The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

In 1979, Iranians carried out an illegitimate act: They overthrew a tyrant that the United States had imposed and supported, and moved on an independent path, not following U.S. orders.

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.

For most of my life I let women do the driving and was happy to let them.

We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and for one another.

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.

I don’t kiss nobody’s butt.

My mother was determined to make us independent. When I was four years old, she stopped the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields. I got hopelessly lost.

I’m a businessman as well as an entertainer. The reason why is because I want to own whatever I’m doing. I don’t want to work for other people forever.

Just as a man would not cherish living in a body other than his own, so do nations not like to live under other nations, however noble and great the latter may be.

How should a man be capable of grooming his own horse, or of furbishing his own spear and helmet, if he allows himself to become unaccustomed to tending even his own person, which is his most treasured belonging?

All I’m for is the liberty of the individual.

Those who know how to think need no teachers.

I deplore the need or the use of troops anywhere to get American citizens to obey the orders of constituted courts.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

My main goal is to be a self-made man and have control over what’s mine.

The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.

I have learned that as long as I hold fast to my beliefs and values – and follow my own moral compass – then the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.

In 1949, China declared independence – an event known in Western discourse as ‚the loss of China‘ in the U.S. – with bitter recriminations and conflict over who was responsible for that loss.

I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird.

I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

Now I do whatever I want.

Bread without flesh is a good diet, as on many botanical excursions I have proved. Tea also may easily be ignored. Just bread and water and delightful toil is all I need – not unreasonably much, yet one ought to be trained and tempered to enjoy life in these brave wilds in full independence of any particular kind of nourishment.

We shouldn’t have to be burdened with all the technicalities that come up from time to time with shrewd, smart lawyers interpreting what the laws or what the Constitution may or may not say.

Nothing is stopping me from doing what I love to do.

I never ask anyone else’s opinion. They don’t count.

For 500 years, since European explorers came, Latin American countries had been separated from one another. They had very limited relations. Integration is a prerequisite for independence.

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.

A lot of the things that will really improve the world fortunately aren’t dependent on Washington doing something different.

What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing.

I myself have been on my own and utterly independent since I graduated. I haven’t belonged to any company or any system. It isn’t easy to live like this in Japan.

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that… it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.

It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

If you make up your own mind, you can only blame yourself.

Only those who want everything done for them are bored.

Do we not realize that self respect comes with self reliance?

The function of posterity is to look after itself.

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.

Man is a tool-using animal. Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.

If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself.

The people you choose to have around you make all the difference. My family and close friends keep me grounded. You have to have a mind of your own and a strong head on your shoulders. Cricket is the most important thing to me, so the rest of it pales in comparison.

What I tell my kids is, ‚I’m preparing you for college and for life. So, having independence, knowing how to set your own boundaries, figuring out how to make that balance. We still have screen-time rules.‘

With fools, there is no companionship. Rather than to live with men who are selfish, vain, quarrelsome, and obstinate, let a man walk alone.

Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.

Mr. Morgan buys his partners; I grow my own.

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature’s God.

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace.

If I wished to do something, even if I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to make the effort with me, I would go out solo climbing. I did find solo climbing very challenging and a little frightening. You knew that you were completely on your own, and you had to overcome all the problems and possible dangers.

If my businesses or my investments are not profitable, then I don’t eat. And I like to eat.

A song is anything that can walk by itself.

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

What a blind person needs is not a teacher but another self.

I don’t see any possibility of Britain and the U.S. allowing a sovereign independent Iraq; that’s almost inconceivable.

Whether we are New Dealer, Old Dealer, Liberty Leaguer or Red, whether we agree or not, we still have the right to think and speak how we feel.

Nobody can tell me where I can and can’t go.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

A smart girl leaves before she is left.

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

Work alone is noble.