I’m old enough and cranky enough now that if someone tried to tell me what to do, I’d tell them where to put it.

My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.

Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it.

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.

One whose knowledge is confined to books and whose wealth is in the possession of others, can use neither his knowledge nor wealth when the need for them arises.

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

Our position is that we do not accept conditions of any kind which may affect the independence and sovereignty of our country just with the view to solve economic problems existing between the United States and Cuba.

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.

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.

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

Temptation is just the feeling that you’re the most independent person on planet Earth. That you know everything. That’s something that we all go through as a kid. Now, this lifestyle that I’m in, the same thing exists! But it’s 10 times worse, because everything is at my disposal. When you’re in the limelight, you can get anything you want.

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.

Independence? That’s middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

A song is anything that can walk by itself.

I learned to fly a few years ago in England. It’s the only place I’m completely alone – up in the air, detached from everything.

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

I was raised to be independent.

There is no person in this room whose basic rights are not involved in any successful defiance to the carrying out of court orders.

I am not a second option person. It is that or nothing. If it is not the way I see it I prefer not to see it.

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.

There are some people, you know, they think the way to be a big man is to shout and stomp and raise hell-and then nothing ever really happens. I’m not like that I never shoot blanks.

I actually feel more of a woman because I feel like I’m being smart about my choices, and I’m putting my family first, and I’m in charge of my life and my health. I think that’s what makes a woman complete.

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

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.

If you want to cut your own throat, don’t come to me for a bandage.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.

The more successful I become, the more I need a man.

Even after Independence, we have had to face the poison of casteism and communalism. How long these evils will continue? Whom does it benefit?

My rich dad believed we should all learn to take care of ourselves.

You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy’s ranks.

I became a journalist partly so that I wouldn’t ever have to rely on the press for my information.

Fortunately we’re not a public company – we’re a private group of companies, and I can do what I want.

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

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.

Even as a child, Muhammad Ali got perverse pleasure out of being different. He liked the attention it got him, but most of all he just liked being himself: odd and independent.

Work alone is noble.

Well I have a microphone and you don’t so you will listen to every damn word I have to say!

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

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.

The assertion that ‚all men are created equal‘ was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.

What, man, defy the devil. Consider, he’s an enemy to mankind.

I found it hard to be young. When I was married in my twenties, I hated being regarded as ‚the little wife.‘ You don’t know what it was like then! I’d never even written a cheque. I had to ask my husband for money for groceries.

Women have to be extremely careful about choosing something that they consider an act of defiance that can really be used to further their enslavement.

I don’t tell anyone how to write and no one tells me.

Solitude is independence.

We do not need the empire to give us anything.

Under Clinton, the defiance of world order has become so extreme as to be of concern even to hawkish policy analysts.

Self-actualized people are independent of the good opinion of others.

Maybe ‚loner‘ is too strong a word, but I’ve always enjoyed being on my own.

If you don’t stand your ground, then all that happens is people push you backwards.

If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly and lone and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors.

Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.

I think, when you are growing up, you have to pull apart from what your mother wants or needs. You’ve got to go your own way, and that’s what I did.

I just don’t feel like I have to explain myself.

I don’t have a problem with ageing – in fact, I embrace that aspect of it. And am able to and obviously am going to be able to quite easily… it doesn’t faze me at all.

I have always liked running, so it wasn’t particularly difficult to make it a habit. All you need is a pair of running shoes and you can do it anywhere. It does not require anybody to do it with, and so I found the sport perfectly fits me as a person who tends to be independent and individualistic.

I was offered a job on Wall Street by my uncle. But I wanted to get out. Make-it-on-my-own kinda thing.

When people are very damaged, they can often meet the world with a kind of defiance.