Self Reliance Quotes

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.”
― Maya Angelou

“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everyone will respect you.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“I'd rather die my way than live yours.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Complete Prose Works Of Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it. I knew what happened when you let yourself get close to someone, when you started to believe they loved you: you'd be disappointed. Depend on someone, and you might as well admit you're going to be crushed, because when you really needed them, they wouldn't be there. Either that, or you'd confide in them and you added to their problems. All you ever really had was yourself, and that sort of sucked if you were less than reliable.”
― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care

“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, Leaves of Grass

“To find yourself, think for yourself.”
― Socrates

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery.
None but ourselves can free our minds.”
― Bob Marley

“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

“Marriage is a fine institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.”
― Mae West, The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said

“If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, The Infinity Sign

“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, Oh, The Places You’ll Go!

“Don't compromise yourself. You're all you've got.”
― Janis Joplin

“Only a weak person needed someone else around all the time.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.”
― Carlos Castaneda

“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

“You can't trust other people. If it's important, you have to do it yourself.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
― Ralph Waldo Emmerson, Self-Reliance

“You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson on Self Reliance

“Trust your instincts, and make judgements on what your heart tells you. The heart will not betray you.”
― David Gemmell, Fall of Kings

“In yourself right now is all the place you've got.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood

“You are constantly invited to be what you are.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There are some who want to get married and others who don't. I have never had an impulse to go to the altar. I am a difficult person to lead.”
― Greta Garbo, Greta & Cecil

“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 Stephen Szasz

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

“We are so accustomed to the comforts of "I cannot", "I do not want to" and "it is too difficult" that we forget to realize when we stop doing things for ourselves and expect others to dance around us, we are not achieving greatness. We have made ourselves weak.”
― Pandora Poikilos, Excuse Me, My Brains Have Stepped Out