Self Reliance Quotes

Democracy is a continuous, open process of civility.
A democracy can never be "done"; updating democracy can never be over.

Democracy can be nothing else but a continuous process, because we use it to organize our life, and life is nothing but a continuous process.

Democracy can be compared to an operating system or an anti-virus software; if it does not get perpetually updated, it becomes obsolete very fast.

Trusting the updates or the "improvements" of democracy to the elected and the owned mass media is like trusting the updates of an anti-virus program to virus creators; it defeats the purpose of updates or improvements. ~ Haroutioun Bochnakian

Man is a stream whose source is hidden. Our being is descending into us from we know not whence. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

You can't get old without living. ~ Jim Brown

The new black conservatives claim that transfer payments to the black needy engender a mentality of dependence which undercuts the value of self-reliance and of the solidity of the black poor family. They fail to see that the welfare state was a historic compromise between progressive forces seeking broad subsistence rights and conservative forces arguing for unregulated markets. Therefore it should come as no surprise that the welfare state possesses many flaws. The reinforcing of 'dependent mentalities' and the unsettling of the family are two such flaws. But simply to point out these rather obvious shortcomings does not justify cutbacks in the welfare state. In the face of high black unemployment, these cutbacks will not promote self-reliance or strong black families but will only produce even more black cultural disorientation and more devastated black households. This is so because without jobs or incentives to be productive citizens the black poor become even more prone toward criminality, drugs, and alcoholism- the major immediate symptoms of the pervasive black communal and cultural chaos. ~ Cornel West

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

You don't have to worry about burning bridges, if you're building your own ~ Kerry E. Wagner

Every element of our own self-reliance must be put to death by the power of God. The moment we recognize our complete weakness and our dependence upon Him will be the very moment that the Spirit of God will exhibit His power. ~ Oswald Chambers

Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, which is most greatly experienced in the heart of those willing to surrender all self-sufficiency: self-promotion, self-reliance, self-protection, and self-absorption: it is a gift given. ~ Robin M. Bertram

Only a weak person needed someone else around all the time. ~ Sarah Dessen

When you get pushed down, you pick yourself up and move on. I've never been a victim. ~ Sharon Osbourne

A dream conceived from the inside-out eventually becomes reality. But a dream desired from the outside-in is subject to spoil and tragedy. ~ T.F. Hodge

Submitting self to God is the only real freedom - because the deepest slavery is self-dependence, self-reliance. When you live your life believing that everything (family, finances, relationships, career) depends primarily on you, you're enslaved to your strengths and weaknesses. You're trying to be your own savior. Freedom comes when we start trusting in God's abilities and wisdom instead of our own. Real life begins when we transfer our trust from our own efforts to the efforts of Christ. ~ Tullian Tchividjian

But we understand our liberty in a more positive sense as well, in the idea of opportunity and the subsidiary values that help realize opportunity - all those homespun virtues that Benjamin Franklin first popularized in Poor Richard's Almanack and that have continued to inspire our allegiance through successive generations. The values of self-reliance and self-improvement and risk-taking. The values of drive, discipline, temperance, and hard work. The values of thrift and personal responsibility.
These values are rooted in a basic optimism about life and a faith in free will - a confidence that through pluck and sweat and smarts, each of us can rise above the circumstances of our birth. But these values also express a broader confidence that so long as individual men and women are free to pursue their own interests, society as a whole will prosper. ~ Barack Obama

In an effort to create safety and self-reliance in your life and relationships, you may have built walls around your heart and accumulated tension in your body. Although sometimes these walls of protection are useful, they can, over time, act like shells of fear that block your true love. These shells can keep in the love you want to offer fully and keep out the love that your heart yearns to receive. ~ David Deida

Let a man then know his worth and keep things under his feet. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pessimism doesn't change the reality; it prolongs the status quo. And it brings everyone down. It's only ever lose-lose. Optimism and faith coupled with pragmatism change the reality. Self-belief and self-reliance change the reality. Boldness to explore new ideas changes the reality. A vision powered by effort and energy changes the reality. ~ Rania Al-Abdullah

Jerry-5486: The most apparent thing that I noticed was how most of the people in this study derive their sense of identity and well-being from their immediate surroundings rather than from within themselves, and that's why they broke down - just couldn't stand the pressure - they had nothing within them to hold up against all of this. ~ Philip G. Zimbardo

