Independence Quotes

I worry that independence will never feel safe again.

~ K.r. Albers

Scotland can exist fully if we dream hard enough, Julie. I just can’t relate to that Scottish deep-fried-chip-on-the-shoulder. Trainspotting was wrong: it feels fucking great being Scottish. We’re becoming something, Julie. I can feel it. We’re getting dressed up.

~ Alan Bissett

You can love people, and you can befriend them, but the only person you can ever one hundred percent depend on is yourself.

~ Trisha Leigh

Men whose only concern is other people's opinion of them are like actors who put on a poor performance to win the applause of people of poor taste; some of them would be capable of good acting in front of a good audience. A decent man plays his part to the best of his ability, regardless of the taste of the gallery.

~ Nicolas Chamfort

The hell of it is, I know the answer. The answer is that you never, ever, rely on another person for your peace of mind. If you do, you're screwed but good. Not right away, maybe, but sooner or later. You have to -- I don't know --you have to learn to live with yourself. You have to learn to turn back your own sheets and set a table for one without feeling pathetic. You have to be strong and confident and pleased with yourself and never give the slightest impression that you can't hack it without that certain goddamn someone. You have to fake the hell out of it.

~ Armistead Maupin

You won't be benefited unless & until you give a chance.

~ Yogeshwaran Selvaraju

National Review's premise was that conformity was especially egregious among the intellectuals, that herd of independent minds.

~ George F. Will

She's right, Kate's right, I'm right and you're wrong. If you drive her away from here it will be over my dead— chair, has it never occurred to you at on one occasion you might be consummately wrong?

~ William Gibson

Jo couldn’t even lose her heart in a decorous manner, but sternly tried to quench her feelings, and failing to do so, led a somewhat agitated life. She was mortally afraid of being laughed at for surrendering, after her many and vehement declarations of independence.

~ Louisa May Alcott

And I wonder how the leaves clinched to the branches, yet to fall, the survivors feel when they see one of their own perish and realise that they too are to share a similar fate, does this thought cause them to give up selflessly, from confinement to independence or does it instil proportions of both courage and fear making them hold on as long as they can and accept what comes after?

~ Chirag Tulsiani

Let's make our own way,' says the Mother, 'and not in this boat.

~ Lorrie Moore

She is like a cat in the darkAnd then she is the darknessShe rules her life like a fine skylarkAnd when the sky is starlessAll your life you've never seen a womanTaken by the windWould you stay if she promised you heaven?Will you ever win?

~ Stevie Nicks

Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it.

~ John D. Rockefeller

Such a lot is won when even a single man gets to his feet and says No

~ Bertolt Brecht

Being popular or not, having company or being alone, are not issues of concern for the developed soul.

~ Donna Goddard

Suddenly an unexpected series of sounds began to be heard in this place up against the starry sky. They were the notes of Oak´s flute. It came from the direction of a small dark object under the hedge - a shephard´s hut - now presenting an outline to which an unintiated person might have been puzzled to attach either meaning or use. ... Being a man not without a frequent consciousness that there was some charm in this life he led, he stood still after looking at the sky as a useful instrument, and regarded it in an appreciative spirit, as a work of art superlatively beautiful. For a moment he seemed impressed with the speaking loneliness of the scene, or rather with the complete abstraction from all its compass of the sights and sounds of man. ... Oak´s motions, though they had a quiet energy, were slow, and their deliberateness accorded well with his occupation. Fitness being the basis of beauty, nobody could have denied tha his steady swings and turns in and about the flock had elements of grace. His special power, morally, physically, and mentally, was static. ... Oak was an intensely human man: indee, his humanity tore in pieces any politic intentions of his which bordered on strategy, and carried him on as by gravitation. A shadow in his life had always been that his flock should end in mutton - that a day could find a shepherd an arrant traitor to his gentle sheep.

~ Thomas Hardy

I admire independence. The world would be a stronger place if we were all capable of handling life on our own. But being capable of it doesn't mean being unable to share and depend on someone else. It shouldn't mean being unwilling to. That's the romance.

~ Nora Roberts

Whoever has the power takes the noun while the less powerful get an adjective. No one wants her achievements modified.We all just want to be the noun.

~ Sheryl Sandberg

I have never deceived anyone, for I have never belonged to anyone. My independence was all my wealth: I have known no other happiness.

~ Cora Pearl

I mean to tell you, the Law's notion of justice is more cold-blooded than any outlaw I ever knew. And I mean 'outlaw,' not criminal. 'Criminal' doesn't distinguish between guys like men and the guys who own the banks and insurance companies and stock markets, who own the factories and coal mines and oil fields, who own the goddamn Law. I once said to John that being an outlaw was about the only way left for a man to hold on to his self-respect, and he said Ain't that the sad truth. The girls laughed along with us because they knew it wasn't a joke.... John got the publicity because he loved it ... he carried on like the whole thing was an adventure movie and he was Douglas Fairbanks. He wanted to to be a 'star.' That's how he was. Not me. I never even liked having my picture taken. All I ever wanted was to show the bastards who own the law that it didn't mean they owned me.

~ James Carlos Blake

The Phoenix rises in the absence or need of witness.

