Be On Your Own Terms Quotes & Sayings

I want you to always hold your head up and follow your dreams wherever they take you. Don't you ever listen to the people out to hurt you or make you cry. Listen to your heart and be better than them. No one gets ahead by hurting others. The only real peace anyone will ever have is the one that comes from within. Live your life on your own terms and make it a happy life. Always. That's what's important, Torimou. (Theo) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Have you ever had an experience where, had things turned out just a little bit differently, your entire life would have been transformed?

Like a Supreme Court clerkship, a Rhodes Scholarship gets mentioned in your obituary.

The door was open just a crack, in a way that seemed to say "I have an 'open door' policy, but I really don't want to be bothered."

Success didn't take you off the treadmill, but simply put you on a different treadmill, at a higher speed and with a steeper incline.

When we're young, overachieving, and unstoppable, we all think we're special. But as we grow older, we reach a more realistic understanding of our place in the world. It happens at different times for different people, but eventually we all come to terms with our own ordinariness. — David Lat

Life's too short to live someone else's — Nathan W. Morris

All France, it has often been said, is a garden, and if you love France, as I do, it can be a very beautiful garden. For myself I found it healing and soothing to the spirit; I recovered from the shocks and bruises which I had received in my own country. But there comes a day, when you are well again and strong, when this atmosphere ceases to be nourishing. You long to break out and test your powers. Then the French spirit seems inadequate. You long to make friends, to create enemies, to look beyond walls and cultivated patches of earth. You want to cease thinking in terms of life insurance, sick benefits, old age pensions and so on. — Henry Miller

Do your own thing on your own terms and get what you came here for — Oliver James

You have to be able to grow and move with the organism that is the music industry. You need to maintain flexibility. Ownership of your own stuff is key and then you're able to dictate on a present-terms basis what would be the most effective way to protect yourself and what you've created. You also don't want to lock yourself into a situation where a major label owns part of your touring and merchandise. — Eddie Vedder

People would say - to break free, to soar, and sadly, to chop your wings too. The moment you listen to them, you voluntarily put yourself in a cage.
Be a free soul - fly or fall on your own terms. — Saru Singhal

If you are going to live life on your own terms, there need to be terms, and somehow you need to live up to them. — Robert B. Parker

There are times when it will go so wrong that you will barely be alive, and times when you realise that being barely alive, on your own terms, is better than living a bloated half-life on someone else's terms. — Jeanette Winterson

I think that one of the hardest things in the world to be is a black male. I mean everyone hates your guts. White men are afraid of you. White women are afraid of you. The cops hate you. The government wants you dead. Your own people want to shoot you for what you got. You just can't get over it. And even if you are able to get over it you're forced to do it on the white guy's terms. — Henry Rollins

In my own opinion (key word), the foundation of feminism is this: being able to choose. The core of anti-feminism is, conversely, telling a woman she can't do something solely because she's a woman - taking any choice away from her specifically because of her gender ... One of the weird things about modern feminism is that some feminists seem to be putting their own limits on women's choices. That feels backward to me. It's as if you can't choose a family on your own terms and still be considered a strong woman. How is that empowering? Are there rules about if, when, and how we love or marry and if, when, and how we have kids? Are there jobs we can and can't have in order to be a "real" feminist? To me, those limitations seem anti-feminist in basic principle. — Stephenie Meyer

Like Dewey, I was lucky. I got to leave on my own terms. Find your place. Be happy with what you have. Treat everyone well. Live a good life. It isn't about material things; it's about love. And you can never anticipate love. — Vicki Myron

In terms of experience, we want to make this (referring to the self) very pleasant. We want this to be blissful, ecstatic. But, as I said before, even being ecstatic is not goal by itself. If you are blissful by your own nature, then the important thing is that you are no more the issue. There are other issues in this existence; we can look at those. But if you are an issue, what other issue will you take in your hands? You will not touch anything. When I am enough trouble myself, why do I want to take on this one or that one? When I am no more an issue, now I am willing to dig into the whole existence and see what it is all about. — Jaggi Vasudev

