Quotes About Independence

take responsibility for finding it. It is only by grace of the second type

Healthy self-esteem correlates with rationality, realism, intuitiveness, creativity, independence, flexibility, ability to manage change, willingness to admit (and correct) mistakes, benevolence, and cooperativeness. Poor self-esteem correlates with irrationality, blindness to reality, rigidity, fear of the new and unfamiliar, inappropriate conformity or inappropriate rebelliousness, defensiveness, overcompliant or overcontrolling behavior, and fear of or hostility toward others.

The obedient student was taught not to challenge authority. The responsible student is prepared to question—and if need be, to challenge—anything.

But to look to others as a primary source of our self-value is dangerous: first, because it doesn't work; and second, because it exposes us to the danger of becoming approval addicts.

Entrepreneurship is by its nature antiauthority. It is anti-status quo. It is always moving in the direction of making what exists obsolete. Early in this century the economist Joseph Schumpeter wrote of the work of the entrepreneur as that of "creative destruction.

If capitalism offered a broader arena for self-esteem to operate in than had ever existed before, it also offered challenges that had no precedent in earlier, tribal societies—challenges to self-reliance, self-assertiveness, self-responsibility, and personal accountability. Capitalism created a market for the independent mind.

Genuine self-esteem is what we feel about ourselves when everything is not all right. This means, when we are challenged by the unexpected, when others disagree with us, when we are flung back on our own resources, when the cocoon of the group can no longer insulate us from the tasks and risks of life, when we must think, choose, decide, and act and no one is guiding us or applauding us. At such moments our deepest premises reveal themselves.

What I wish to point out here is that the tribal premise is intrinsically anti-self-esteem.

It is not what "they" think; it is what I know. What I know is more important to me than a mistaken belief in someone else's mind.

In the ultimate sense, I accept my aloneness. That is, I accept that no one is coming to make my life right, or save me, or redeem my childhood, or rescue me from the consequences of my choices and actions.

To practice self-responsibility is to think for oneself.

Often what people call "thinking" is merely recycling the opinions of others.

So we can say that thinking independently—about our work, our relationships, the values that guide our life, the goals we set for ourselves—strengthens self-esteem. And healthy self-esteem results in a natural inclination to think independently.

Self-reliance and self-responsibility were seen as supremely appropriate in this new order of things, in contrast to the conformity and obedience more valued in earlier, tribal societies. Independence became an economically adaptive virtue.

Independence is reliance upon our own mind and judgment, the acceptance of intellectual responsibility for our own existence.

Innovators and creators are persons who can to a higher degree than average accept the condition of aloneness.

It [the scarlet letter] had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.

No, my little Pearl! Thou must gather thine own sunshine. I have none to give thee.

It was as if she had been made afresh out of new elements, and must perforce be permitted to live her own life and be a law unto herself without her eccentricities being reckoned to her for a crime.

Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods.

It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society.

O exquisite relief! She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom! By

The world's law was no law for her mind

The tendency of her fate and fortunes had been to set her free. The