Quotes about Self-reliance

The "do-it-yourself" rage is spreading everywhere, and people are being told that to be happy all they have to do is think "happy thoughts." Such thoughts might cheer us, but they will never change us.

Parents do overindulge their children, giving them a profusion of material things . . . without the stabilizing effects of earning one's way, of making decisions, of sweating hard to attain some kind of goal, young people are grievously handicapped.

Learn how to collect manna for yourself. Christians who rely on a weekly sermon to feed themselves are probably malnourished.

At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.

At Hampton I not only learned that it was not a disgrace to labour, but learned to love labour, not alone for its financial value, but for labour's own sake and for the independence and self-reliance which the ability to do something which the world wants done brings. At that institution I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy.

Cast down your bucket where you are.

After having been for a while at Hampton, I found myself in difficulty because I did not have books and clothing. Usually, however, I got around the trouble about books by borrowing from those who were more fortunate than myself.

I am glad that we endured all those discomforts and inconveniences... It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for one's self.

There are some things that one individual can do for another, and there are some things that one race can do for another. But, on the whole, every individual and every race must work out its own salvation.

her unwavering confidence in an arm which she believed to be stronger than all others combined could have raised from her sinking spirit.

Stop giving people the power to control your smile, your worth, your attitude and your day. Don't give anyone that much power over your life.

The most dangerous thing in the world is the sin of self-reliance and the stupor of worldliness.