Quotes About Autonomy

We each have to choose something but it is another question how and why we presume to choose for others.

The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.

Often enough in my life I have done things I had not decided to do.

I unfortunately see no justification for setting other people's views of what is good for them above their own ideas of what is good for themselves.

But behavior does not merely enact whatever has already been thought through and decided. It has its own sources, and is my behavior, quite independently, just as my thoughts are my thoughts, and my decisions my decisions.

Pero la acción no se limita a llevar a cabo lo que he pensado y decidido previamente. Surge de una fuente propia, y es tan independiente como lo es mi pensamiento y lo son mis decisiones.

Piensa lo que quieras. Soy yo quien cuenta la historia.

Ich meine nicht, daß Denken und Entscheiden keinen Einfluß auf das Handeln hätten. Aber das Handeln vollzieht nicht einfach, was davor gedacht und entschieden wurde. Es hat seine eigene Quelle und ist auf ebenso eigenständige Weise mein Handeln, wie mein Denken ist und mein Entscheiden mein Entscheiden.

But behaviour does not merely enact whatever has already been thought through and decided. It has its own sources, and is my behaviour, quite independently, just as my thoughts are my thoughts, and my decisions my decisions.

Freedom in education has many aspects. There is first of all freedom to learn or not to learn. Then there is freedom as to what to learn. And in later education there is freedom of opinion.

Liberty demands self-government, but not the right to interfere with others.

A victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.

The capacity for consistent self-direction is one of the most valuable that a human being can possess. It is practically unknown in young children, and is never developed either by a very rigid discipline or by complete freedom.

Education, and the life of the mind generally, is a matter in which individual initiative is the chief thing needed; the function of the state should begin and end with insistence on some kind of education, and, if possible, a kind which promotes mental individualism, not a kind which happens to conform to the prejudices of government officials.

Authoritative education, we may add, produces the slave type as well as the despotic type, since it leads to the feeling that the only possible relation between two human beings who cooperate is that in which one issues orders and the other obeys them.

Must think for thyself instead of merely taking scraps from different people - that is what makes thy opinions so disjointed, because thee takes different opinions from different people, thinking the two subjects independent - but no two subjects are really independent

All ancient empires suffered from revolts, often led by provincial governors; and even when no overt revolt occurred, local autonomy was almost unavoidable except when conquest was recent, and was apt, in the course of time, to develop into independence. No large State of antiquity was governed from the centre to nearly the same extent as is now customary; and the chief reason for this was lack of rapid mobility.

As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.

Never tie your happiness to the tail of someone else's kite.

Life is a book and you are its author. You detemine its plot and pace and you--only you--turn its pages.

We are free when, and only when, we allow Him to be in control.

A person cannot be whole in a relationship where he or she feels powerless to make healthy choices.

The District of Columbia has every right to pass their own laws, and House Republicans should stay out of it.

After I did 'Private Benjamin,' suddenly the reputation was that Goldie Hawn calls her own shots.