Exercises cultivated self-reliance - the foundation of courage. ~ Alexander Suvorov

Life works on strange laws of nature (Karma).
One never knows when a friend turns enemy & vice-versa.
Rely on your Self; self-reliance ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

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 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 'tis not thine at all. ~ William Wordsworth

The proud tower built up through the great age of European civilization was an edifice of grandeur and passion, of riches and beauty and dark cellars. Its inhabitants lived, as compared to a later time, with more self-reliance, more confidence, more hope; greater magnificence, extravagance and elegance; more careless ease, more gaiety, more pleasure in each other's company and conversation, more injustice and hypocrisy, more misery and want, more sentiment including false sentiment, less sufferance of mediocrity, more dignity in work, more delight in nature, more zest. The Old World had much that has since been lost, whatever may have been gained. Looking back on it from 1915, Emile Verhaeren, the Belgian Socialist poet, dedicated his pages, With emotion, to the man I used to be. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

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

Economic development is something much wider and deeper than economics, let alone econometrics. Its roots lie outside the economic sphere, in education, organisation, discipline and, beyond that, in political independence and a national consciousness of self-reliance. ~ E.F. Schumacher

For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

As individuals, we also are apt to use the canon as a cannon. We invoke the stripling warriors of Helaman and the iron rod of Lehi's vision to ground our own version of unflinching obedience. Or we invoke the lessons of the Liahona to support our more spontaneous and flexible approach to gospel living. In America, some Mormons find Jesus' ministry to the downtrodden and King Benjamin's words about withholding judgment but not relief from the beggar to be apt endorsement of their preferred political policies. At the other end of the spectrum, some invoke the war in heaven fought over agency and consider the Mormon ethic of self-reliance to be adequate support for a different political outlook. Or, sometimes individuals even employ the cannon against the canon, citing inconsistencies and imperfections in the record as grounds for nonbelief in the principle of inspiration, one's faith tradition, or even God. ~ Terryl L. Givens

There is one aspect of the change in moral values brought about by the advance of collectivism which at the present time provides special food for thought. It is that the virtues which are held less and less in esteem and which consequently become rarer and precisely those on which the British people justly prided themselves and in which they were generally agreed to excel. The virtues possessed by Anglo-Saxons in a higher degree than most other people, excepting only a few of the smaller nations, like the Swiss and the Dutch, were independence and self-reliance, individual initiative and local responsbility, the successful reliance on voluntary activity, noninterference with one's neighbor and tolerance of the different and queer, respect for custom and tradition, and a healthy suspicion of power and authority. ~ Friedrich Hayek

It was a particular sort of Turner weakness: self-sabotaging self-righteousness masked as self-reliance. ~ Angela Flournoy

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. ~ Dr. Seuss

After generations of living under medical tutelage, which provides us with protection (albeit illusory) against "dangerous drugs", we have failed to cultivate the self-reliance and self-discipline we must possess as competent adults surrounded by the fruits of our pharmacological-technological age. ~ Thomas Szasz

Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own person is its ultimate reward ~ Patricia Sampson

[Sylvia Plath] was now far along a peculiarly solitary road on which not many would risk following her. So it was important for her to know that her messages were coming back clear and strong. Yet not even her determinedly bright self-reliance could disguise the loneliness that came from her almost palpably, like a heat haze. She asked for neither sympathy nor help but, like bereaved widow at a wake, she simply wanted company in her mourning. ~ Al Alvarez

A group of wolves is called a pack. Although wolves tend to travel together, one member is occasionally ostracized and becomes a "lone wolf." Life is difficult for lone wolves, but their self-reliance often makes them stronger than average. ~ Erin Entrada Kelly

The mythic American character is made up of the virtues of fairness, self-reliance, toughness, and honesty. Those virtues are generally stuffed into a six-foot-tall, dark-haired, can-do kind of guy who is at once a family man, attractive to strange women, carefree, stable, realistic, and whimsical. in the lore of America, that man lives on the Great Plains. he's from Texas, Dodge City, Cheyenne, the Dakotas, or somewhere in Montana. In fact, the seedbed of this American character, from the days of de Tocqueville through Andrew Jackson, Wyattt Earp, Pony Express riders, pioneers, and cowboys to modern caricatures played by actors such as Tom Mix, Gary Cooper, and John Wayne has aways been the frontier. It's a place with plenty of room to roam, great sunsets, clear lines between right and wrong, and lots of horses. It's also a place that does not exist and never has. The truth is that there has never been much fairness out here. ~ Dan O'Brien

