Quotes on Self Reliance

The basis of good manners is self-reliance.

If we expected self-reliance of family groups, if we expected hardiness and resilience and initiative on the part of individuals, and if we rewarded initiative instead of dependence on government, we would not only ameliorate many of the family-related social problems we see at present, but we would also reduce our vulnerability to terrorism. People who are hardy, resilient, and self reliant are a lot harder to terrorize.

Whence, then, this worship of the past? The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul.

Paracelsus At times I almost dream I too have spent a life the sages’ way, And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance I perished in an arrogant self-reliance Ages ago; and in that act a prayer For one more chance went up so earnest, so Instinct with better light let in by death, That life was blotted out — not so completely But scattered wrecks enough of it remain, Dim memories, as now, when once more seems The goal in sight again.

When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the foot-prints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name; the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude example and experience.

He cumbers himself never about consequences, about interests; he gives an independent, genuine verdict. You must court him: he does not court you. But the man is, as it were, clapped into jail by his consciousness.

No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself.

Then came the gadgeteer, otherwise known as the sporting-goods dealer. He has draped the American outdoorsman with an infinity of contraptions, all offered as aids to self-reliance, hardihood, woodcraft, or marksmanship, but too often functioning as substitutes for them. Gadgets fill the pockets, they dangle from neck and belt. The overflow fills the auto-trunk and also the trailer. Each item of outdoor equipment grows lighter and often better, but the aggregate poundage becomes tonnage.

When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Sometimes things become possible if we want them bad enough.

Self-confidence without self-reliance is as useless as a cooking recipe without food. Self-confidence sees the possibilities of the individual; self-reliance realizes them. Self-confidence sees the angel in the unhewn block of marble; self-reliance carves it out for oneself.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men that is genius.

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.

Brokenness involves removing inappropriate pride and self-reliance and building healthy God-reliance.

I have tried 99 times and have failed, but on the 100th time came success.

In most books, the I, of first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference.

We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking.