#dependence

...freedom is of more account than the height of a roof beam. I ought to know; mine cost me eighteen years' slavery. The man who lives on his own land is an independent man. He is his own master. If I can keep my sheep alive through winter and can pay what has been stipulated from year to year - then I pay what has been stipulated; and I have kept my sheep alive. No, it is freedom that we are all after, Titla. He who pays his way is a king. He who keeps his sheep alive through the winter lives in a palace. ↗

— Halldór Laxness

#freedom #independence #sheep #solitude #freedom

St. John,” I said, “I think you are al­most wicked to talk so. I am dis­posed to be as con­tent as a queen, and you try to stir me up to rest­less­ness! To what end?” “To the end of turn­ing to profit the tal­ents which God has committed to your keep­ing; and of which He will surely one day de­mand a strict ac­count. Jane, I shall watch you closely and anx­iously—I warn you of that. And try to re­strain the dis­pro­por­tion­ate fervour with which you throw your­self into com­mon­place home pleasures. Don’t cling so tena­ciously to ties of the flesh; save your con­stancy and ar­dour for an ad­e­quate cause; for­bear to waste them on trite tran­sient ob­jects. Do you hear, Jane?” “Yes; just as if you were speak­ing Greek. I feel I have ad­e­quate cause to be happy, and I will be happy. Good­bye! ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#independence #home

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid ... Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#defiance #fearlessness #free-thinker #freedom #freedom-of-thought

I don't want to have to earn love by giving up my ability to make decisions that determine how I live. ↗

— Eloisa James

#love #love

Seek out the company of those who will never ask you to jump," the earth advised. Bertie remembered the rush of feathers as she soared above the audience. "I can catch myself." "Of those whose love will never fill your lungs with water-" the earth argued. "But it did not kill me." "there should be more to love," said the earth, "than 'it did not kill me.' More than 'I survived it. ↗

— Lisa Mantchev

#inspirational #love #dreams

This is a perfectly good picture. And if I didn't know you, I would be impressed and charmed. But I do know you." He thought some more, wondering whether he dared say precisely what he felt, for he knew he could never explain exactly why the idea came to him. "It's the painting of a dutiful daughter," he said eventually, looking at her cautiously to see her reaction. "You want to please. You are always aware of what the person looking at this picture will think of it. Because of that you've missed something important. Does that make sense?" She thought, then nodded. "All right," she said grudgingly and with just a touch of despair in her voice. "You win." Julien grunted. "Have another go, then. I shall come back and come back until you figure it out." "And you'll know?" "You'll know. I will merely get the benefit of it. ↗

— Iain Pears

#creativity #daughters #duty #expectation #fulfillment

I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. I've just done what I damn well wanted to, and I've made enough money to support myself, and ain't afraid of being alone. ↗

— Katharine Hepburn

#independence #self-reliance #money

So the fact that I’m me and no one else is one of my greatest assets. Emotional hurt is the price a person has to pay in order to be independent. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#hurt #independence #uniqueness #emotion

In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever in and of itself. ↗

— Chuck Klosterman

#culture

I am often described to my irritation as a 'contrarian' and even had the title inflicted on me by the publisher of one of my early books. (At least on that occasion I lived up to the title by ridiculing the word in my introduction to the book's first chapter.) It is actually a pity that our culture doesn't have a good vernacular word for an oppositionist or even for someone who tries to do his own thinking: the word 'dissident' can't be self-conferred because it is really a title of honor that has to be won or earned, while terms like 'gadfly' or 'maverick' are somehow trivial and condescending as well as over-full of self-regard. And I've lost count of the number of memoirs by old comrades or ex-comrades that have titles like 'Against the Stream,' 'Against the Current,' 'Minority of One,' 'Breaking Ranks' and so forth—all of them lending point to Harold Rosenberg's withering remark about 'the herd of independent minds.' Even when I was quite young I disliked being called a 'rebel': it seemed to make the patronizing suggestion that 'questioning authority' was part of a 'phase' through which I would naturally go. On the contrary, I was a relatively well-behaved and well-mannered boy, and chose my battles with some deliberation rather than just thinking with my hormones. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#contrarianism #dissent #dissidents #free-thought #harold-rosenberg