Quotes About Autonomy

A man then must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.

You have to assemble your life yourself - action by action. And be satisfied if each one achieves its goal, as far as it can. No one can keep that from happening.

Look at who they really are, the people whose approval you long for, and what their minds are really like. Then you won't blame the ones who make mistakes they can't help, and you won't feel a need for their approval. You will have seen the sources of both—their judgments and their actions.

Nature did not blend things so inextricably that you can't draw your own boundaries—place your own well-being in your own hands. It's quite possible to be a good man without anyone realizing it. Remember that.

No man can rob us of our free will.

Then what can guide us? Only philosophy. Which means making sure that the power within stays safe and free from assault, superior to pleasure and pain, doing nothing randomly or dishonestly and with imposture, not dependent on anyone else's doing something or not doing it. And making sure that it accepts what happens and what it is dealt as coming from the same place it came from.

He poor, that stands in need of another, and hath not in himself all things needful for this life.

Things have no hold on the soul. They have no access to it, cannot move or direct it. It is moved and directed by itself alone. It takes the things before it and interprets them as it sees fit.

O que depende de nós é, por natureza, livre, sem impedimento, sem contrariedade, enquanto o que não depende de nós é fraco, escravo, sujeito a impedimento, estranho

Of all existing things some are in our power, and others are not in our power.

Remember that to change course or accept correction leaves you just as free as you were. The action is your own, driven by your impulse and judgement, indeed your own intelligence.

self-reliance and an unequivocal determination not to leave anything to chance;

The solution is as elegant as it is efficient: Define the right outcomes and then let each person find his own route toward those outcomes.

Freedom is participation in power.

Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.

What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes.

For old age is respected only if it defends itself, maintains its rights, submits to no one, and rules over its domain until its last breath.

É impossível não ser felicíssimo quem em tudo depende apenas de si e em si mesmo tudo apóia.

I had to decide what I was going to do, and what I was going to be. I was standing there, waiting for someone to do something, till I realized the person I was waiting for was myself.

I am not your justification for existence.

I avoid looking down at my body, not so much because it's shameful or immodest but because I don't want to see it. I don't want to look at something that determines me so completely.

Nobody is any authority on the fucks other people give

You refuse to own yourself, you permit others to do it for you

I walk away from him. It's enormously pleasing to me, this walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will.