Quotes About Independence

A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not "studying a profession," for he does not postpone his life, but lives already.

It is better to be the thorn in the side of your friend than his echo

Wherever a man comes, there comes a revolution. The old is for slaves.

Good bye, proud world! I'm going home; Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine

The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is, that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character. If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for the government or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers, — under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are.

Solitude is a sublime mistress but an intolerable wife

It makes no difference whether the appeal is to numbers or to one. The faith that stands on authority is not faith.

is only as a man puts off all foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong and to prevail.

At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door, and say, — 'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me, I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.

True love transcends the unworthy object, and dwells and broods on the eternal, and when the poor interposed mask crumbles, it is not sad, but feels rid of so much earth, and feels its independency the surer.

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and make a trail.

It is only as a man puts off all foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong and to prevail.

En la comunidad, es fácil vivir según ideas ajenas. En la soledad, es fácil vivir según las ideas propias. Pero solo es notable el que, en la comunidad, conseva la independencia.

Do what I can, I cannot keep my eyes off the clock. But if there should appear in the company some gentle soul who knows little of persons or parties, of Carolina or Cuba, but who announces a law that disposes these particulars, and so certifies me of the equity which checkmates every false player, bankrupts every self-seeker, and apprises me of my independence on any conditions of country, or time, or human body, that man liberates me; I forget the clock.

Whence is your power? From my nonconformity. I never listened to your people's law, or to what they call their gospel, and wasted my time.

If a person is constantly reading and absorbing the thoughts of others, their growth will be stunted. In order to fully develop, we need periods of solitude, self-inquiry, and recovery.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character.

They are lonely; the spirit of their writing and conversation is lonely; they repel influences; they shun general society; they incline to shut themselves in their chamber in the house, to live in the country rather than in the town, and to find their tasks and amusements in solitude.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

If Jawaharlal Nehru was the Maker of Modern India, then perhaps Potti Sriramulu should be named its Mercator.

At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom

A strong man cannot help a weaker unless the weaker is willing to be helped, and even then the weak man must be strong of himself; he must, by his own efforts, develop the strength which he admires in another. None but himself can alter his condition.

Think long and hard whether you have reached that mature stage of selflessness for this one you think you love so much. The love you enjoy will be the best thing that ever happened to you, but it will cost you your independence.... The responsibility of marriage and family demands time, and when we cheat on that, we rob ourselves of the investment returns.