Quotes About Independence

Oh God, the terrible tyranny of the majority. We all have our harps to play. And it's up to you to know with which ear you'll listen.

So few want to be rebels anymore. And out of those few, most, like myself, scare easily.

That's the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.

I'm not anyone, I'm just myself; whatever I am, I am something, and now I'm something you can't help.

I don't want to change sides and just be told what to do. There's no reason to change if I do that.

So few want to be rebels anymore.

Don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.

The things you are looking for, Montag, are in the world but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book. Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

I always figured we were born to fly, one way or other, so I couldn't stand most men shuffling along with all the iron of the earth in their blood. I never met a man who weighed less than nine hundred pounds.

But remember that the Captain belongs to the most dangerous enemy to truth and freedom, the solid unmoving cattle of the majority. Oh, God, the terrible tyranny of the majority. We all have our harps to play. And it's up to you now to know with which ear you'll listen.

When I reread it as a teenager, Fahrenheit 451 had become a book about independence, about thinking for yourself. It was about treasuring books and the dissent inside the covers of books. It was about how we as humans begin by burning books and end by burning people.

We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought.

I started traveling. My luggage was snowed under blizzards of travel stickers. I have been alone in Paris, alone in Vienna, alone in London, and all in all, it is very much like being alone in Green Town, Illinois. It is, in essence, being alone. Oh, you have plenty of time to think, improve your manners, sharpen your conversations. But I sometimes think I could easily trade a verb tense or a curtsy for some company that would stay over for a thirty-year weekend.

That's the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you. If you try to approach a cat and pick it up, hell, it won't let you do it. You've got to say, Well, to hell with you. And the cat says, Wait a minute. He's not behaving the way most humans do. Then the cat follows you out of curiosity: Well, what's wrong with you that you don't love me?

Love what you do and do what you love. Don't listen to anyone else who tells you not to do it.

the most dangerous enemy of truth and freedom, the solid unmoving cattle of the majority. Oh, God, the terrible tyranny of the majority.

I'm a California boy. I don't tell anyone how to write and no one tells me. (Paris Review Interview)

They want to know what I do with all my time. I tell them that sometimes I just sit and think. But I won't tell them what. I've got them running.

Since then, I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel

There are so many real people around, telling children what and how to do, that a boy has to run off down a beach, even if it's only in his head, to get by himself in his own world.

Le capitaine fait partie des pires ennemis de la vérité et de la liberté: le troupeau compact et immuable de la majorité. Oh, Dieu, la terrible tyrannie de la majorité! Nous avons tous nos harpes à faire entendre. Et c'est maintenant à vous de savoir de quelle oreille vous écouterez.

don't want to change sides and just be told what to do. There's no reason to change if I do that." "You're wise already!

Sometimes you see a kite so high, so wise it almost knows the wind. It travels, then chooses to land in one spot and no other and no matter how you yank, run this way or that, it will simply break its cord, seek its resting place and bring you, blood-mouthed, running.

Where did I find the courage to rebel, change my life, live alone? I don't want to over-estimate all this, but damn it, I love that nine-year-old, whoever in hell he was. Without him, I could not have survived to introduce these essays.