Quotes about Autonomy

... Celibacy is not a matter of compulsion. Someone is accepted as a priest only when he does it of his own accord.

It's been a process of evolving within a family company to get the autonomy I now have from a boss like my father. If you're sitting there waiting for a pat on the back, you're going to be waiting a long time.

I've learned that usually, the less I know about other people, the better off I am.

Only those who want everything done for them are bored.

After feminism, I suddenly realised: not everyone has to live the same way. Imagine that!

Nothing external to you has any power over you.

The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil. It is not for you to choose what he shall know, what he shall do. It is chosen and foreordained and he only holds the key to his own secret.

Life is to be lived, not controlled.

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self?

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!

Why should the way I feel depend on the thoughts in someone else's head?