#independence

My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone. ↗

— Mary Wollstonecraft

#double-standards #empowerment #equality #feminism #flattery

It often occurs that pride and selfishness are muddled with strength and independence. They are neither equal nor similar; in fact, they are polar opposites. A coward may be so cowardly that he masks his weakness with some false personification of power. He is afraid to love and to be loved because love tends to strip bare all emotional barricades. Without love, strength and independence are prone to losing every bit of their worth; they become nothing more than a fearful, intimidated, empty tent lost somewhere in the desert of self. ↗

— Criss Jami

#barricade #coward #cowardice #desert #ego

Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. ↗

— John Locke

#independence #liberty #of-the-state-of-nature #equality

I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man. ↗

— Mary Wollstonecraft

#equality #freedom #gender #independence #men

No: I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne." "I ask why? I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy of you." She stood on the hearth; she was pale as the white marble slab and cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsmiling. "And I ask in what sense that young man is worthy of me? ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#courtship #dignity #empowerment #equality #feminism

The notion that women shouldn't care about personal success -- or the work that gets them there -- is disengenuous; it is impossible for women not to have jobs anymore, so it doesn't make sense to expect them to structure their lives around getting married. The real failure is our cultural incapacity to make room for women to live and thrive outside of traditional conceptions of femininity and relationships. After all, we can eat without marriage, but not without work. ↗

— Samhita Mukhopadhyay

#independence #independent-women #marriage #work-ethic #dating

If she took Po as her husband, she would be making promises about a future she couldn't yet see. For once she became his wife, she would be his forever. And, no matter how much freedom Po gave her, she would always know that it was a gift. Her freedom would be not be her own; it would be Po's to give or to withhold. That he never would withhold it made no difference. If it did not come from her, it was not really hers. ↗

— Kristin Cashore

#freedom

There shall come a day when Birds shall be free... :) and humans will see... ↗

— K. Hari Kumar

#cage #caged-bird #free #freedom #freedom-of-thought

[I]n the end this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a Queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin. ↗

— Elizabeth I Tudor

#dignity #freedom #good-governance #government #independence

America... goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. ↗

— John Quincy Adams

#imperialism #independence #isolationism #liberty #noninterventionism