#self-determination

"I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me."

"Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power."

"Pursue your dreams. You will be amazed about what you can achieve."

"If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it."

"The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same."

"Possibilities exist for you, to educate yourself, to the highest degree."

"Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands."

"None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone."

"You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them."

"There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me."

"LEONATOWell, then, go you into hell?BEATRICENo, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long."

"You cannot change what you are, only what you do."

"The whole value of solitude depends upon oneself; it may be a sanctuary or a prison, a haven of repose or a place of punishment, a heaven or a hell, as we ourselves make it."

"The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself."

"Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman."

"It may take little time to get where you want to be, but if you pause and think for a moment, you will notice that you are no longer where you were. Do not stop—keep going."

"I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience."

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

"The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself."

"Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are."