Quotes About Self-reliance

Trust in your own instincts and wisdom, and not in the words and fears of experts.

There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else (parents in the case of children, God in the case of adults) has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point. . . . The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it. And we can make it very wonderful indeed.

There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point

cherish your creative spark, because there's no one else who can light it back up for you when it burns out.

What others believe is not my concern, unless they attempt to force it on me.

Siempre habrá imbéciles como esos, tragándose dogmas enteros para no tener que pensar por sí mismos.

Our personal flexibility increases while our malleability to the whims of others decreases. We experience a heightened sense of autonomy and possibility.

Don't let the hand you hold hold you down.

But I was made of nows, and my feet level on the promissory earth would not accept walking backwards and went forward, forward, mocking the ashes to reach the kiss of new paths. I Was My Own Route

You've got to be responsible for your own happiness - you can't expect it to come flopping through the door like a parcel.

He gave the impression that he believed in things. We did too—it was just that we wanted to believe in our own things, rather than what had been decided for us. Hence what we thought of as our cleansing scepticism.

Still, as I tend to repeat, I have some instinct for survival, for self-preservation. And believing you have such an instinct is almost as good as actually having it, because it means you act in the same way.

Noah couldn't do anything without first wondering what He would think. Now that's no way to go on. Always looking over your shoulder for approval – it's not adult, is it?

If you're going to be a grown-up," said Joan, "you've got to start thinking about grown-up things. And number one is money.

But if you think that only what is yours is yours, and that what is not your own is, just as it is, not your own, then no one will ever coerce you, no one will hinder you, you will blame no one, you will not accuse anyone, you will not do a single thing unwillingly, you will have no enemies, and no one will harm you, because you will not be harmed at all.

Point One. I'm not a go-between. Whatever you say stays in thisroom and it doesn't get leaked back. Point Two. I'm not a shrink, I'm not some kind of advice centre, I don't even much like listening to other people's woes. [...] Point Three. I'm just an old soak whose life hasn't worked out and who lieves alone with her dogs. So I'm not an authority on anything.

And as for her more general advice, let's say that one advantage of being an ex-husband is that you no longer need to justify your behaviour. Or follow suggestions.

She doesn't want his sympathy. She hates pity.

I strive to get what I want and people have always said I am a monster in that department, but that is always said about us ladies who grasp for our own strength.

I was anxious to take some action that I could control; to establish something that was mine alone.

Stop trying to save me. You couldn't then; you can't now.

At the end I am always alone.

To her mind, things had been settled between them. I will keep my own counsel from now on. She

You may be your own best helper, if you choose the right path.