Self Reliance Quotes

In yourself right now is all the place you've got.

~ Flannery O'connor

When you bury your head in the sand you leave your backside exposed to those who seek to take advantage.

~ Gary Hopkins

Confidence, is like a belt worn around the waist. Wear it too tight, you come off cocky and arrogant, wear it too loose, you come off timid and a walk over, but wear it fit and snug, it will uphold you in every step of the way.

~ Anthony Liccione

Keep your problems to yourself, if its too much for you, kill it slowly till it disappears from your life.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Somewhere in this latest humiliation there was a lesson in self-reliance. He'd failed so completely that he'd become his own man again.

~ Stewart O'nan

You must seek to know thyself.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The happiness you seek can be found within yourself.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Refuse to worry. Cast your anxiety upon the Lord. He cares for you.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

True respect comes when we fend for ourselves without the aid of anyone, and when we owned something and say, 'this is my own'! Not necessarily as a way of boasting of our abundance and grace, but having a feeling that we can use it without obstruction, or being asked to return the favor.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a rejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism; and the bold sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the law of consciousness abides.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

She was looking for something I could never give her. Again his dark eyes bored into Julia's mind. You have something of the same about you, young woman. Take my advice: Don't think you will find it in another person. You won't. It's not there. You must find it in yourself.

~ Iain Pears

I enjoy working for my heat. I don't just press a button or twist a thermostat dial. I use the big crosscut saw and the axe, and while I'm getting my heat supply I'm working up an appetite that makes simple food just as appealing as anything a French chef could create.

~ Richard Proenneke

I don't confuse my digestive system, I just season simple food with hunger

~ Richard Proenneke

Phoebe Marks was a person who never lost her individuality. Silent and self-contained, she seemed to hold herself within herself, and take no colour from the outer world.

~ Mary Elizabeth Braddon

The only way to know is to learn, relearn and unlearn.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The idea of freedom is complex and it is all-encompassing. It’s the idea that the economy must remain free of government persuasion. It’s the idea that the press must operate without government intrusion. And it’s the idea that the emails and phone records of Americans should remain free from government search and seizure. It’s the idea that parents must be the decision makers in regards to their children's education — not some government bureaucrat.But most importantly, it is the idea that the individual must be free to pursue his or her own happiness free from government dependence and free from government control. Because to be truly free is to be reliant on no one other than the author of our destiny. These are the ideas at the core of the Republican Party, and it is why I am a Republican. So my brothers and sisters of the American community, please join with me today in abandoning the government plantation and the Party of disappointment. So that we may all echo the words of one Republican leader who famously said, Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.

~ Elbert Guillory

Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.You must travel it by yourself.It is not far. It is within reach.Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.

~ Walt Whitman

How could I admit that the All-American Girl's force field of stoicism and self-reliance and do-unto-others-and-keep-smiling wasn't working, wasn't keeping pain and shame and powerlessness away? From a young age I had learned to get over - to cover my tracks emotionally, to hide or ignore my problems in the belief that they were mine alone to solve. So when exhilarating transgressions required getting over on authority figures, I knew how to do it. I was a great bluffer. And when common, everyday survival in prison required getting over, I could do that too. This is what was approvingly described by my fellow prisoners as 'street-smarts,' as in 'You wouldn't think it to look at her, but Piper's got street-smarts.

~ Piper Kerman

In the history of history, there has never been someone with your particular genetic make-up or life experiences. This being the case, we have no reference points with which to compare ourselves, and therefore it is futile to attempt to measure yourself relative to others.

~ Chris Matakas

People keep asking what I do for a living and I keep saying that I don’t believe in making a living. That it’s a concept that has been twisted. I tell them I believe in making a life and money is a distracting object if there’s anything left at the end of the day and I just want to go on well. Make it through the day. So I smile and raise my glass and they laugh and take my hand, saying ”here’s to the youth”, pointing at me. And I might just be youngand naivefor I still believe in the freedom of choiceof how to spend your life.So they toast to the youth, who still think she’s free, and that’s all fine by me.

~ Charlotte Eriksson

You want to set me free? Do it. You want to turn me in? You can do that too. You're the only one with the choice. And that bullet in your back doesn't mean you've got any less choice than you ever did. Live free of fear if you want to. We all carry something inside us that could kill us, yours just has a name. You want to change your life? Change it. You have no less of a right to be happy than the rest of us.

