#self-reliance

"I'd rather die my way than live yours."

"Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently."

"Associate with noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty. But learn to be happy alone. Rely upon your own energies, and so not wait for, or depend on other people."

"She might be without country, without nation, but inside her there was still a being that could exist and be free, that could simply say I am without adding a this, or a that, without saying I am Indian, Guyanese, English, or anything else in the world."

"You think intelligence and grit can succeed by themselves, but I'm telling you that's a pretty illusion."

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

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

"I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself."

"If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them."

"I don't care what is written,"Meyer Landsman says. "I don't care what supposedly got promised to some sandal-wearing idiot whose claim to fame is that he was ready to cut his own son's throat for the sake of a hare-brained idea. I don't care about red heifers and patriarchs and locusts. A bunch of old bones in the sand. My homeland is in my hat. It's in my ex-wife's tote bag."

"you don't have to worry about burning bridges, if you're building your own"

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

"Oh the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all."

"When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everyone will respect you."