Do not wait for vulnerability to be thrust upon you by your company or the marketplace. That is when you lost control of your own destiny. Choose to disrupt yourself. Seek vulnerability on your terms, no one else's. — Bill Jensen

Pursuing happiness, and I did, and I still do, is not at all the same as being happy
which I think is fleeting, dependent on circumstances ... If the sun is shining, stand in it
yes, yes, yes. Happy times are great, but happy times pass
they have to because time passes. The pursuit of happiness is more elusive; it is life-long, and it is not goal-centered. What you are pursuing is meaning
a meaningful life. There's the hap
the fate, the draw that is yours, and it isn't fixed, but changing the course of the stream, or dealing new cards, whatever metaphor you want to use
that's going to take a lot of energy. There are times when it will go so wrong that you will barely be alive, and times when you realise that being barely alive, on your own terms, is better than living a bloated half-life on someone else's terms. The pursuit isn't all or nothing
it's all AND nothing. — Jeanette Winterson

I regret nothing. No woman with any self-respect would have done less. The question of good and evil will always be one of philosophy's most intriguing problems, up there with the problem of existence itself. I'm not quarreling with your choice of issues, only with your intellectually diminished approach. If evil means to be self-motivated, to live on one's own terms, then every artist, every thinker, every original mind, is evil. Because we dare to look through our own eyes rather than mouth cliches lent us from the so-called Fathers. To dare to see is to steal fire from the Gods. This is mankind's destiny, the engine which fuels us as a race. — Janet Fitch

In our country [US] equality means your liberal and freedom means you're conservative. That tension is there and it can't be handled on its own terms. It can't be handled as you go out of that and go back into natural institutions or natural law or divine revelation. Something outside of the system has to tell you the system has gone wrong. — Francis George

The avant-garde theater is fun; it is free-wheeling, bold, iconoclastic, and often wildly, wildly funny. If you will approach it with childlike innocence
putting your standard responses aside, for they do not apply
if you will approach it on its own terms, I think you will be in for a liberating surprise. I think you may no longer be content with plays that you can't remember halfway down the block. — Edward Albee

I think transwomen, and transpeople in general, show everyone that you can define what it means to be a man or woman on your own terms. A lot of what feminism is about is moving outside of roles and moving outside of expectations of who and what you're supposed to be to live a more authentic life. — Laverne Cox

THE THREE BEES by Suzy Kassem


A young boy once asked
A wealthy beekeeper:
"What is the secret of
Your success?"

The beekeeper simply smiled
And replied:

"To be successful,
One has to be one of three bees:
The queen bee,
The hardest working bee,
Or the bee that does not fit in.
One success is inherited,
And the next one is earned.
While the last one is
Self-sought,
Self-served,
And happens on its own
Terms."

"And which bee are you?"
Asked the boy.
The beekeeper then wiped
The sweat from his head
And said:
"The last may seem the riskiest,
But the glory of achievement
Is the most rewarding.
Freedom always comes at a high cost,
But only when you are
Your own boss,
Can you truly
Afford it."

(Suzy Kassem Poetry) — Suzy Kassem

You are going to face God's judgment for all of your earthly activities, good and bad. You will be sent to heaven if you put your faith in Christ and the cross." Christian struggled, wondering if the patient could understand such terms. "No one gets to heaven by being good on their own. It is only because Jesus paid for our bad deeds by dying on a cross. — Harry Kraus

There are no extra people alive today. Every single one of us is here for a reason, a special purpose - a mission. Yes, build a beautiful life for yourself and those you love. Yes, be happy and have a lot of fun. And yes, become successful, on your own terms rather than on those suggested to you by society. But - above all else - be significant. Make your life matter. Be of use. And be of service to as many people as possible. This is how each of us can shift from the realm of the ordinary into the heights of the extraordinary. And walk among the best who have ever lived. It — Robin S. Sharma

When I quit The New York Times to be a fulltime mother, the voices of the world said I was nuts ... But if success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your soul, it is not success at all. — Anna Quindlen