~ Greer Macallister

When you take all three categories of temptation to self-reliance – wisdom, might and riches – they form a powerful inducement toward the ultimate form of pride, namely, atheism. The safest way to stay supreme in our own estimation is to deny anything above us. This is why the proud preoccupy themselves with looking down on others. A proud man is always looking down on things and people and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you. But to preserve pride it may be simpler to proclaim that there is nothing above to look at (Psalm 10:4). Ultimately, the proud must persuade themselves that there is no God.

~ John Piper

A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.

~ Ronald Reagan

We don't permit anyone to tell us our business, nor do we wish to tell anyone his. The same goes for moral outlooks. Don't tread on us and we won't on you. We're a tolerant, liberty-loving bunch, we Wolfes.

~ James Carlos Blake

DIVINE NECESSITY creates “others” even among family members who become good to be killed by family members…HUMAN NECESSITY commands man to resurrect the supposed reason for which God supposedly shattered humanity in Babylon:The “Covenant” among men.

~ Haroutioun Bochnakian

Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep out alone under the stars. Learn how to drive a stick shift. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say no when you don’t want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide whether you want to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important than finding out what you’re doing here. Believe in kissing.

~ Eve Ensler

Sure, it sucked to be lost, but I'd long ago realized I preferred it to depending on anyone else to get me where I needed to go. That was the thing about being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened- good, bad, or anywhere in between- it was always, if nothing else, all your own.

~ Sarah Dessen

Here must thou be, O man,Strength to thyself — no helper hast thou here —Here keepest thou thy individual state:No other can divide with thee this work,No secondary hand can interveneTo fashion this ability. 'Tis thine,The prime and vital principle is thineIn the recesses of thy nature, farFrom any reach of outward fellowship,Else 'tis not thine at all.

~ William Wordsworth

Being single is like being an artist, not because creating a functional single life is an art form, but because it requires the same close attention to one's singular needs, as well as the will and focus to fulfill them. Just as the artist arranges her life around her creativity, sacrificing conventional comforts and even social acceptance, sleeping and eating according to her own rhythms, so that her talent thrives above all else, nurtured the way a child might be, so a single person has to think hard to decipher what makes her happiest and most fulfilled.

~ Kate Bolick

To know our values is to have a foundation on which to build a great life. Our environment and education will play a large part in influencing our formulation of this world view, but is ultimately ourselves that have the final say. We must decide what we value, and then live accordingly. After all, in the eyes of the world we could achieve great success, but if our actions do not coincide with what we ourselves truly deem worthy, we will find no peace.

~ Chris Matakas

A life of joy awaits the man who sits alone quietly in a room and determines what he himself believes rather than simply adopting the values of another.

~ Chris Matakas

Over the years, Americans in particular have been all too willing to squander their hard-earned independence and freedom for the illusion of feeling safe under someone else's authority. The concept of self-sufficiency has been undermined in value over a scant few generations. The vast majority of the population seems to look down their noses upon self-reliance as some quaint dusty relic, entertained only by the hyperparanoid or those hopelessly incapable of fitting into mainstream society.

~ Cody Lundin

He glanced at James before continuing. “If you're going to survive this, the first rule you need to learn is never count on anyone but yourself. Never. People make mistakes, and the zombies are fast. They don't need to sleep or eat anything but us. Don't leave your protection in the hands of someone else.

~ Rose Wynters

I don't need him to comfort me or tell me it's okay. I can make it okay, myself.Maybe that was what happened when you faced the very worst thing in the world.She'd lost her family and her old life and maybe even her childhood, but she'd found herself.And that would have to do.

~ L.j. Smith

The real American ideal of cool which is building businesses, protecting freedom at home and abroad, taking responsibility for your actions, and leaving other people alone to live as they damn well please.

~ Greg Gutfeld

Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. We come to them who weep foolishly, and sit down and cry for company, instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric shocks, putting them once more in communication with their own reason. The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I seen women take this kind a' help from a man with a look a' relief on their faces. I wondered if these women knew how much easier their lives would be if they did all this stuff for themselves.

~ Beth Lewis

Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.

~ Henry David Thoreau

All these men recognized what they themselves valued, and lived according to these values regardless of their relationship to the values of their community. Each lived according to what brought them happiness and peace rather than commonplace prescriptions of the multitudes.

~ Chris Matakas

The time when you should most of all withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

~ Epicurus