Wherever the shadow of economic growth touches us, we are left useless unless employed on a job or engaged in consumption...We lose sight of our resources, lose control over the environmental conditions which make these resources applicable, lose taste for self-reliant coping with challenges from without and anxiety from within. ~ Ivan Illich

Live a life that you do not need to take a vacation from. Live in a way that makes yearly resolutions unnecessary. Make the kind of choices that leave you Happy and Healthy... where all of your needs are satisfied. Live a life where your only 'wants' are for others to feel as good as you do. ~ Gary Hopkins

I don't need anyone to hold me, I can hold my own. ~ Ani DiFranco

The anarch nurtures no expectations. He stakes on no one but himself. Basically, people remain pied pipers, whatever melodies they play to introduce themselves. And as for the rats - that is a chapter unto itself. ~ Ernst Junger

The list of qualities (an investor should have) include patience, self-reliance, common sense, a tolerance for pain, open-mindedness, detachment, persistence, humility, flexibility, a willingness to do independent research, an equal willingness to admit mistakes, and the ability to ignore general panic. ~ Peter Lynch

The gospel proclaims human freedom and dignity more than human enslavement and depravity. What is needed is a balance of biblical values and emphasis on the empowering quality of the gospel. The spiritual values of humility, long suffering, endurance, and obedience are to be affirmed alongside self-reliance, freedom, proclamation, mission, and authority. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Better to remain always self-reliant. Self-reliance means you're in control. Don't ever think you need a man for happiness. ~ Bella Forrest

We may as well face the fact, and face it squarely, that we are too much governed. The agencies of government have multiplied, their ramifications extended, their powers enlarged, and their sphere widened, until the whole system is top-heavy. We are drifting into dangerous and insidious paternalism, submerging the self-reliance of the citizen, and weakening the responsibility and stifling the initiative of the individual. We suffer not from too little legislation but from too much. We need fewer enactments and more repeals. ~ Roland H. Hartley

Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdom which cannot help itself. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

A star doesn't need a lamp to find its way through the dark. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

impure thoughts of every kind crystallize into enervating and confusing habits, which solidify into distracting and adverse circumstances: thoughts of fear, doubt, and indecision crystallize into weak, unmanly, and irresolute habits, which solidify into circumstances of failure, indigence, and slavish dependence: lazy thoughts crystallize into habits of uncleanliness and dishonesty, which solidify into circumstances of foulness and beggary: hateful and condemnatory thoughts crystallize into habits of accusation and violence, which solidify into circumstances of injury and persecution: selfish thoughts of all kinds crystallize into habits of self-seeking, which solidify into circumstances more or less distressing. On the other hand, beautiful thoughts of all kinds crystallize into habits of grace and kindliness, which solidify into genial and sunny circumstances: pure thoughts crystallize into habits of temperance and self-control, which solidify into circumstances of repose and peace: thoughts of courage, self-reliance, and decision crystallize into manly habits, which solidify into circumstances of success, plenty, and freedom: energetic thoughts crystallize into habits of cleanliness and industry, which solidify into circumstances of pleasantness: gentle and forgiving thoughts crystallize into habits of gentleness, which solidify into protective and preservative circumstances: loving and unselfish thoughts crystallize into habits of self-forgetfulness for others, which soli ~ James Allen

And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

You are constantly invited to be what you are. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Education is experience and experience is self-reliance. ~ T.H. White

If love and friendship makes you unhappy, try solitude. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

You can't belittle a person in one breath and then expect them to grow self-respect and self-reliance with the next. ~ Tim Greaton

You can let the life and the family you were born into dictate the definition of your very being, regardless of what you do or do not have, or, with grit, self-sufficiency and self-reliance, you can rise above your circumstances, charter your own course and change your life, all the while empowering others to do the same ~ Elise R. Crawford

If you have faith in all the trinities and apostles in the world, and still have no faith in yourself, there is no salvation for you. ~ Abhijit Naskar

