Quotes About Independence

Most people are not even aware of their need to conform. They live under the illusion that they follow their own ideas and inclinations, that they are individualists, that they have arrived at their opinions as the result of their own thinking—and that it just happens that their ideas are the same as those of the majority.

What kind of men, then, does our society need? What is the social character suited to twentieth century Capitalism? It needs men who co-operate smoothly in large groups; who want to consume more and more, and whose tasks are standardized and can easily be influenced and anticipated. It needs men who feel free and independent, not subject to any authority, or principle, or conscience - yet willing to be commanded, to do what is expected, to fit into the social machine without friction.

Also in contemporary Western society the union with the group is the prevalent way of overcoming separateness. It is a union which the individual self disappears to a large extent, and where the aim is to belong to the heard. If I am like everybody else, if I have no feeling or thoughts which make me different, if I conform in custom, dress, ideas, to the pattern of the group, I am saved: saved from the frightening experience of aloneness.

The right to express our thoughts, however, means something only if we are able to have thoughts of our own; freedom from external authority is a lasting gain only if the inner psychological conditions are such that we are able to establish our own individuality.

The development of man's intellectual capacities has far outstripped the development of his emotions. Man's brain lives in the twentieth century; the heart of most men lives still in the Stone Age. The majority of men have not yet acquired the maturity to be independent, to be rational, to be objective. They need myths and idols to endure the fact that man is all by himself, that there is no authority which gives meaning to life except man himself.

Today I, tomorrow you. But this need of help does not mean that the one is helpless, the other powerful. Helplesness is a transitory condition; the ability to stand and walk on one's own feet is the permanent and common one

For centuries kings, priests, feudal lords, industrial bosses and parents have insisted that obedience is a virtue and that disobedience is a vice.

It is desirable to avoid trivial and evil company altogether—unless one can assert oneself fully, and thus make the other doubt his own position.

They were more free, but they were more alone.

Freedom is not something we have, there is no such thing as freedom. Freedom is a quality of our personality: we are more or less free to resist pressure, more or less free to do what we want and to be ourselves. Freedom is always a question of increasing freedom one has, or decreasing it.

modern man still is anxious and tempted to surrender his freedom to dictators of all kinds, or to lose it by transforming himself into a small cog in the machine, well fed, and well clothed, yet not a free man but an automaton.

Free man is by necessity insecure; thinking man by necessity uncertain.

Few parents have the courage and independence to care more for their children's happiness than for their success.

Faith, in the having mode, is a crutch for those who want to be certain, those who want an answer to life without daring to search for it themselves.

no man must be the means for the ends of another man.

Die Liebe ist das Kind der Freiheit, niemals der Beherrschung

l'amour est l'enfant de la liberté" as an old French song says; love is the child of freedom

The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother's side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother, and to become fully independent.

Can freedom become a burden, too heavy for man to bear, something he tries to escape from?

Respect, thus, implies the absence of exploitation. I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and in his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me. If I love the other person, I feel one with him or her, but with him as he is, not as I need him to be as an object for my use. It is clear that respect is possible only if I have achieved independence; if I can stand and walk without needing crutches, without

I say I never wanna get married. I feel trapped with the idea of marriage. How can you really be with somebody forever? I'd get bored! As I get older, I don't settle. I'd rather tell somebody 'This is what I want - take it or leave it.'

It's funny, but your parents can give you everything in the world, but they can't teach you what to do with it. That, you have to learn for yourself.

When you are small, if you reach out, and nobody takes your hand, you stop reaching out, and reach inside, instead.

She'd been doing the same things for so long: auditioning, seducing, preening. What if she turned it around, and let the world try to win her for a change?