Quotes about Self-determination

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading: It vexes me to choose another guide.

A man can surely do what he wills to do, but he cannot determine what he wills.

I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire.

I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.

No one's happiness but my own is in my power to achieve or to destroy.

Man is an end in himself.

It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect.

The egotist in the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man—and he asks no other man to exist for him.

You'll get everything society can give a man. You'll keep all the money. You'll take any fame or honor anyone might want to grant. You'll accept such gratitude as the tenants might feel. And I—I'll take what nobody can give a man, except himself.

I don't try to explain or justify my actions. I simply do what I do.

Arminian notion of Liberty of the Will, consisting in the will's Self-determination, is repugnant to itself, and shuts itself wholly out of the world.

That country where they wouldn't be told what to think or how to live or even whether or how to worship.