Quotes About Autonomy

In a post-Enlightenment world we have tasked ourselves to identify what's meaningful and what's not, an exercise that can seem arbitrary and induce a creeping nihilism. "The Enlightenment's metaphysical embrace of the autonomous individual leads not just to a boring life," Dreyfus and Kelly worry; "it leads almost inevitably to a nearly unlivable one.

The Enlightenment's metaphysical embrace of the autonomous individual leads not just to a boring life," Dreyfus and Kelly worry; "it leads almost inevitably to a nearly unlivable one.

Outsourcing your autonomy to an attention economy conglomerate—as you do when you mindlessly sign up for whatever new hot service emerges from the Silicon Valley venture capitalist class—is the opposite of freedom, and will likely degrade your individuality

It's not about usefulness, it's about autonomy.

Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.

Whatever my destiny is, it's mine and nobody else's.

What I was about to attempt was a thing that only I could do. And I would do it on my own.

My advice, as in everything, is to read widely and think for yourself We need more dissent and less dogma.

Better alone than badly accompanied.

I can safely conclude that we are single because we want to be.

Not that we didn't have close relationships with our parents - I'm very close to my mom - but parents didn't think anything of going off for a few weeks and leaving their kids.

I am my own dragon. I decide for myself.

The key to your universe is that you can choose.

Mrs. Bonneville never buckled her seat belt, even though it was required by state law; an ardent libertarian, she opposed government meddling in all matters of personal choice.

I am not what happens to me. I choose who I become.

companionship thrives only when each individual remembers his individuality and does not identify himself with others.

Declining to hear "no" is a signal that someone is either seeking control or refusing to relinquish it. With strangers, even those with the best intentions, never, ever relent on the issue of "no," because it sets the stage for more efforts to control. If you let someone talk you out of the word "no," you might as well wear a sign that reads, "You are in charge.

needs to have the ability to stand up and leave if it is no longer productive to stay.

If you let someone talk you out of the word "no," you might as well wear a sign that reads, "You are in charge.

I suggest that women never explain why they don't want a relationship but simply make clear that they have thought it over, that this is their decision, and that they expect the man to respect it. Why would a woman explain intimate aspects of her life, plans, and romantic choices to someone she doesn't want a relationship with?

We rely upon the woman herself to plan a course of action. Anyone, in or out of the system, who tells a woman she must follow a particular course that goes against her own judgment and intuition is not only failing to use the philosophy of empowerment, but may well be endangering the woman.

the simple defense for forced teaming, which is to make a clear refusal to accept the concept of partnership: "I did not ask for your help and I do not want it.

I encourage people to remember that "no" is a complete sentence.

No" is a word that must never be negotiated, because the person who chooses not to hear it is trying to control you.