Pull Up Your Bootstraps Quotes & Sayings

We are 100 percent responsible for the pursuit of holiness, but at the same time we are 100 percent dependent upon the Holy Spirit to enable us in that pursuit. The pursuit of holiness is not a pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps approach to the Christian life. — Jerry Bridges

Listening to Pastor Bob talk about mercy and redemption, I am filled with hope. Not the kind of expectation that comes from knowing you can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, but the trust that comes from utter failure, from knowing you are pathetic and small and you've got no place to look but up. — Carolee Dean

Judge Thomas was a man who had used the system to get where he wanted to be, but then felt that everyone else should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. — Joycelyn Elders

In such a therapeutic, pragmatic, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps society as ours, the message of God having to do all the work in saving us comes as an offensive shot at our egos. — Michael Horton

Everybody's entitled to that forty acres and a mule. You're going to do the work, but you have to have something to work with. If you don't have a job, where do you go from there? You hear people say Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and you don't even have shoes. You're barefooted. What are you going to pull yourself up by? Our country owes every citizen of the United States of America a means of livelihood. Not a handout, but a way to make it. — Studs Terkel

I think that now most people know someone in their family that is coping with something, but there is still a tremendous amount of shame - that one is still regarded as a defective unit ... if only they would pull up their bootstraps - they are only indulging their emotions, everybody's moody, blah, blah, blah. — Carrie Fisher

We live in a world where not everyone has the urge to help others ... It is OK to encourage others to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, but if you do, just remember that some people have no boots. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Depression might have chosen you, but you don't have to choose it back. Sometimes happiness comes with bootstraps, but so what? Pull 'em up. Choose joy. — Marianne Williamson

You are not obligated to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and find a way to conquer the odds, to be stronger or transform yourself into some better version of yourself. The pain you are feeling (whatever the degree) may be a reminder that things are not as they should be. — Tullian Tchividjian

I don't believe in that kind of American John Wayne individualism where people pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Someone changed your diapers. And if that's the case, you ain't self-made. — Michael Eric Dyson

They say, 'Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.' They don't realize that not everybody's bootstraps are the same length. — Andrew Mitchell

I don't want people who are in poverty, in pain, or suffering, to suffer because it's for their own good and they can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I want to help them. I want us all to help them. — Penn Jillette

How can I pull myself up by my bootstraps if I'm living on a shoestring? — Jayseth Guberman

It is a cruel injustice to tell a bootless man to pull himself up by his bootstraps. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Myth 7: Everyone Can Pull Himself or Herself Up by the Bootstraps. — George Lakoff

Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me people nowdays don't have much compassion for others and think they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps which is pretty hard to do if you don't have any boots. The — Ruth Butler

We at the Bureau have the most exciting and satisfying jobs in the world. In a society that stresses individual achievement - where you pull yourself up by your bootstraps - the Legal Aid Bureau helps those without boots. By providing access to justice to tens of thousands of Marylanders each year, Legal Aid attorneys and support staff bring equity and stability to society. — Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

The first step off this downward spiral is to acknowledge these bad feelings as natural. When women feel this way, our society has sympathy, and Oprah gives them cars. But when men feel this way, our society demonizes these feelings as signs of weakness, amplifying the shame and self-judgment, repeating the macho advice to "suck it up" and "get over it." This bullshit makes the problem worse. It's impossible to pull yourself out of depression by your bootstraps when all you want to do is hang yourself with them. Bad advice can't fix bad feelings, and neither can ignoring those feelings. Don't try to push them away or pretend they're not there. These feelings evolved to protect us from harm, like our fight-or-flight responses. — Tucker Max