Self Determination Quotes

William Shakespeare

I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves
I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.

Jane Austen

Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.. Jane Austen
Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.

Robert T. Kiyosaki

It's not what you say out of your mouth that determines your life,it's what you whisper to yourself that has the most power!

Lailah Gifty Akita

I see any difficulty as an adventure.

Rodolfo Costa

It may take little time to get where you want to be, but if you pause and think for a moment, you will notice that you are no longer where you were. Do not stop - keep going.

Unarine Ramaru

Your craft is comprehensive if it represents you.

Frank Zappa

If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.

Harvey Fierstein

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself.

Dr. Seuss

Oh the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be
Oh the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all.

Philip Pullman

You cannot change what you are, only what you do.

Joss Whedon

Bottom line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.

Abraham Lincoln

The best way to predict your future is to create it

Tehyi Hsieh

Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.

Theodore Roosevelt

The joy in life is his who has the heart to demand it.

Maya Angelou

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.

(Popular misquote of "You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.")

Anne Frank

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.

Maya Angelou

Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation,
Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.

Michel De Montaigne

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

Leo Buscaglia

The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

John Lennon

You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are
You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!

Sharon Maas

She might be without country, without nation, but inside her there was still a being that could exist and be free, that could simply say I am without adding a this, or a that, without saying I am Indian, Guyanese, English, or anything else in the world.

Katherine Mansfield

Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others ... Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth."

(Journal entry, 14 October 1922)

René Descartes

Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.

Milton Berle

If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door

Groucho Marx

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.

Carlos Castaneda

The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.

William Shakespeare

Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please me.

William Shakespeare

If [God] send me no husband, for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening ...

Lailah Gifty Akita

May the Lord increase your strength.

Lailah Gifty Akita

You have to choose your path.
You have to decide what you wish to do.
You are the only person that can determine your destiny.

Auliq Ice

When the heart accepts death first, words you can trust are feelings you can take.

Jack Welch

Control Your Own Destiny or Someone Else Will

John Lubbock

The whole value of solitude depends upon oneself; it may be a sanctuary or a prison, a haven of repose or a place of punishment, a heaven or a hell, as we ourselves make it.

Lailah Gifty Akita

In the race of life, what matters is to complete your race.

Lailah Gifty Akita

May God guide and lead us to a glorious future.

Lailah Gifty Akita

No matter how tough the situation, you still have to hang on.

Virginia Woolf

As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking.

Mary Wollstonecraft

[I]f we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex.

Jane Austen

There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.

Antonia Fraser

[In 16th century European society] Marriage was the triumphal arch through which women, almost without exception, had to pass in order to reach the public eye. And after marriage followed, in theory, the total self-abnegation of the woman.

Greta Garbo

There are some who want to get married and others who don't. I have never had an impulse to go to the altar. I am a difficult person to lead.

Elizabeth I Tudor

If I follow the inclination of my nature, it is this: beggar-woman and single, far rather than queen and married.

Charlotte Brontë

There are certain phrases potent to make my blood boil - improper influence! What old woman's cackle is that?"

"Are you a young lady?"

"I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman, and as such I will be treated.

Elizabeth I Tudor

[I]n the end this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a Queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin.

Charlotte Brontë

I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand - they only. Know this at last.

Lailah Gifty Akita

Look deeply into your soul. You have enough grace and strength to overcome any struggle.

Núria Añó

She could just pack up and leave, but she does not visualize what's beyond ahead.

Abraham Lincoln

I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.

George Bernard Shaw

A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jupiter: I am not your king, impudent larva? Who then has created you?
Orestes: You. But you should not have created me free.

Lailah Gifty Akita

Book buying habits; I can afford to live without food and save the money to a
Book buying habits; I can afford to live without food and save the money to a book.

Charlotte Brontë

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.

Coco Chanel

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.

Mae West

I'm single because I was born that way.

Charlotte Brontë

I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.

Charlotte Brontë

I am not an angel," I asserted; "and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself.

Mary Wollstonecraft

It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men.

Dorothy L. Sayers

What we ask is to be human individuals, however peculiar and unexpected. It is no good saying: "You are a little girl and therefore you ought to like dolls"; if the answer is, "But I don't," there is no more to be said.

Mary Wollstonecraft

I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man.

Terence McKenna

Reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.

Matthew Woodring Stover

The capacity for personal freedom is a rare talent. Talent exists to be used. We do not ask sheep to be wolves; we, the wolves, do not ask ourselves to be sheep. Sheep can make such rules as happen to suit them-but it's foolishly naive to expect wolves to obey.

Socrates

Let him who would move the world first move himself.

José Saramago

Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are.

Nora Ephron

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.

Lois McMaster Bujold

Don't wish to be normal. Wish to be yourself. To the hilt. Find out what you're best at, and develop it, and hopscotch your weaknesses. Wish to be great at whatever you are.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.

Shmuley Boteach

Our lives are nothing but a short span of time. And if we spend tons of time earning money that we simply throw away, then we're throwing away part of our potential.

Jane Austen

I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.

Mary Wollstonecraft

My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.

Dorothy L. Sayers

In fact, there is perhaps only one human being in a thousand who is passionately interested in his job for the job's sake. The difference is that if that one person in a thousand is a man, we say, simply, that he is passionately keen on his job; if she is a woman, we say she is a freak.

Steve Shallenberger

When you increase in learning and education, you increase your ability to act, and you have a chance to improve your circumstances.

Charlotte Brontë

I am not an angel,' I asserted; 'and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me - for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all anticipate.

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