Quotes About Autonomy

Even when he seems to be interacting with someone else, the narcissist is actually engaged in a self-referential discourse. To the narcissist, all other people are cardboard cutouts, two-dimensional animated cartoon characters, or symbols. They exist only in his inner universe. He is startled when they deviate from the script and prove to be complex and autonomous.

I feel like a marionette - like someone else is pulling the strings and I have no choice but to comply.

Can anyone do much for anyone else unless by making a will in his favour and dying then and there? Should not each look after his own happiness, and will not the world be best carried on if everyone minds his own business and leaves other people to mind theirs?

I don't care," he answered, "whether I make the most of my strength or not; I don't know whether I have any strength, but if I have I dare say it will find some way of exerting itself. I will live as I like living, not as other people would like me to live; thanks to my aunt and you I can afford the luxury of a quiet unobtrusive life of self-indulgence," said

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

For the present, can Taiwan remain democratic without becoming formally independent? In the future could Taiwan be democratic without remaining actually independent?

If people are busy living out myths you don't like, leave them to it.

No laws: to break, or to follow. Do anything you want. Which does funny things to you. Very quickly, surprisingly quickly, you become-" [...] "exactly who you are.

Jo, you're you. And that's as important as you want to make it.

Tarzan,' I said, 'if my old lady wants to fuck a sheep with a dildo strapped to her nose, that is largely her concern, very secondarily mine, and not yours at all. She can fuck anything she wants—with the possible exception of you.

I know not my own heart if it be not absolutely free.

Arbitrary governing hath no alliance with God.

you are the best authority on how to live your life.

I've never had any need for somebody to be my role model. I've been my own role model.

Don't corral me, and I'll always come home. Just let me go out and play during the day.

She was trying to make him understand that she would never march to the beat of anyone else's drum again and he was arrogantly assuring her that she would if he were the drummer!

We all grew up in spite of our parents. I trust our children will do likewise.

If you were truly concerned for me, it would matter to you what I want for myself. But it is only what you want for me—from me—that concerns you.

the day came for every woman when she must choose one kind of life or another or let someone else make the choice for her.

We know that solitude is almost a necessity for creativity and the development of a genuinely and richly autonomous sense of identity.

I pride myself on making my own decisions, sir," she said. "I do not welcome gentlemen making them for me.

I would rather be a spinster than sold off, traded in, whatever they may call it.

I am myself in spite of my memories." -Aunt Nicki

Point is, I invented me... maybe as a reaction to them... definitely as a reaction to them. I am myself in spite of my memories.