Quotes About Autonomy

No one has the right to force you to violate your own privacy.

There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point

others to disagree with you. Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others. Question everything.

I think we should all wince when we hear a small child being labelled as belonging to some particular religion or another. Small children are too young to decide their views on the origins of the cosmos, or life and of morals. The very sound of the phrase 'Christian child' or 'Muslim child' should grate like fingernails on a blackboard.

If people wish to love a 7th century preacher more than their own families, that's up to them, but nobody else is obliged to take it seriously . . .

The important point is that it is [the children's] privilege to decide what they shall think, and not their parents' privilege to impose it by force majeure.

I think we should all wince when we hear a small child being labelled as belonging to some particular religion or another. Small children are too young to decide their views on the origins of the cosmos, of life and of morals. The very sound of the phrase Christian child or Muslim child should grate like fingernails on a blackboard.

Labelling of children. Children are described as 'Catholic children' or 'Protestant children' etc. from an early age, and certainly far too early for them to have made up their own minds on what they think about religion.

More generally, if living things didn't work actively to prevent it, they would eventually merge into their surroundings, and cease to exist as autonomous beings. That is what happens when they die.

Humans are only one of many things, and all these things long to live, and the highest form of living is freedom: a man to be a man, a cloud to be a cloud, bamboo to be bamboo.

Things happen that seem life-altering, then everything grinds down to being bearable--sometimes slightly better. Which could be a formula for doing anything you fuck-all wanted; or nothing ever meant much--which he did not accept for an instance . . . Still. Who ran their own brain. Your brain ran you.

Libertarian paternalism is a relatively weak, soft, and nonintrusive type of paternalism because choices are not blocked, fenced off, or significantly burdened.

What others believe is not my concern, unless they attempt to force it on me.

Hand over your responses to the man who triggers them, and you have already lost the battle for self. Look beyond, and find yourself there instead.

When you don't like the laws, you go somewhere they can't touch you. And then you make up some of your own.

Often, creativity is blocked by our falling in with other people's plans for us. We want to set aside time for our creative work, but we feel we should do something else instead.

To believe in God or in a guiding force because someone tells you to is the height of stupidity. We are given senses to receive our information with. With our own eyes we see, and with our skin we feel. With our intelligence, it is intended that we understand. But each person must puzzle it out for himself or herself. SOPHY BURNHAM

Many of us find that we have squandered our own creative energies by investing disproportionately in the lives, hopes, dreams, and plans of others. Their lives have obscured and detoured our own. As we consolidate a core through our withdrawal process, we become more able to articulate our own boundaries, dreams, and authentic goals. Our personal flexibility increases while our malleability to the whims of others decreases. We experience a heightened sense of autonomy and possibility.

Our personal flexibility increases while our malleability to the whims of others decreases. We experience a heightened sense of autonomy and possibility.

To believe in God or in a guiding force because someone tells you to is the height of stupidity. We are given senses to receive our information with. With our own eyes we see, and with our skin we feel. With our intelligence, it is intended that we understand. But each person must puzzle it out for himself or herself.

Don't let the hand you hold hold you down.

To own a certain book - and to choose it without help - is to define yourself.

He gave the impression that he believed in things. We did too—it was just that we wanted to believe in our own things, rather than what had been decided for us. Hence what we thought of as our cleansing scepticism.

Noah couldn't do anything without first wondering what He would think. Now that's no way to go on. Always looking over your shoulder for approval – it's not adult, is it?