learn to be yourself.

but he had been round the world enough to know that a man has to shift for himself in it, and that if he gets the worst of it, there is nobody to listen to him holler.

love. It was good to do with it, but also good to be able to do without

You mustn't fool yourself with the idea that you could hire experts to attend to things; for how could you know that a man was an expert, unless you knew as much as he did? Some day your foreman might drop dead, or some other fellow would buy him away from you, and then where would you be? Be your own expert, said Dad!

Fuck you, Tony. I don't need you. I don't need anyone.

Everybody keeps saying be satisfied with Jesus's love, and he will give us our daily bread. I keep waiting, but we never get any bread, so I have to go out and do things for myself.

So I've got five books, a building, and a hundred bucks. I'm starting my business tomorrow.

Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.

When all was said, his fate, however ugly it might prove to be, was in his own hands; he was its master.

I don't want your money, said she.

Thou art free!

to arrive at this flourishing condition had required years. He had undergone everything, in the shape of privation; he had done everything, except get into debt. Rather than borrow, he did not eat.

It behooved wise people to play the part of their own police, and to guard themselves well, and care must be taken to duly close, bar and barricade their houses, and to fasten the doors well.

Ah! indeed he must not be mounted. It does not suit his ideas to be a saddle-horse. Every one has his ambition. 'Draw? Yes. Carry? No.' We must suppose that is what he said to himself.

Alaska was full of fringe-ists. People who believed in weirdo things and prayed to exclusionary Gods and filled their basements with equal measures of guns and Bibles. If you wanted to live in a place where no one told you what to do and didn't care if you parked a trailer in your yard or had a fridge on your porch, Alaska was the state for you.

Isabelle had always simply reacted in her life. Someone left her behind; she followed. Someone told her she couldn't do something; she did it. Every barrier she turned into a gate.

It's never good to sit around and wait for someone or something to change your life. That's why women like Gloria Steinem are burning their bras and marching on Washington.

Quit pouting, girl. All a Milquetoast ever gets is wet.

Relying on people for comfort had never felt natural to her. The last thing she wanted was to give someone the power to hurt her.

Now she knew better, of course. For more than a year she'd been telling herself it was okay, that she could go on without a best friend. Sometimes she even believed it.

Elsa heard the message but didn't care, and not caring felt good. Almost exhilarating, in fact. For once, she had not let someone else tell her where she belonged.

Who you mom is and how she lives her life isn't a reflection of you. You can make your own choices. And there's nothing for you to be ashamed of. But you'll have to dream big, Tully.

I belong to a generation that didn't expect to be protected from every danger.