Quotes About Autonomy

No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don't ask, walk!

We are in constant danger of being not actors in the drama of our own lives but reactors.

Our destiny is largely in our hands.

I will give Mr. Freeland the credit of being the best master I ever had, till I became my own master.

Mr. Johnson had just been reading the Lady of the Lake, and at once suggested that my name be Douglass. From that time until now I have been called Frederick Douglass;

The name given me by my mother was, Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. I, however, had dispensed with the two middle names long before I left Maryland so that I was generally known by the name of Frederick Bailey.

He who obeys, does not listen to himself!

Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.

There is a false saying: "How can someone who can't save himself save others?" Supposing I have the key to your chains, why should your lock and my lock be the same?

No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don't ask, walk!

Do you want to go along with others? or go on ahead? or go off on your own?...you must know what you want and that you want. Fourth question for the conscience.

He is called a free spirit who thinks differently from what, on the basis of his origin, environment, his class and profession, or on the basis of the dominant views of the age, would have been expected of him

There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don't ask, walk!

There is a false saying, 'Whoever cannot save himself - how can he save others?' But if I have the key to your chains, why should your and my lock be the same.

If you would go up high, then use your own legs! Do not get yourselves carried aloft; do not seat yourselves on other people's backs and heads!

Free, dost thou call thyself? Thy ruling thought would I hear of, and not that thou hast escaped from a yoke. Art thou one ENTITLED to escape from a yoke? Many a one hath cast away his final worth when he hath cast away his servitude. Free from what? What doth that matter to Zarathustra! Clearly, however, shall thine eye show unto me: free FOR WHAT?

A thinking man never be a party man.

No one tells me anything new, so I tell myself my own story.

It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best right, but without being OBLIGED to do so, proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring beyond measure.

Independence is for the very few; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it even with the best right but without inner constraint proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring to the point of recklessness.

I wish men would begin by respecting themselves: everything else follows from that. To be sure, as soon as one does this one is finished for others: for this is what they forgive last: 'What? A man who respects himself?

We must know how to preserve ourselves: the greatest test of independence.

I mistrust all Systematisers and I avoid them — the will to a System is a lack of integrity.

Go your ways! and let the people and peoples go theirs!- gloomy ways, verily, on which not a single hope glints any more!