Quotes About Autonomy

Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility.

There is but one power to which I can yield a heart felt obedience, the decision of my own understanding, the dictate of my own conscience

is not altogether a matter of fanfaronade when the American citizen calls himself a "sovereign." A member of a free democracy is, in a sense, a sovereign. He

A member of a free democracy is, in a sense, a sovereign. He has no superior. He

On the other hand, a man whose labor and self-denial may be diverted from his maintenance to that of some other man is not a free man, and approaches more or less toward the position of a slave. Therefore

Now, the aid which helps a man to help himself is not in the least akin to the aid which is given in charity. If

What have our ancestors been striving for, under the name of civil liberty, for the last five hundred years? They have been striving to bring it about that each man and woman might live out his or her life according to his or her own notions of happiness and up to the measure of his or her own virtue and wisdom. How

men who are taught to expect Government inspectors to come and take care of them lose all true education in liberty. If

THAT A FREE MAN IS A SOVEREIGN, BUT THAT A SOVEREIGN CANNOT TAKE "TIPS.

Every man and woman in society has one big duty. That is, to take care of his or her own self. This is a social duty. For

I am one of humanity, and I do not want any volunteer friends. I regard friendship as mutual, and I want to have my say about it. I

Some people have resolved to be teetotalers, and they want a law passed to make everybody else a teetotaler. Some people have resolved to eschew luxury, and they want taxes laid to make others eschew luxury. The

They are men who have no superiors, by

One who takes a favor or submits to patronage demeans himself. He falls under obligation. He

The free man in a free democracy, when he cut off all the ties which might pull him down, severed also all the ties by which he might have made others pull him up. He must take all the consequences of his new status. He

As] authorities "over" us are removed, as we wobble out on our own, the question of whether to be or not to be arises with real relevance for the first time, since the burden of being is felt most fully by the self-determining self.

the right to be naked and not to be ruled by Mrs. Grundy deserves financial support from anyone who believes in freedom.

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases.

Marshall placed enormous trust in Eisenhower, and Ike always honored him for it. "I must have assistants who will solve their own problems," Marshall told him, "and tell me later what they have done." The historian of Eisenhower's presidency can draw a direct line between these words and Eisenhower's own management style as chief executive, when he too would look for powerful and confident lieutenants and allow them the freedom to run their own departments.

If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.

I came of age believing that, no matter what happened, I would always be able to support myself.

The choices humans make should be active rather than passive. In making personal choices we affirm our autonomy.

and what if I did drink too much? Whose business is that? Who knows how much I didn't drink?

The bottom line was that people who leaned too heavily on someone else were setting themselves up for a terrible fall, and they had no one to blame in the end but themselves for the hurt they suffered. Cork had learned the hard way.