Quotes About Autonomy

Most people believe that if you go in and try to micromanage a forest, it is possible to destroy the very thing that makes it a unique and special place. That's just as true of the Net.

If I'm too strong for some people, that's their problem

Ask the way to the Ladies Room and you're "processed." Freedom of choice, my backside.

Local control worked well enough to make America's education system the envy of the world at one time. We started losing that advantage when local school districts started losing their autonomy. As Greene puts it, "The policies, practices, and funding of schools has increasingly shifted to the state and national governments and greater uniformity has been imposed by unionization. The enemy of high standards and improving outcomes is centralization.

We all instinctively understand that the private realm is where we can act, think, speak, write, experiment, and choose how to be, away from the judgmental eyes of others. Privacy is a core condition of being a free person.

Above even our physical well-being, a central value is keeping the state out of the private realm—our "persons, houses, papers, and effects," as the Fourth Amendment puts it. We do so precisely because that realm is the crucible of so many of the attributes typically associated with the quality of life—creativity, exploration, intimacy.

Privacy is a core condition of being a free person.

the desire for privacy is shared by us all as an essential, not ancillary, part of what it means to be human. We all instinctively understand that the private realm is where we can act, think, speak, write, experiment, and choose how to be, away from the judgmental eyes of others. Privacy is a core condition of being a free person.

you believe you are always being watched and judged, you are not really a free individual.

there are all sorts of things people do that they are eager to keep private, even though these sorts of things do not constitute doing "something wrong." Privacy is indispensable to a wide range of human activities.

I'm not interested in dating. I like being with my own best friend, me. Certain women, particularly older women, cannot believe I like going to a social event by myself. But I do.

Each individual woman's body demands to be accepted on its own terms.

Decisions are best made by the people affected by them.

There is no such thing as a perfect leader. We have to learn to lead ourselves.

Power is being redefined. Women often explain with care that we mean power to control our lives, but not to dominate others.

If feminism means anything, it means taking responsibility for ourselves: for our own lives and actions. It is not "women as victims" but women refusing to be victims. What we need, as adults or children, is just one person who has confidence in us, so we can have confidence in ourselves.

if girls were raised a little more like boys—if they had more right to say no, to declare boundaries, to develop a strong personal identity, to be angry, to rebel—they would be less likely to be revictimized as adults.

Every woman knows there is a big difference between help that is designed to keep you dependent, and help that is designed to make you independent.

When you're dependent, it's very hard not to be worried about the approval of whoever and whatever you're dependent on. For

the love of independence and possibilities

Without the power to make decisions about our own bodies, there is no democracy.

If I know my Rachel, she will do what she wants to do. And perhaps that is the best.

No one else can nurture my personal faith in God. Only I can do that. No one else can get my body to the gym or limit my sugar intake. I have the final decision on those responsibilities.

Not every task, volunteer position, responsibility at work, or job around the house is my responsibility.