Quotes About Independence

In the powerful words of the poem "Invictus," I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.

make my decisions based on what I intended, not just on what someone else wanted me to do or what I thought would please them.

I always felt like a burden, an "extra mouth to feed." I rarely remember feeling loved. From as early as I can remember, I knew I was on my own.

groomed to be compliant, confrontation in any form is uncomfortable because you were never taught that you have the right to say no; in fact, you were taught that you can't say no.

I have established a very good rule, which I pass on to you: Never do anything just because other people do it.

Now I see that I will never find the light Unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel, Consuming myself.

Only the self-sufficient stand alone - most people follow the crowd and imitate.

Never try to copy a successful personality.

Independent inquiry is needed in your search for truth, not dependence on anyone else's view or a mere book

Self-will is the only virtue that takes no account of man-made laws. A self-willed man obeys a different law, the one law I hold absolutely sacred—the law in himself, his own "will." What does self-willed mean? Does it not mean "having a will of one's own?" The human herd instinct demands adaptation and subordination—but for his highest honor man elects not the meek, the pusillanimous, the supine, but precisely the self-willed man, the heroes.

The more we value things, the less we value our selves. — We should devote ourselves to being self-sufficient and must not depend upon the external rating by others for our happiness. So it is true that the more we value things, the less we value our self. The more we depend upon others for esteem, the less we are self-sufficient.

A wise man can always be found alone. A weak man can always be found in crowd.

Independent inquiry is need in your search for truth, not dependence on anyone else's view or a mere book

I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations and you're not in this world to live up to mine.

A good teacher protects his pupils from his own influence.

education is what makes a man free!

Such people, one soldier acidly observed, certainly "would like" to see the Confederacy triumph "and no doubt weary heaven with their prayers for peace and independence." But they prayed at least as fervently "to get through with whole skins and full purses.

The only reason we know this story is that Levison ran his own company. He had no corporate masters. He had no shareholders. He was able to destroy his own business for moral reasons.

We gotta get out while we're young'Cause tramps like us, baby, we were born to run.

Blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed.

If I lose and have nothing when this is over, you can still drop me with my guitar by parachute anywhere in America; I'll walk to the nearest roadhouse, find a pickup band and light up your night. Just because I can.

From my perch on the couch atop the truck I watched our wheels cross the town line, turn left on Highway 33, pick up some speed and head for the ocean breezes and new freedoms of the Shore. With the warm night whistling by me, I felt wonderfully and perilously adrift, giddy with excitement. This town, my town, would never leave me, and I could never completely leave it, but I would never live in Freehold again.

We could survive as musicians only on our little sliver of the East Coast. We had to get back.

I would spend my life on the road logging hundreds of thousands of miles and my story was always the same. . . man comes to town, detonates; man leaves town and drives off into the evening; fade to black. Just the way I like it.