Quotes About Autonomy

The problem with not having anybody to tell you what to do, I understood, is that there was nobody to tell you what not to do.

You are allowed to be alive. You are allowed to be somebody different. You are allowed to not say goodbye to anybody or explain a single thing to anyone, ever.

My top priority is for people to understand that they have the power to change things themselves.

But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself.

Self-sacrifice? But it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed.

Men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason can only exist as parasites on the thinking of others.

But I don't think of you. (Howard Roark)

I don't wish to be the symbol of anything. I'm only myself.

Never ask people about your work.

Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.

Toohey: Mr. Roark, we're alone here. Why don't you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us. Roark: But I don't think of you.

In a free society, one does not have to deal with those who are irrational. One is free to avoid them.

I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need. I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others. - Howard Roark

I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life.

Place nothing above the verdict of your own mind.

I dont work with collectives. I don't consult, i don't co-operate, I don't collaborate.

Everyone has the right to make his own decisions, but none has the right to force his decision on others.

Never ask people. Not about your work. Don't you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?

Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.

To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. This and nothing else.

I am not the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds, I am not a sacrifice on their altars.

I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.

I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire.

We are on strike against martyrdom—and against the moral code that demands it. We are on strike against those who believe that one man must exist for the sake of another. We are on strike against the morality of cannibals, be it practiced in body or in spirit. We will not deal with men on any terms but ours—and our terms are a moral code which holds that man is an end in himself and not the means to any end of others.