Self-determination Quotes

You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!

Bottom line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for th...

Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are.

Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others ... Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act...

Choice is the keynote of self-determinism. To determine anything, you must have the choice to determ...

Don't you ever let a soul in the world tell you that you can't be exactly who you are.

The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people wan...

Don't wish to be normal. Wish to be yourself. To the hilt. Find out what you're best at, and develop...

I'm single because I was born that way.

Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere.

They cannot take away our self respect if we do not give it to them.

For it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose.

I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists. I wish to persuade ...

It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men.

[I]f we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neith...

I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of ...

Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, w...

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.(Popular misquote of "You m...

The day you ever have that much control over my behavior, it will be because somebody's asking you, ...

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door

The little things, I can obey. The big things—how we think, what we value—those you must choose your...

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.

I felt the taste of mortality in my mouth, and at that moment I understood that I was not going to l...

Fate is unalterable only in the sense that given a cause, a certain result must follow, but no cause...

We are only here for a little while, and our bodies belong to ourselves and no one else.

You cannot change what you are, only what you do.

The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.

It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourself.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whis...

Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.

Best be yourself, imperial, plain, and true.

Change is disturbing when it is done to us, exhilarating when it is done by us.

Our lives teach us who we are." I have learned the hard way that when you permit anyone else's descr...

Obviously, a rigid, blinkered, absolutist world view is the easiest to keep hold of, whereas the flu...

You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.

Let him who would move the world first move himself.

Reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a ...

The joy in life is his who has the heart to demand it.

No one decides where I go, least of all myself, though each step is where it must be.

We must not allow other people’s limited perceptions to define us.

Chastity ... has, even now, a religious importance in a woman's life, and has so wrapped itself roun...

As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking.

I am the master of my fate:I am the captain of my soul.

The best way to predict your future is to create it.

Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for yo...

Instead of killing and dying in order to produce the being that we are not, we have to live and let ...

Is it better to work out consciously and critically one's own conception of the world and thus, in c...

Why should I care what other people think of me? I am who I am. And who I wanna be.

Now look at me! Take a good look! I was born and I knew I was alive and I knew what I wanted. What d...

...it is the most militant, most radical intervention anyone can make to not only speak of love, but...

The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catc...

The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy....

I am not an angel,' I asserted; 'and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, ...

I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or becau...

I am not an angel," I asserted; "and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself.

Milton's Eve! Milton's Eve! ... Milton tried to see the first woman; but Cary, he saw her not ... I ...

No: I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne.""I ask why? I must have a reason. In all respects he is...

There are certain phrases potent to make my blood boil -- improper influence! What old woman's cackl...

I'll fight when needed, revel when there's an occasion, mourn when there is grief and die if my time...

There's a rebel lying deep in my soul. Anytime anybody tells me the trend is such and such, I go the...

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.

It’s probably not just by chance that I’m alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, un...

A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.

Attack the evil that is within yourself, rather than attacking the evil that is in others.

The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Sup...

Younger woman says, “I’m not going to be like my mother. You’re maniacs. You’re mad.”“Yes,” [older w...

I’m not going to be like my mother. You’re maniacs. You’re mad."“Yes,” said Kate. “I know it. And so...

I’m not going to be like my mother. You’re maniacs. You’re mad.“Yes,” said Kate. “I know it. And so ...

What we ask is to be human individuals, however peculiar and unexpected. It is no good saying: "You ...

In reaction against the age-old slogan, "woman is the weaker vessel," or the still more offensive, "...

In fact, there is perhaps only one human being in a thousand who is passionately interested in his j...

Oh the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to ...

The law of karma says that no matter what context I find myself in, it is neither my parents, nor my...

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the lo...

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. An...

Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.

I don't entirely approve of some of the things I have done, or am, or have been. But I'm me. God kno...

If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher,...

A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there ar...

There are some who want to get married and others who don't. I have never had an impulse to go to th...

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yes...

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition ...

You've already decided what you're going to do, and all that's left is to set the wheels in motion. ...

What's right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity - int...

I'm worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful co...

Control Your Own Destiny or Someone Else Will

Self-determination could mean independence, confederacy, federal and autonomy.

Woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circums...

What! Would I be turned back from doing a thing that I had determined to do, and that I knew to be r...

I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. N...

Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.

You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any oth...

There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My cour...

My family subscribed to this rigid belief system. They were unaware of the reality that gender, like...

Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.

Man is not only that which he conceives himself to be, but that which he wills himself to be...