Quotes About Self-reliance

Anybody depending on somebody else's gods is depending on a fox not to eat chickens.

Somebody got to think for women and chillun and cows. I god, they sho don't think none theirselves… When Ah see one thing Ah understands ten. You see ten things and don't understand one.

Besides she liked being lonesome for a change. This freedom feeling was fine. These men didn't represent a thing she wanted to know about.

But I ain't puttin' it in de street. Ah'm tellin' you.' 'Ah jus lak uh chicken. Chicken drink water, but he don't pee-pee.

you needs uh man." Janie laughed at all these well-wishers because she knew that they knew plenty of women alone; that she was not the first one they had ever seen. But most of the others were poor. Besides she liked being lonesome for a change. This freedom feeling was fine. These men didn't represent a thing she wanted to know about. She had already experienced them...

Uh woman by herself is uh pitiful thing," she was told over and again.

Naw! Mah own mind had tuh be squeezed and crowded out tuh make room for yours in me.

So I do not pray. I accept the means at my disposal for working out my destiny. It seems to me that I have been given a mind and will power for that very purpose.

I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes....Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world - I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

He's got uh throne in de seat of his pants.

As Hurston herself noted, "Roll your eyes in ecstasy and ape his every move, but until we have placed something upon his street corner that is our own, we are right back where we were when they filed our iron collar off.

Ah betcha you wants some dressed up dude dat got to look at de sole of his shoe everytime he cross de street tuh see whether he got enough leather dere tuh make it across.

The woman took the faded shirt and muddy overalls and laid them away from remembrance. It was a weapon against her strength and if it turned out of no significance, still it was a hope that she might fall to their level some day.

Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves.

I do not weep at the world I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

Besides she liked being lonesome for a change. This freedom feeling was fine. These men didn't represent a thing she wanted to know about. She had already experienced them through Logan and Joe. She felt like slapping some of them for sitting around grinning at her like a pack of cheesy cats, trying to make out they looked like love.

The theory behind our [Negro] tactics: The white man is always trying to know into somebody else's business. All right, I'll set something outside the door of my mind for him to play with and handle. He can read my writing but he sho' can't read my mind. I'll put this play to in his hand, and he will seize it and go away. Then I'll say my say and sing my song.

I'm not good at accepting help.

I'm not accepting of whiners.

I've accomplished more working on my own than I ever did as part of a team.

I work of my own accord. I don't want to work with restraints or worry what Jose thinks.

I like doing my own errands. I feel like they are very personal and it makes me feel like I achieved a lot that day.

Everything I've ever achieved, I've done on my terms.

All my achievements - even if they may seem small - are mine. No one has contributed to them.