Quotes About Autonomy

If the woman picks the wrong man, that's not society's problem. That's her problem.

If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.

The characteristic feature of a free society is that it can function in spite of the fact that its members disagree in many judgments of value. Freedom really means the freedom to make mistakes.

Freud tells us to blame our parents for all the shortcomings of our life, Marx tells us to blame the upper class of our society. But the only one to blame is oneself.

The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own particular ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence with ours.

Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively are less free.

Every person's life is theirs by right. An individual's life can and must belong only to to himself, not to any society or community, or he is then but a slave.

Our dependence outweighs our independence, for we are independent only in our desire, while we are dependent on our health, on nature, on society, on everything in us and outside us.

The larger society has to recognize some degree of autonomy for the minority: the right to practice their own religion and way of life and to some extent their language.

La socie te ne doit rien exiger de celui qui n'attend rien d'elle. Society should not ask anything of the person who expects nothing from society.

The hero's will is not that of his ancestors nor of his society, but his own. This will to be oneself is heroism.

The touchstone of everything that can be concluded as a law for a people lies in the question whether the people could have imposed such a law on itself.

Why anarchy? Because anything less would be uncivilized.

Think for yourself and question authority.

Man is free at the instant he wants to be.

Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possibility.

Your own life is the way it is because of you, and the choices you have made - or failed to make.

Bureaucracies are designed to perform public business. But as soon as a bureaucracy is established, it develops an autonomous spiritual life and comes to regard the public as its enemy.

No condition outside ourselves can create a rut or trap us in it. It's impossible.

Goodness is not in the backyard of the individual nor in the open field of the collective; goodness flowers only in freedom from both.

Remember that all things are only opinion and that it is in your power to think as you please.

There is always a choice. Always. So do not say, you had no choice. Good or bad, doing it or not, is about you, not choices. Always.

I was never pushed into the religion by my mother or anyone else. I made up my own mind when I was old enough. I am not a religious person, but I am spiritual.

The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursuing his education.