#independence

...the solitude was intoxicating. On my first night there I lay on my back on the sticky carpet for hours, in the murky orange pool of city glow coming through the window, smelling heady curry spices spiraling across the corridor and listening to two guys outside yelling at each other in Russian and someone practicing stormy flamboyant violin somewhere, and slowly realizing that there was not a single person in the world who could see me or ask me what I was doing or tell me to do anything else, and I felt as if at any moment the bedsit might detach itself from the buildings like a luminous soap bubble and drift off into the night, bobbing gently above the rooftops and the river and the stars. ↗

— Tana French

#independence #noise #reverie #solitude #life

See with your own eyes, hear with your own ears, think your own thoughts, say what you must say, do what you must do, love all that you can and stand on your own two feet. ↗

— Paul Palnik

#individuality #love

Both men had made her feel as if she were the one who was at fault, a typically masculine reaction to a woman who was able to act independently of them. ↗

— Flora Kidd

#men #women #men

Sometimes being a good mother gets in the way of being a good person. ↗

— Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey

#mother #independence

For it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose. ↗

— Marcus Aurelius

#independence #individuality #retire #self #self-assurance

In yourself right now is all the place you've got. ↗

— Flannery O'Connor

#empowerment #independence #individuality #self-assurance #self-awareness

While he spoke, my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me and charged me with crime in resisting him. They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. "Oh, comply!" it said. "Think of his misery; think of his danger — look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong nature; consider the recklessness following on despair — soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?" Still indomitable was the reply — "I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad — as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth — so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am quite insane — quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot." I did. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#empowerment #independence #individuality #integrity #self-assurance

First, I think more Americans need to declare their independence from partisan politics on both sides. The more that Americans declare their independence, the more the parties will have to compete for their votes using reason rather than the hateful appeals. ↗

— John Avlon

#both #both sides #compete #declare #first

You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence. ↗

— Charles A. Beard

#best #citizen #dangerous #days #fathers

Well, we lost a lot of our independence already. We are dependent on China for credit. We are dependent on Middle Eastern countries for energy supplies. And many Americans are dependent on the government for their income, health care, education of their children, food stamps. ↗

— Jim DeMint

#care #children #china #countries #credit