Self Reliance Quotes

I will come to you, my friend, when I no longer need you. Then you will find a palace, not an almshouse.

Do we not realize that self respect comes with self reliance?

Your paycheck is not your employer's responsibility, it's your responsibility. Your employer has no control over your value, but you do.

Insist upon yourself. Be original.

Why should I stay at the bottom of a well, when a strong rope is in my hand?

Stay at home in your mind. Don't recite other people's opinions.

Instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them.

Do not blame any supernatural being, neither be hopeless and despondent, nor think we are in a place from which we can never escape unless someone comes and lends us a helping hand.

Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore.

To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.

Tis better using France than trusting France;Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas,Which He hath given for fence impregnable,And with their helps only defend ourselves;In them, and in ourselves, our safety lies.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

We Americans think we are pretty good! We want to build a house, we cut down some trees. We want to build a fire, we dig a little coal. But when we run out of all these things, then we will find out just how good we really are.

We are always in our own company.

Great minds think for themselves.

I have my books And my poetry to protect me; I am shielded in my armor, Hiding in my room, safe within my womb. I touch no one and no one touches me. I am a rock, I am an island.

There's only one boss in your life . . . and that's you! The person looking back in the mirror at you is the one you have to answer to every day.

Without your own effort it is impossible for blessings to come.

Never flinch. Make up your own mind and do it.

I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves.

Life is a do-it-yourself kit, so do it yourself. Work. Practice.

If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself.

For the man who makes everything that leads to happiness, or near to it, to depend upon himself, and not upon other men, on whose good or evil actions his own doings are compelled to hinge,--such a one, I say, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation; this is the man of manly character and of wisdom.

If nobody will help you do it alone!

Blessings don’t come from outside, but from within. Whatever blessings we receive are the result of our own efforts and positive actions.

In what concerns you much, do not think that you have companions: know that you are alone in the world.

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road. Healthy, free, the world before me. The long brown path before me leading me wherever I choose. Henceforth, I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune. Henceforth, I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing.

No one can tell me what is a good cigar--for me. I am the only judge... There are no standards--no real standards. Each man's preference is the only standard for him, the only one which he can accept, the only one which can command him.

Our success in America will involve two circles: Black Nationalism and Islam–it will take BN [Black Nationalism] to make our people conscious of doing for self & then Islam will provide the spiritual guidance. BN [Black Nationalism] will link us to Africa and Islam will link us spiritually to Africa, Arabia & Asia.

No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.

A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.

Only in this form of separation the black man is exploited. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad says that we should be separate, all right, but in this separate state or separate existence, the black man should be given the opportunity and the incentive to do for himself what the white man has done for himself.

It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.

The wise and just man will always feel that he stands on his own feet; that he imparts strength to the state, not receives security from it; and if all went down, he and such as he would quite easily combine in a new and better constitution.

In truth , mankind cannot be saved from without, by schoolmasters or any other sort of masters: it can only be lamed and enslaved by them. It is said that if you wash a cat it will never again wash itself. This may or may not be true : what is certain is that if you teach a man anything he will never learn it; and if you cure him of a disease he will be unable to cure himself the next time it attacks him.

O to be self-balanced for contingencies, to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.

Nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be defended.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the 'still small voice' within me. And even though I have to face the prospect of being a minority of one, I humbly believe I have the courage to be in such a hopeless minority.

Do not desire, for what you desire you get, and with it comes terrible bondage. It is nothing but bringing "noses on us," as in the case of the man who had three boons to ask. We never get freedom until we are self-contained. "Self is the Saviour of self, none else."

Most happy is he who is entirely self-reliant, and who centers all his requirements in himself alone.

The wise way to benefit humanity is to attend to your own affairs, and thus give other people an opportunity to look after theirs.

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.

Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.

The spinning wheel and the spinning wheel alone will solve, if anything will solve, the problem of the deepening poverty of India.

I got my own back.

Take advice, but don't take orders.

A person who is severely impaired never knows his hidden sources of strength until he is treated like a normal human being and encouraged to shape his own life.

Let us even bid our dearest friends farewell, and defy them, saying, "Who are you? Unhand me: I will be dependent no more." Ah! seest thou not, O brother, that thus we part only to meet again on a higher platform, and only be more each other's, because we are more our own?

Fulfill me, make me happy, make me feel safe, tell me who I am. The world cannot give you those things, and when you no longer have such expectations, all self created suffering comes to an end.

Robinson had a servant even better than Friday: His name was Crusoe.

I will not live out of me I will not see with others' eyes My good is good, my evil ill I would be free.

Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.

Happiness is intrinsic, it's an internal thing. When you build it into yourself, no external circumstances can take it away.

You have so much inside you, and the noblest happiness of all. Don’t just wait for a man to come along. That’s the mistake so many women make. Find your happiness in yourself.

I played Othello, but I didn't sit around thinking how Laurence Olivier did it when he played it. That wouldn't do me any good.

In sum, do not insult me with the beheadings, finger choppings or the lung-deflations you plan for my works. I need my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs to shout or whisper with. I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book. All you umpires, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It's my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases. At sunset I've won or lost. At sunrise, I'm out again, giving it the old try. And no one can help me. Not even you.

I made a compact with myself that in my person literature should stand by itself, of itself, and for itself.

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself; you will never err if you listen to your own suggestions.

I began to travel by myself, in Europe, when I was eight years old. At that age I was already on the move between India and Swizerland, Switzerland and France, France and England. Administering my own finances like an adult.

Don't let anybody raise you. You've been raised.