Quotes about Self-reliance

Don't be dependent. At all. Ever. Period.

You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

Some people only ask others to do something. I believe that, why should I wait for someone else? Why don't I take a step and move forward.

Only those who want everything done for them are bored.

Nothing external to you has any power over you.

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of everyone of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

Character is that which can do without success.

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

Let us even bid our dearest friends farewell, and defy them, saying, Who are you? Unhand me: I will be dependent no more. Ah! seest thou not, O brother, that thus we part only to meet again on a higher platform, and only be more each other's, because we are more our own?

Insist upon yourself. Be original.

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!