He hesitated. 'Serpine used my wife and child as a weapon against me. In order to do so, he had to kill them. He took my family's death and he made it about me. Valkyrie, when you die, it will be your death and yours alone. Let it come to you on your own terms.' She nodded.
'Valkyrie Cain,' he said, 'it has been an absolute pleasure knowing you. — Derek Landy

Well, psychologists say there's a second umbilical cord, an invisible one, an emotional one, which ties you to your parents for the whole time you're a kid. Then, one day, you have a row with your mum if you're a girl, or your dad if you're a boy, and that argument cuts your second cord. Then, and only then, are you ready to go off into the big wide world and be an adult on your own terms. It's like a rite-of-passage thing. — David Mitchell

If you look at a photograph, and you think, 'My isn't that a beautiful photograph,' and you go on to the next one, or 'Isn't that nice light?' so what? I mean what does it do to you or what's the real value in the long run? What do you walk away from it with? I mean, I'd much rather show you a photograph that makes demands on you, that you might become involved in on your own terms or be perplexed by. — Duane Michals

Labels are going to tie you down with a 360 deal, they take percentages of literally every endeavor you're tied to. It's a lot of stipulations and constraints placed on you. What makes it worse is that, in terms of distributing budgets, labels aren't even giving the same amount as they used to. It totally defeats the purpose. My advice would be to get it out there on your own first which will lead you to calling the shots. — Ashanti

Pacing back and forth now on the spur of his conflicting needs, Covenant growled, "Baradakas said just about the same thing. By hell! You people terrify me. When I try to be responsible, you pressure me
and when I collapse you
You're not asking the right questions. You don't have the vaguest notion of what a leper is, and it doesn't even occur to you to inquire. _That's_ why Foul chose me for this. Because I can't
Damnation! Why don't you ask me about where I come from? I've got to tell you. The world I come from doesn't allow anyone to live except on its own terms. Those terms
those terms contradict yours."
"What are its terms?" the High Lord asked carefully.
"That your world is a dream." — Stephen R. Donaldson

Living your life on your own terms is utterly glorious. It makes perfect sense to you, but you have to be willing to let go of everything else. It has to be okay if nobody else likes that, but then when other people see that you are brave, you don't mind. They're fascinated by that because we all love brave people. We all love it when people are heroic. — Melinda Gebbie

Oh, yes, that's right--my terms. I'm sorry, but you'll have to state clearly, for the record, in your own words, your clear-minded and sober intention to ride my dick. Actually, let me go get a witness, just to be on the safe side ... — Mercy Brown

Be excellent in your own terms. Do not look for approval from a single soul on this planet. Respect yourself and in time the whole world will respect you. — Abhijit Naskar

When you conform to the monoculture's version of who you are and what the world is like, you lose your freedom along with your ability to be truly innovative in terms of your own life. Being able to draw on many different stories, not just the economic one, allows you to creatively and authentically meet the challenges that face you in your life. The monoculture, determinedly single-minded, insists that economic values and assumptions can be used to solve your problems, whether those problems are spiritual, political, intellectual, or relational. — F.S. Michaels

Do what you do. This Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year's Eve, Twelfth Night, Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, St. Paddy's Day, and every day henceforth. Just do what you do. Live out your life and your traditions on your own terms.
If it offends others, so be it. That's their problem. — Chris Rose

You call a tree a tree, he said, and you think nothing more of the word. But it was not a 'tree' until someone gave it that name. You call a star a star, and say it is just a ball of matter moving on a mathematical course. But that is merely how you see it. By so naming things and describing them you are only inventing your own terms about them. And just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth.
We have come from God (continued Tolkien), and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming a 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Out myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbor, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of evil. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Boring' can be a lot of fun. Especially if it's on your own terms. — Hugh MacLeod

This is what meditation means: how to be not identified with the mind - how to create a space between yourself and your own mind. It is difficult because we never make any separation. We go on thinking in terms that the mind means me: mind and me are totally identified. If they are totally identified, then you will never be at peace; then you will never be able to enter the divine, because the divine can be entered only when the social has been left behind. — Rajneesh