Quotes About Independence

a free person does not need to win arguments—just win.

Outcomes are paradoxically more stable under the minority rule—the variance of the results is lower and the rule is more likely to emerge independently across separate populations.

I will retire on these profits

someone who cannot be squeezed into doing something he would otherwise never do.

In the famous tale by Ahiqar, later picked up by Aesop (then again by La Fontaine), the dog boasts to the wolf all the contraptions of comfort and luxury he has, almost prompting the wolf to enlist. Until the wolf asks the dog about his collar and is terrified when he understands its use. "Of all your meals, I want nothing." He ran away and is still running.*3 The question is: what would you like to be, a dog or a wolf?

didn't care what my parents (and grandfather) thought of me.

The optimal solution to being independent and upright while remaining a social animal is: to seek first your own self-respect and, secondarily and conditionally, that of others, provided your external image does not conflict with your own self-respect. Most people get it backwards and seek the admiration of the collective and something called "a good reputation" at the expense of self-worth for, alas, the two are in frequent conflict under modernity.

it makes them much less dependent on economic forecasts. This allowed them to shrug off later crises.2

The ultimate freedom lies in not having to explain why you did something.

People who are not morally independent tend to fit ethics to their profession, rather than find a profession that fits their ethics.

He did not even bother to have a desk, let alone an office.

It was a barbell—play it safe at school and read on your own, have zero expectation from school.

When you don't have debt you don't care about your reputation in economics circles—and somehow it is only when you don't care about your reputation that you tend to have a good one. Just as in matters of seduction, people lend the most to those who need them the least.

he had already been financially independent

and the two need to be kept separate.

It is more difficult to be a loser in a game you set up yourself.

Independence is person-specific: I have always been taken aback at the high number of people in whom an astonishingly high income led to additional sycophancy as they became more dependent on their clients and employers and more addicted to making even more money.)

At the limit, you can decide whether to be (relatively) poor, but free of your time, or rich but as dependent as a slave.

We are most motivated to help those who need us the least.

when you leave people alone, they tend to settle for practical reasons.

Leave people alone under a good structure and they will take care of things.

Theory should stay independent from practice and vice versa—and we should not extract academic economists from their campuses and put them in positions of decision making.

I have always hated employment and the associated dependence on someone else's arbitrary opinion

So I have, accordingly, except for eight years, been self-employed.