Quotes about Autonomy

Our secret life is where we are able to tap into the power of the four human endowments: self-awareness, conscience, imagination, and independent will.

We choose—either to live our lives or to let others live them for us. By making and keeping promises to ourselves and to others, little by little we increase our strength until our ability to act is more powerful than any of the forces that act upon us.

Effective interdependence can only be built on a foundation of true independence.

No one can hurt you without your consent.

No human being can ever 'own' another, whether in friendship, love, marriage, or parenthood.

Your life is the fruit of your own doing. You have no one to blame but yourself.

I am busy because I am lazy. I indolently let others decide what I will do instead of resolutely deciding myself. It was a favorite theme of C. S. Lewis that only lazy people work hard. By lazily abdicating the essential work of deciding and directing, establishing values and setting goals, other people do it for us.

What seems more important are the private independent acts that become more necessary every day.

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.

I don't think I represent some new category. I think I do represent kind of a freethinker.

The inability to allow a talent to do what he feels is going to inhibit his production. Always.

I have always marched to my own beat, and most frequently, it was inconsistent not only with my own immediate family, but with my culture as well.