Quotes About Self-assertion

Secular self-assertion, perhaps inevitably, developed more slowly; it was one thing to act in 'unfeminine' ways if divinely inspired, not quite so easy to act unconventionally out of personal ambition.

What I would have to do later, starting in college and in the years following, to become a person of inner consequence: break that fawning inner self into pieces.

Uh, my lord, I am not actually food. You do realize this, yes?

Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.

Liberties are not given, they are taken.

Fashion is a declaration of your own freedom.

The people of Asia were slaves, because they had not learned how to pronounce the word 'no'.

Accept no ones definition of your life, but define yourself.

He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.

No one else has ever opened doors for me. I opened them myself.

Liberation start on the very day you incorporate words like NO, ENOUGH, STOP and NO MORE into your life.

I am free and not governed by your approval to be who you want me to be. I am alas only the person I know suited to me and approved only by me.

Define yourself. Never give anyone any chance to define you by their definitions.

When the power comes from within us and we claim it as our own, then we no longer have to affirm ourselves by dominating others. The irony is that we are actually afraid of our own power.

Ignorance, intolerance, egotism, self-assertion, opaque perception, dense and pitiful chuckle headedness - and an almost pathetic unconsciousness of it all, that is what I was at nineteen and twenty.

It's exciting to take control of your future instead of waiting for the phone to ring.

The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it.

It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it's mine.

No. You can't. And I can't do anything either, about my life, to change it, make it better, make me feel better about it. Like it better, make it work. But I can stop it. Shut it down, turn it off like the radio when there's nothing on I want to listen to. It's all I really have that belongs to me and I'm going to say what happens to it. And it's going to stop. And I'm going to stop it. So. Let's just have a good time.

For instance, people who speak up for what they want in the face of conflicting peer group expectations must endure a period when others become rejecting, angry or critical. They must sustain themselves during the tension of these days (or months or years), while continuing to move in the direction they have decided is good for them. They must be strong enough within themselves to persevere and know that, even though others may be critical, they are acceptable in their own estimation. People

Waiting for someone else to write your history was no way to live. Sometimes it was only a certain way to die.

I am not a tomato

Self-assertion may deceive the ignorant for a time; but when the noise dies away, we cut open the drum, and find it was emptiness that made the music.

For only he who is alive is in the right.