Independence

No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I, who have the strength and awareness to be my own motive force, will not be the little cog that is overwhelmed, annihilated by the heavy social gears. ~ Bruno Filippi

Independence is exemption from reliance on, or control by others; self-subsistence or maintenance; direction of one's own affairs without interference.

Quotes

• From my invaded nation,/the battlefield today is independence.
  • De mi patria invadida,/es hoy su independencia, el campo de batalla.
  • Canción de la verdad sencilla/Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos translated by Jack Agüeros (1997)

• I, who have the strength and awareness to be my own motive force, will not be the little cog that is overwhelmed, annihilated by the heavy social gears.
  • Bruno Filippi, "The Free Art of a Free Spirit," The Rebel’s Dark Laughter: The Writings of Bruno Filippi (1918)

• At the heart of the Right to Repair movement is human agency — the agency to use your property as you see fit; the agency for small businesses and repair shops to compete with huge incumbents by providing better, cheaper services; and the agency for the next innovators of the world to tinker, free of constraints, as they develop the skills needed to realize the vision for that next great product.
  • David Dunmoyer, "How Corporations Rob Americans Of The Joys Of Fixing Their Own Property", The Federalist (November 28, 2024)

• No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone.
  • Friedrich Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations (1876), “Schopenhauer as educator,” § 3.1, R. Hollingdale, trans. (1983), p. 129

• Independence, the freedom of a self-governing nation, is in my estimation the highest political good, for which any disadvantage, if need be, and any sacrifice are a cheap price.
  • Enoch Powell, Speech at Stockport (8 June 1973), from Simon Heffer, Like the Roman. The Life of Enoch Powell (Phoenix, 1999), p. 669.

• It is a great folly to lose the inner man in order to gain the outer, that is, to give up the whole or the greater part of one’s quiet, leisure, and independence for splendour, rank, pomp, titles and honours.
  • Arthur Schopenhauer, “Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life,” Parerga und Paralipomena, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 334

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 391.

• I never thrust my nose into other men's porridge. It is no bread and butter of mine: Every man for himself and God for us all.
  • Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605-15), Part I, Book III, Chapter XI.

• All we ask is to be let alone.
  • Jefferson Davis, First Message to the Confederate Congress (April 29, 1861).

• When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
  • Thomas Jefferson, United States Declaration of Independence.

• The whole trouble is that we won't let God help us.
  • George MacDonald, The Marquis of Lossie, Chapter XXVII.

• My anxiety is not that this community's autonomy would be usurped by Peking, but that it could be given away bit by bit by some people in Hong Kong.
  • Chris Patten, quoted by Caroline Courtauld, in The Hong Kong story p. 115.

• Voyager upon life's sea:—
  To yourself be true,
  And whate'er your lot may be,
  Paddle your own canoe.
  • Dr. Edward P. Philpots, Paddle your own Canoe; Written for Harry Clifton. Appeared in Harper's Monthly, May 1854. See Notes and Queries, May 25, 1901, p. 414. Another song written by Mrs. S. K. Bolton has same refrain. Pub. in Family Herald, 1853. Also in Song by Mrs. Sarah Tittle. (Barritt).

• America is a country that seems forever to be toddler or teenager, at those two stages of human development characterized by conflict between autonomy and security.
  • Anna Quindlen, in PUBLIC & PRIVATE; Justice and Mercy

• Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
  Your favours nor your hate.
  • William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act I, scene 3, line 60.

• Thy spirit, Independence, let me share!
  Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye,
  Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
  Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
  • Tobias Smollett, Ode to Independence, line 1.

• Hail! Independence, hail! Heaven's next best gift,
  To that of life and an immortal soul!
  • James Thomson, Liberty, Part V, line 124.

• L'injustice à la fin produit l'indépendance.
  • Injustice in the end produces independence.
  • Voltaire, Tancrède, III. 2.

• Independence now: and INDEPENDENCE FOREVER.
  • Daniel Webster, Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson (Aug. 2, 1826).

See also

• Autonomy