Quotes About Autonomy

At some stage of development an officer had to stop following orders and start generating them.

Although even then, it hadn't been because he hadn't wanted to learn—just that he hadn't wanted to learn what had been set on the plate in front of him that day.  The power to select his own plates had changed everything.

Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds.

It is a poor sort of man who is content to be spoon-fed knowledge that has been filtered through the canon of religious or political belief, and it is a poor sort of man who will permit others to dictate what he may or may not learn.

But a long time ago I made me a rule: I let people do what they want to do.

If they didn't accept him, the hell with them - he could go his own way.

Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow.

listen to the advice of others but to act only on my own beliefs, and to make my own decisions.

I had already learned to listen to the advice of others but to act only on my own beliefs, and to make my own decisions.

I had my father's contempt for the courtier who suspends his life from the fingertips of those in power, looking for morsels. I would be beholden to no man.

Always give yourself an edge, boy. You may never need it, but it saves a lot of worry. Learn to depend on yourself, and if you expect nothing from anybody else you will never be disappointed.

i. e. a society in which the largest number of persons are allowed to pursue the largest number of ends as freely as possible, in which these ends are themselves criticised as little as possible and the fervour with which such ends are held is not required to be bolstered up by some bogus rational or supernatural argument to prove the universal validity of the end."46

I don't like favors; they oppress and make me fell like a slave. I'd rather do everything for myself, and be perfectly independent.

I love my liberty too well to be in a hurry to give it up for any mortal man.

I'm happy as I am, and love my liberty too well to be in a hurry to give it up for any mortal man.

Never take advice!

I'd rather be a free spinster and paddle my own canoe.

No woman should give her happiness into the keeping of a man without fixed principles...

I like to help women help themselves, as that is, in my opinion, the best way to settle the woman question. Whatever we can do and do well we have a right to, and I don't think any one will deny us.

having learned that people cannot be moulded like clay…

I agree not to expect anything from Mother or you, but I do want to buy Undine and Sintran for myself. I've wanted it so long, said Jo, who was a bookworm.

I'm happy as I am, and love my liberty too well to be in a hurry to give it up for any mortal man.

I don't like favors, they oppress and make me feel like a slave. I'd rather do everything for myself, and be perfectly independent.

I don't believe that I shall ever marry; I'm happy as I am, and love my liberty too well to be in a hurry to give it up for any mortal man.