Independence Quotes

See with your own eyes, hear with your own ears, think your own thoughts, say what you must say, do what you must do, love all that you can and stand on your own two feet.

~ Paul Palnik

I'd trapped myself in a script.... But to be scripted at all is to be prepackaged, programmed, pinned to a page. Only the unwritten can truly live a life. So who I was, what I was, had to be unwritten.

~ David James Duncan

From birds she learned how to sing, from cats she learned a form of dangerous independence.

~ Salman Rushdie

Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore.

~ Herman Melville

Praise and blame alike mean nothing. No, delightful as the pastime of measuring may be, it is the most futile of all occupations, and to submit to the decrees of the measurers the most servile of attitudes.

~ Virginia Woolf

A cause that only serves me is much like a door on the edge of a cliff, it doesn’t open to anywhere good.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Do you believe we are masters of ourselves, or merely dance like puppets on strings having the illusion of independence?

~ Winston Graham

I burned by bridges so the devil couldn't follow me.

~ L.m. Browning

Extreme right-wingers are known for giving God a bad name; extreme left-wingers are known for giving God a weak name. He's not as simple as conservative versus liberal, old versus new. His wings are balanced. God is both and neither.

~ Criss Jami

God, if he believed in Him, and his conscience, if he had one, were the only judges to whom he was answerable.

~ Jules Verne

Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.

~ Ayn Rand

Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds.

~ Thomas Jefferson

Lovers who are free to go when they are restless always come back, lovers who are free to change remain interesting. The bitter animosity and obscenity of divorce is unknown where individuals have not become Siamese twins.

~ Germaine Greer

You know what, Abigail? You’re right—it is selfish. But there’s nothing inherently immature about making a selfish choice. It is hard to put what you know is right for you first, when you know people you love don’t respect your choices. It is hard to say ‘what I want is worthy.’ It is hard to say ‘I know myself and what I need, even if everyone else thinks otherwise.’ Don’t tell me this is immature when it took me months of thinking about it every damn day to make this choice.

~ Dahlia Adler

I’ll not do anything, though you should swear your tongue out, except what I please!

~ Emily Brontë

There shall come a day when Birds shall be free... :) and humans will see...

~ K. Hari Kumar

To have an independant mind, to think for oneself, not to follow fashion, not to seek honour or decoration, not to become part of the establishment

~ Marcel Schlumberge

I don't believe in miracles, but if the need is great, a girl might make her own miracle.

~ Julie Berry

I'd rather die my way than live yours.

~ Lauren Oliver

Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.

~ Ayn Rand

To find yourself, think for yourself.

~ Socrates

I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. I've just done what I damn well wanted to, and I've made enough money to support myself, and ain't afraid of being alone.

~ Katharine Hepburn

The proverb warns that, 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.

~ Thomas Szasz

Bjarne Møller, my former boss, says people like me always choose the line of most resistance. It's in what he calls our 'accursed nature'. That's why we always end up on our own. I don't know. I like being alone. Perhaps I have grown to like my self-image of being a loner, too....I think you have to find something about yourself that you like in order to survive. Some people say being alone is unsociable and selfish. But you're independent and you don't drag others down with you, if that's the way you're heading. Many people are afraid of being alone. But it made me feel strong, free and invulnerable.

~ Jo Nesbø

It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best right, but without being OBLIGED to do so, proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring beyond measure. He enters into a labyrinth, he multiplies a thousandfold the dangers which life in itself already brings with it; not the least of which is that no one can see how and where he loses his way, becomes isolated, and is torn piecemeal by some minotaur of conscience. Supposing such a one comes to grief, it is so far from the comprehension of men that they neither feel it, nor sympathize with it. And he cannot any longer go back! He cannot even go back again to the sympathy of men!

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

There, did you think to kill me? There's no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill. There's only an idea.Ideas are bulletproof. Farewell.

~ Alan Moore

Well,” her mother said, looking at the engine, “at least that’s still there.”Do you know anything about engines? Stephanie asked.That’s why I have a husband, so I don't have to. Engines and shelves, that’s why men were invented.Stephanie made a mental note to learn about engines before she turned eighteen. She wasn't too fussed about the shelves.

~ Derek Landy

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading. It vexes me to choose another guide.

~ Charlotte Brontë

Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. The mind is an attribute of the individual.The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary.No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of exploitation and reversed the base of mankind's moral principles. Men have been taught every precept that destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.

~ Ayn Rand

She did not date. She did not have time for men. Men were never, ever worth a great amount of energy. She was the kind of woman that looked down on what she called ‘settlers’, women who chose love and fleeting passion that turned to dull, lifeless marriages over a career and independence.

~ Mandy Nachampassack-Maloney

You are your own refugeThere is no otherYou cannot save anotherYou can only save yourself.

~ Guillaume Musso

I shall not change my course because those who assume to be better than I desire it.

~ Victoria Claflin Woodhull

she didn't need anyone. At Wheeler, even when she stood out with her pink hair and quilter army-surplus jacket and combat bots, she did this without apology. It was a great irony that the very fact of a relationship with her would diminish her appeal, that the moment she came to love me back and depend on me as much as I depended on her, she would no longer be a truly independent spirit. No way in hell was I going to be the one to take that quality away from her.

~ Jodi Picoult

While the Zionists try to make the rest of the World believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn't even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organisation for their international world swindler, endowed with its own sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a university for budding crooks. It is a sign of their rising confidence and sense of security that at a time when one section is still playing the German, French-man, or Englishman, the other with open effrontery comes out as the Jewish race.

~ Adolf Hitler

I don't want to have to earn love by giving up my ability to make decisions that determine how I live.

~ Eloisa James

If the light's not in you, you're in the dark.

~ Marty Rubin

Remember, Montag, we're the happiness boys. We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought.

~ Ray Bradbury

We do not deny any nation's legitimate interest in security. But protecting the security of one nation by robbing another of its national independence and national traditions is not legitimate. In the long run, it is not even secure.

~ Ronald Reagan

All my life, I thought I was this independent woman. I was on all the right committees, made speeches for all the right causes, traveled all over the world. I had my little part-time job, I made all my own decisions, but . . . there was always someone there to fall back on when things went bad. Funny, how after so many years of marriage you don’t think about how much you depend on the other person until . . . well, until they’re gone. And then of course there’s just the whole system in the city. Your doctor, your pharmacist, your plumber, your vet . . . there’s always someone there. You never have to find out . . . how much you can’t do.

~ Donna Ball

...Goddamn himself for letting his independence slip away from him. He didn't even know how it had happened, how he had lost the ability to function on his own, or what the hell he was going to do about it now.

~ Kimberly Gardner