Quotes about independence

Live with your century; but do not be its creature. Work for your contemporaries; but create what they need, not what they praise.

It is too difficult to think nobly, when one thinks only in order to live. In order to be able and to venture to utter great truths, one must not be dependent upon success. I threw my books amongst the public with the sure consciousness of having spoken for the general good, without caring for anything else. If the work was rejected, so much the worse for those who refused to profit by it. As for myself, I did not need their approval in order to live; my profession would support me, if my books did not sell; and it was just this which made them sell.

Here must thou be, O Man!

Power to thyself; no Helper hast thou here;

Here keepest thou in singleness thy state:

No other can divide with thee this work:

No secondary hand can intervene

To fashion this ability; 'tis thine,

The prime and vital principle is thine

In the recesses of thy nature, far

From any reach of outward fellowship,

Else is not thine at all.

Always listen to yourself... It is better to be wrong than simply to follow convention.

I am not your subject or your servant, and if you want a cowering mouse for a wife, go find someone else who can turn silver to gold for you.

Character never joins forces with servility. And, indeed, men and women-especially the latter-who have an independent character are often regarded as rebellious, unsettled and troubled people, a danger to society.

This is certain: I never have written a line except to please myself. I never have written with an eye to what is called the public or the market or the trend or the editor or the reviewer. Good or bad, popular or unpopular, lasting or ephemeral, the words I have put down on paper were the best words I could summon at the time to express the thing I wanted more than anything else to say.

 Stop expecting other people to save you.

YOU are the Hero.

Save yourself.

(If you want another answer, try another woman.)

Your loving mother,

Valhallarama

I had only a splinter of awareness back then that no matter what anybody says, choosing between the available options is not the same as thinking for yourself. The only true way of thinking for yourself is to create options of your own, options that don't exist.

He was a quick study. An autodidact. Anything that was technical, that was logical, that ran according to rules, Peter could figure out. And knew it. Didn’t bother to ask for help. So much quicker to work it out on his own than suffer through someone’s well-meaning efforts to educate him — and to forge an emotional connection with him in so doing.

Be a light unto yourself.

"The thing is to play your own game - not let the other feller force you to what he wants."