...did not choose to print the Wesson's Guide. Because a printing press was a manchine, and machines were technology, and because technology clouded minds, weakened the will, and took away the self-reliance of the Ancients--or so their Parliament said--such dangerous items could be used only by a special license. ~ Sharon Cameron

I need to worship because without it I can forget that I have a Big God beside me and live in fear. I need to worship because without it I can forget his calling and begin to live in a spirit of self-preoccupation. I need to worship because without it I lose a sense of wonder and gratitude and plod through life with blinders on. I need worship because my natural tendency is toward self-reliance and stubborn independence. ~ John Ortberg

If it is true that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, isn't it also true a society is only as healthy as its sickest citizen and only as wealthy as its most deprived? ~ Maya Angelou

The Lord continues to empty us in order to teach us to lay aside all self-reliance, that we may cling to Christ alone. ~ Paul Washer

Because the state uses violence to achieve its ends, and there is no rational end to the use of violence, states grow until they destroy civilized interactions through the corruption of money, contracts, honesty, family and self-reliance.

No state in history has ever been contained.

It's only taken a little more than a century for the US – founded on the idea of limited government, to break the bonds of the constitution, institute the income tax, take control of the money supply and the educational system and begin its catastrophic expansion. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self reliance, always. And cheerfulness. ~ Marcus Aurelius

I discovered Emerson's soporific qualities by falling asleep with my face in the book, drooling all over an essay called 'Self-Reliance' ... ~ Ransom Riggs

If there was one thing I'd learned, it was that you were responsible for your own ship. You had to look after the engine and make sure the plane was in order and ready to be flown. You were in charge of plotting your course. When you were in the pilot's seat, it was your hand on the throttle, no one else's. If your oil ran out or you lost your engine or the engine caught fire and you had to crash, you were the one saving yourself. No one else could do it for you. ~ Jennifer Niven

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

I don't care what is written," Meyer Landsman says. "I don't care what supposedly got promised to some sandal-wearing idiot whose claim to fame is that he was ready to cut his own son's throat for the sake of a hare-brained idea. I don't care about red heifers and patriarchs and locusts. A bunch of old bones in the sand. My homeland is in my hat. It's in my ex-wife's tote bag. ~ Michael Chabon

Who doesn't know that the dog is the epitome of devotion? But it's this devotion to humans, so instinctual that it's given freely even to persons who are unworthy of it, that has made me prefer cats. Give me a pet that can get along without me. ~ Sigrid Nunez

Citizens ... should be practitioners of civic virtue in their conduct toward government. They should be ever willing to fulfill the duties of citizenship. This includes compulsory duties like military service and the numerous voluntary actions they must take if they are to preserve the principle of limited government through citizen self-reliance. ~ Dallin H. Oaks

The system is not intended as a substitute for private savings, pension plans, and insurance protection. It is, rather, intended as the foundation upon which these other forms of protection can be soundly built. Thus, the individual's own work, his planning and his thrift will bring him a higher standard of living upon his retirement, or his family a higher standard of living in the event of his death, than would otherwise be the case. Hence the system both encourages thrift and self-reliance, and helps to prevent destitution in our national life. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

We singer-songwriter people, we're used to getting up and doing our own thing in front of people, and we're it. We're the band, artist, writer, producer, front man. We're the whole thing. You develop, it's not smugness, but this self-reliance, that can limit your creativity. When you're willing and able to invite others into it, you wind up getting a piece of work that's bigger and better than anything you ever imagined it could be. ~ Andy Wilkinson

Independence is an admirable trait, but it can be rooted in pride, insecurity, and fear as easily as it can stem from strength, confidence, and self-reliance. Be sure you know what drives yours. ~ Annette Marie

Discontent is want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The question is whether personal freedom is worth the terrible effort, the never-lifted burden and risks of self-reliance. ~ Rose Wilder Lane

Spiritedness, then, may be allied with a spirit of inquiry , through a desire to be master of one's own stuff. It is the prideful basis of self-reliance. ~ Matthew B. Crawford

Fair Trade is a market-based, entrepreneurial response to business as usual: it helps third-word farmers developing direct market access as well as the organizational and management capacity to add value to their products and take them directly to the global market. Direct trade, a fair price, access to capital and local capacity-building, which are the core strategies of this model, have been successfully building farmers' incomes and self-reliance for more than 50 years. ~ Paul Rice

