Quotes About Independence

It's a game box. They were invented so teenagers wouldn't have to talk to grownups.

Never depend on the admiration of others. There is no strength in it. Personal merit cannot be derived from an external source. It is not to be found in your personal associations, nor can it be found in the regard of other people. It is a fact of life that other people, even people who love you, will not necessarily agree with your ideas, understand you, or share your enthusiasms. Grow up! Who cares what other people think about you!

No person is free who is not master of himself.

You may fetter my leg, but Zeus himself cannot get the better of my free will.

Do not try to seem wise to others. If you want to live a wise life, live it on your own terms and in your own eyes.

Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.

We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free.

When someone is properly grounded in life, they shouldn't have to look outside themselves for approval.

We are at the mercy of whoever wields authority over the things we either desire or detest. If you would be free, then, do not wish to have, or avoid, things that other people control, because then you must serve as their slave.

Stop honouring externals, quit turning yourself into the tool of mere matter, or of people who can supply you or deny you those material things.

Whoever then would be free, let him wish nothing, let him decline nothing, which depends on others; else he must necessarily be a slave.

Don't you want to be free of all that? [33] 'But how can I do it?' You've often heard how – you need to suspend desire completely, and train aversion only on things within your power. You should dissociate yourself from everything outside yourself – the body, possessions, reputation, books, applause, as well as office or lack of office. Because a preference for any of them immediately makes you a slave, a subordinate, and prone to disappointment.

for your part, do not desire to be a general, or a senator, or a consul, but to be free; and the only way to this is a disregard of things which lie not within our own power.

I'll show you that I'm master.' —How will you do that? Zeus has set me free. Do you really suppose that he would allow his own son to be turned into a slave? You're master of my carcass, take that.

Whoever then wishes to be free, let him neither wish for anything nor avoid anything which depends on others: if he does not observe this rule, he must be a slave.

Authentic happiness is always independent of external conditions.

Whenever you act from clear judgment, doing what needs to be done, do not worry about what others will think—even if the whole world might misunderstand you.

It is better to live with one free man and to be without fear and free, than to be a slave with many.

Whoever wants to be free, therefore, let him not want or avoid anything that is up to others. Otherwise he will necessarily be a slave.

I was born to fly wherever I like, to live in the open air, to sing whenever I want. You take all this away from me and then say, "What's wrong with you?

Apropos of which, Diogenes says somewhere that one way to guarantee freedom is to be ready to die.

there is but one way to freedom - to despise what is not in our power.

Therefore your will is your own business too.

Liberty is lost unless we despise those things which put the yoke upon our necks.