~ Truth Devour

He admired her for throwing off her aristocratic shackles -- his terms, that -- and making her own way in the world.He didn't realize that the truth was so much more complex, so much less impressive. She had less thrown than been thrown.

~ Lauren Willig

St. John,” I said, “I think you are al­most wicked to talk so. I am dis­posed to be as con­tent as a queen, and you try to stir me up to rest­less­ness! To what end?”“To the end of turn­ing to profit the tal­ents which God has committed to your keep­ing; and of which He will surely one day de­mand a strict ac­count. Jane, I shall watch you closely and anx­iously—I warn you of that. And try to re­strain the dis­pro­por­tion­ate fervour with which you throw your­self into com­mon­place home pleasures. Don’t cling so tena­ciously to ties of the flesh; save your con­stancy and ar­dour for an ad­e­quate cause; for­bear to waste them on trite tran­sient ob­jects. Do you hear, Jane?”“Yes; just as if you were speak­ing Greek. I feel I have ad­e­quate cause to be happy, and I will be happy. Good­bye!

~ Charlotte Brontë

I don't like favors; they oppress and make me fell like a slave. I'd rather do everything for myself, and be perfectly independent.

~ Louisa May Alcott

If she took Po as her husband, she would be making promises about a future she couldn't yet see. For once she became his wife, she would be his forever. And, no matter how much freedom Po gave her, she would always know that it was a gift. Her freedom would be not be her own; it would be Po's to give or to withhold. That he never would withhold it made no difference. If it did not come from her, it was not really hers.

~ Kristin Cashore

How often does a man ruin his disciples by remaining always with them! When men are once trained, it is essential that their leader leave them, for without his absence they cannot develop themselves. Plants always remain small under a big tree.

~ Swami Vivekananda

It is likely to make us think we are not caged. We cannot feel the bars unless we push against them.

~ Erin Morgenstern

The presence of hundreds of books had finally convinced Hermione that what they were doing was right.

~ J.k. Rowling

I don't want to have to save your life,' Chord says softly. 'Not when you can do it.

~ Elsie Chapman

If Los Angeles is a woman reclining billboard model and the San Fernando Valley is her teenybopper sister, then New York is their cousin. Her hair is dyed autumn red or aubergine or Egyptian henna, depending on her mood. Her skin is pale as frost and she wears beautiful Jil Sander suits and Prada pumps on which she walks faster than a speeding taxi (when it is caught in rush hour, that is). Her lips are some unlikely shade of copper or violet, courtesy of her local MAC drag queen makeup consultant. She is always carrying bags of clothes, bouquets of roses, take-out Chinese containers, or bagels. Museum tags fill her pockets and purses, along with perfume samples and invitations to art gallery openings. When she is walking to work, to ward off bums or psychos, her face resembles the Statue of Liberty, but at home in her candlelit, dove-colored apartment, the stony look fades away and she smiles like the sterling roses she has brought for herself to make up for the fact that she is single and her feet are sore.

~ Francesca Lia Block

I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or elsewhere, for the selection of a candidate for the Presidency, made up chiefly of editors, and men who are politicians by profession; but I think, what is it to any independent, intellegent, and respectable man what decision they may come to? Shall we not have the advantage of his wisdom and honesty, nevertheless? Can we not count upon some independent votes? Are there not many individuals in the country who do not attend conventions? But no: I find that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted from his position, and despairs of his country, when his country has more reason to despair of him. He forthwith adopts one of the candidates thus selected as his only AVAILABLE one, thus proving that he is himself AVAILABLE for any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who may have been bought.

~ Henry David Thoreau

We have more to fear from the opinions of our friends than the bayonets of our enemies. Politician turned Union General Nathaniel Banks, in plea he couldn't abandon an untenable position.

~ Shelby Foote

The critic said, but don't you feel awkward about biting the hand that feeds you? I said no, I enjoy just gnawing it up to the shoulder.

~ Myles Horton

Thinking this is The One becomes an excuse to let your own life deteriorate.

~ Tammyjo Eckhart

I love your independence, I love that you don't swoon, I love that you'll fight me with your last breath if you think I'm wrong, and if I ever have to catch you, I swear I'll make sure you're standing on your feet as quickly as you can manage it.

~ Dianna Hardy

I once asked her if she got bored living alone, and she said, 'To say one is bored to be alone is to admit that one has no inner resources.

~ Lois Battle

Freedom is the only thing we must demand in life, for all other good things stem from it

~ Miguel Syjuco

Talking about independence makes me wonder, Who is truly independent in this world? A farmer who grows food is dependent on a baker, a barber, a doctor, and so on. A doctor is dependent on other people of different professions in order to survive. I am dependent and will be dependent on certain caregivers and therapists. Those caregivers and therapists need people like me to earn their bread and butter and draw their salaries. So no one is doing any favors when choosing whatever his means of livelihood is.

~ Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay

'But,' say the puling, pusillanimous cowards, 'we shall be subject to a long and bloody war if we declare independence.' On the contrary, I affirm it the only step that can bring the contest to a speedy and happy issue.

~ Samuel Adams

Hungary is, in a word, in a state of WAR against the Hapsburg dynasty, a war of legitimate defence, by which alone it can ever regain independence and freedom.

~ Lajos Kossuth