Autonomy Quotes: 26 Powerful Lines on Self Autonomy

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The world is a big place. But at the end of the day, all we have control over is our own little corner of it, which begins with the self.

Mastery of the self begins with controlling one’s emotions. When we are a slave to our emotions how can we ever be otherwise free? The world around us is largely beyond our control, but we can always control ourselves.

This is easier said than done. But perhaps these quotes I have compiled will help you (and me!) see the path forward when nothing else will.

The Power of Self-Mastery

“No person is free who is not master of himself.”– Epictetus

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.

Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” – Lao Tzu

“True mastery transcends any particular art.

It stems from mastery of oneself—the ability, developed through self-discipline, to be calm, fully aware, and completely in tune with oneself and the surroundings.

Then, and only then, can a person know himself.” – Bruce Lee

“It’s always your choice.

You can teach yourself things that you never learned as a child, you can choose to respond differently, and you can be yourself.

Your superpower is your ability to decide how you wish to show up in the world.”
– Nedra Glover Tawwab

“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

Defiance Against Authority

“I was not born to be forced.

I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.”– Henry David Thoreau

“He alone is great and happy, who requires neither to command nor to obey, in order to secure his being of some importance in the world.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“I bark at no man’s bid.

I will never come and go, and fetch and carry, at the whistle of the great man in the White House no matter who he is.” – Davy Crockett

“I don’t have to be what you want me to be.

I’m free to be who I wanna be and think what I wanna think.” – Muhammad Ali

“There’s a line in the picture where he snarls, ‘Nobody tells me what to do.’

That’s exactly how I’ve felt all my life.”– Marlon Brando

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
– Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Political and Collective Liberty

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?

Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” – Patrick Henry

“Because to take away a man’s freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person.” – Madeline L’Engle

“Our unalterable resolution should be to be free.”– Sam Adams, to James Warren, 1776

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

“Since 1945, almost every single conflict around the world has its source in the denial of self-determination…

It’s not people looking to assert their right to self-determination that’s the problem; it’s when countries deny people the right to live out their existence as they see fit where problems start.”

– Phil Craig, Leader of the South African Referendum Party

“I’m for absolute autonomy of the individual, and an adult, competent woman has absolute autonomy. It’s her choice.” – Jack Kevorkian

“Every human being has a fundamental obligation to determine what is just and then to act according to his or her conscience, even if it contradicts the majority or the law.

One’s moral conscience is what makes someone fully human.”
– Wendy McElroy, paraphrasing Henry David Thoreau

The Artist’s Rebellion

“As for politics, I’m an anarchist. I hate governments and rules and fetters.

Can’t stand caged animals. People must be free.” – Charlie Chaplin

“I have always viewed [this culture] from a safe distance, knowing I don’t belong; it doesn’t include me, and it never has.

No matter how you care to define it, I do not identify with the local group.

Planet, species, race, nation, state, religion, party, union, club, association, neighborhood, improvement committee; I have no interest in any of it.

I love and treasure individuals as I meet them, I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to.”
– George Carlin, Brain Droppings

Philosophical Reflections

“Wear none of thine own chains; but keep free, whilst thou art free.” – William Penn, “Some Fruits of Solitude,” 1693

“Autonomy leads to empowerment. We work hard to maintain a balance between collaboration and cooperation and independence.” – Bobby Kotick

“Malcolm X and Edmund Burke shared an appreciation of this important insight, this painful truth — that the state wants men to be weak and timid, not strong and proud.”
– Thomas Stephen Szasz, Ceremonial Chemistry: The Ritual Persecution of Drugs, Addicts and Pushers

“A basic theme for the anarch is how man, left to his own devices, can defy superior forces – whether state, society, or the elements – by making use of their rules without submitting to them.” – Ernst Jünger, Eumeswil

“‘It is strange,’ Sir William Parry wrote when describing the igloos on Winter Island, ‘it is strange to think that all these measure are taken against the cold – and in houses of ice.’”– Ernst Jünger, Eumeswill

Sources

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