Everyone who owns a home recognizes the need for fire insurance. We hope and pray that there will never be a fire. Nevertheless, we pay for insurance to cover such a catastrophe, should it occur. We ought to do the same with reference to family welfare. ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

I want to know everything about my own self and never to have to rely on someone else to tell me the way I work. ~ Mackenzi Lee

The Open Road goes to the used-car lot. ~ Louis Simpson

Long-term, we must begin to build our internal strengths. It isn't just skills like computer technology. It's the old-fashioned basics of self-reliance, self-motivation, self-reinforcement, self-discipline, self-command. ~ Steven Pressfield

He looked down at the books. There was a long silence. Then he raised his eyes and directed his gaze at Gershon, and Gershon did not look away. "I will tell you, Loran what is of importance is not that there may be nothing. We have always acknowledged that as a possibility. What is important is that if indeed there is nothing, then we should be prepared to make something out of the one thing we have left to us
ourselves. I do not know what else to tell you, Loran. No one is in possession of all wisdom. No one." Gershon sat in silence, looking at Nathan Malkuson. ~ Chaim Potok

They suffered cold and heat, hard work and privation as did others of their time. When possible they turned bad into good. If not possible, they endured it. Neither they nor their neighbors begged for help. No other person, nor the government, owed them a living. They owed that to themselves and in some way they paid the debt. And they found their own way.
Their old fashioned character values are worth as much today as they ever were to help us over the rough places. We need today courage, self reliance and integrity. ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

The most dangerous thing in the world is the sin of self-reliance and the stupor of worldliness. ~ John Piper

He was a pitiful thing. He had always been a pitiful thing. Why had she never seen that before? There was a hollow place inside her where her fear had been. ~ George R R Martin

Being your own light ensures that you will never need another to pull you out of darkness again. ~ Gary Hopkins

Knowledge of thyself is the greatest enlightenment. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I always knew I would cope with everything better myself. Confiding in others is not ideal ~ Reham Khan

Engrave on your heart; love, hope and faith. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I would not send a poor girl into the world, ignorant of the snares that beset her path; nor would I watch and guard her, till, deprived of self-respect and self-reliance, she lost the power or the will to watch and guard herself. ~ Anne Bronte

While discovering the others, we get to know ourselves, find inner peace, and, so acquire poise and self-reliance to face up to the undisclosed or anonymous, out there. ("With confidence ») ~ Erik Pevernagie

You are the one who takes care of you, I tell myself. ~ Nicole Hardy

Self-reliance leads to intellectual independence. Each man must think for himself, must train the mind to think, must habituate the soul to observe and analyze. ~ Ameen Rihani

Parents and educators need to establish a culture in which security and clarity of expectations are balanced with the encouragement of playfulness, inquisitiveness and self reliance. ~ Guy Claxton

There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is a transparent law, not a mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and holds it fluid. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Living according to the basic gospel principles will bring power, strength, and spiritual self-reliance into the lives of all Latter-day Saints. ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Solitude is an unavoidable part of creativity. Self-reliance is a happy by-product. ~ Twyla Tharp

To reverse the trend and reduce the role of government in our lives, and thus alleviate the government deficit and inflation pressures, is a giant educational task. The social and economic ideas that gave birth to the transfer system must be discredited and replaced with old values of individual independence and self-reliance. The social philosophy of individual freedom and unhampered private property must again be our guiding light. ~ Hans F. Sennholz

Humility is the part of wisdom, and is most becoming in men. But let no one discourage self-reliance; it is, of all the rest, the greatest quality of true manliness. ~ Lajos Kossuth

When Marcus Garvey spoke about self-reliance, he wasn't only talking about people of colour. It's like self-reliance in general, for anyone. Just keep moving and moving within the right direction, and everything will be all right. ~ Burning Spear

What's the most difficult thing you can do? Live simply. 'Cause in order to be self-sufficient, you got to get well near everybody else to work for you. ~ M.C. Humphreys

Education is experience, and the essence of experience is self-reliance. ~ T.H. White

Self-reliance and self-learning are your greatest assets. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The great men of all areas of humanity's activities never tried to be a better version of someone else. They simply brought to the table a full life's cultivation of their particular skill sets, experiences, and passions, and we must do the same. ~ Chris Matakas

You think intelligence and grit can succeed by themselves, but I'm telling you that's a pretty illusion. ~ Nancy Kress