Quotes About Independence

I welcomed the consciousness that I was charged with much to do, and I caused it to be known as well that, left thus to myself, I was quite remarkably firm.

They haven't been good — they've only been absent. It has been easy to live with them because they're simply leading a life of their own.

From lapsing into eagerness on this point she earnestly prayed she might be delivered; she held that a woman ought to be able to live to herself, in the absence of exceptional flimsiness, and that it was perfectly possible to be happy without the society of a more or less coarse-minded person of another sex.

I see you want us all to go. I don't know what you want to do. I want to be alone, said Isabel.

Besides, I try to judge things for myself; to judge wrong, I think, is more honourable than not to judge at all. I don't wish to be a mere sheep in the flock; I wish to choose my fate and know something of human affairs beyond what other people think it compatible with propriety to tell me.

He had never supposed she hadn't wings and the need of beautiful free movements.

Your desire is to escape everything? Everything.

The world lay before her—she could do whatever she chose. There was a deep thrill in it all, but for the present her choice was tolerably discreet […].

He envied Miss Barrace at any rate her power of not being.

I don't see what harm there is in my wishing not to tie myself. I don't want to begin life by marrying. There are other things a woman can do.

I never congratulate any girl on marrying; I think they ought to make it somehow not quite so awful a steel trap.

upon, having—as I at least supposed—a life of his own and tastes and habits which had long since diverted him from the maternal side.  If he did

I don't care how I live, nor where I live, said Millicent, so long as I can do as I like.

I must live for myself at last, while there is still a handful left of me

She answered that she liked standing up and

No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.

Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but I see now that it was meant to destroy me. To-day I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity - I belong to the earth!

They cut the umbilical cord, give you a slap on the ass, and presto! you're out in the world, adrift, a ship without a rudder.

i am a free man— and i need my freedom. i need to be alone. i need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; i need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.

When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat.

Better to separate than never to marry.

Today I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity-I belong to the earth!

No particular reason for anything. I'm free - that's the main thing.

I'm not an American any more, nor a New Yorker, and even less a European, or a Parisian. I haven't any allegiance, any responsibilities, any hatreds, any worries, any prejudices, any passion. I'm neither for nor against. I'm a neutral.