Quotes & Sayings About Self Determination

Do not let the fear of unknown deter you from trying.
Keep trying until you succeed. — Lailah Gifty Akita

After one hundred years of federal rule, the United States House of Representatives has moved to provide for the first meaningful route to self-determination for the Puerto Rican people under our federal system. — Dick Thornburgh

By extrapolating a little from Freud, it becomes possible to think of nationalism as a kind of narcissism. A nationalist takes the neutral facts about a people - their language, habitat, culture, tradition and history- and turns these facts into a narrative, whose purpose is to illuminate the self-consciousness of a group, to enable them to think of themselves as a nation with a claim to self-determination. A nationalist, in other words, takes "minor differences"- indifferent in themselves- and transforms them into major differences. For this purpose, traditions are invented, a glorious past is gilded and refurbished for public consumption, and a people who might not have thought of themselves as a people at all suddenly begin to dream of themselves as a nation. — Michael Ignatieff

May you find the confidence and courage to climb new heights. — Lailah Gifty Akita

It can be done. It will be done. — Lailah Gifty Akita

This is what opportunity brings with it. It's the self-determination of man. Every man in the course of his life eternal life undergoes countless changes and has to appear once in this worlds as a thief in certain periods of his activity. — Jaroslav Hasek

Keep moving onwards! — Lailah Gifty Akita

To counter the fixation on a rhetoric of victimhood, black folks must engage in a discourse of self-determination. — Bell Hooks

There are both things in international law: the principle of territorial integrity and right to self-determination. — Vladimir Putin

Every person interprets the silence that surrounds him or her. The eternal silence of the universe that we exist in is terrifying because it forces each of to ask what our purpose is, why are we here, and what should I do? — Kilroy J. Oldster

Bottom line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are. — Joss Whedon

Woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circumstances requiring fortitude and strength of mind, if she have not resolution enough to resist idle interference ... It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on. You are never sure of a good impression being durable; everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm. — Jane Austen

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud. — Coco Chanel

Self-determination is not a mere phrase. It is an imperative principle of action, which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril. — Woodrow Wilson

Don't give up on your dreams. — Lailah Gifty Akita

You need self-confidence and determination: feeling depressed and losing hope will never really help to correct any situation. — Dalai Lama

After more than two thousand miles on the [Appalachian] trail, you can expect to undergo some personality changes. A heightened affinity for nature infiltrates your life. Greater inner peace. Enhanced self-esteem. A quiet confidence that if I could do that, I can do and should do whatever I really want to do. More appreciation for what you have and less desire to acquire what you don't. A childlike zest for living life to the fullest. A refusal to be embarrassed about having fun. A renewed faith in the essential goodness of humankind. And a determination to repay others for the many kindnesses you have received. — Larry Luxenberg

I will not give up my dream for someone's dream. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Somewhere, within our brain, we have a potential for higher mathematics, complex physics, art, & amazing richness of thoughts, feelings & sensations Somewhere within our brain we have a potential to understand the Magic of Creative Thinking — Natasa Nuit Pantovic

All types of knowledge ultimately lead to self-knowledge. So, therefore, these people are asking me to teach them, not so much how to defend themselves or how to do somebody in. Rather, they want to learn to express themselves through some movement, be it anger, be it determination or whatever. So, in other words, they're paying me to show them, in combative form, the art of expressing the human body. — Bruce Lee

Self-preservation and determination meant she could get away with anything. As her law-abiding, conventionally minded daughter, I secretly envied her this. She was not the clinging-vine type, nor one who could coax sugar from a lemon. Hers was the frontal attack with no inhibitions. She told the Nazis you could not trust Hitler, and they let her go. In the days of chaperones, she hitch-hiked a ride on a French destroyer along the coast of Crete; 'All quite proper, I had my cook with me,' she explained. — Mary Allsebrook

Spiritual-self consist of a determined soul and indomitable spirit. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Arrogance is a map of a road that leads to bridges that are out. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Being strong-willed is not enough, however. You also have to be hard on yourself. Someone who was strong-willed but self-indulgent would not be called determined. Determination implies your willfulness is balanced by discipline. — Paul Graham

The whole value of solitude depends upon oneself; it may be a sanctuary or a prison, a haven of repose or a place of punishment, a heaven or a hell, as we ourselves make it. — John Lubbock

It's a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature and of the concepts of liberty, freedom, and self-determination. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. He (Obama) believes that the pie is fixed and that he needs to more equitably divide up the slices. — Paul Ryan

Make time to read. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I believe in self-defense and self-determination for Africans and other oppressed people in America. — Assata Shakur

Now that the book is out in the world, I'm amazed all over again at what my friend did for me in prompting me to ditch realism for a more magical approach. In some ways, the Golem and the Jinni are the ultimate immigrants. They aren't just new to New York or America; they're new to people. Like those around them, they wrestle with issues of religion versus doubt and duty versus self-determination - but as inescapable aspects of their own otherworldly natures. For seven years I've lived with their questions, arguments, and adventures, and it's been one of the greatest gifts of my life. — Helene Wecker

Love is not a purpose, it's a paradox; it's not an end-goal, it's an auxiliary fuel source to help get there. — A.J. Darkholme

Don't let anyone tell your story. Pick up a pen and write your own. — Majid Kazmi

I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man. — Mary Wollstonecraft

My idea of feminism is self-determination, and it's very open-ended: every woman has the right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do. — Ani DiFranco

Most Americans have no memory of the designs Franklin Roosevelt's New Dealers had for postwar-American foreign policy. Human rights, self-determination and an end to European colonization in the developing world, nuclear disarmament, international law, the World Court, the United Nations - these were all ideas of the progressive left. — Kai Bird

You are a painter of success. Paint your life into a masterpiece of excellence. — Mark LaMoure

In historical and constitutional terms, the recent political status vote in Puerto Rico was a necessary but obviously not decisive step on the road of self-determination leading to full self-government. — Dick Thornburgh

Clinton's egregious act of self-indulgence was outdone by an impeachment based not on constitutionally required high crimes and misdemeanors but on a vindictive determination to bring down a president who had offended self-righteous moralists eager to put a different political agenda in place. — Robert Dallek

And so on, until you arrive at the other side, among the purely abstract self-harming: the grinding over your failures, the refusal to remember anything good, the determination to ensure - if anyone falls into the mistake of making it clear they actually like you - that the next time round they change their opinion pronto. Emotional self-cannibalism, in other words, like those tessellated pictures of a person grappling with a mirror image of himself. — Alexander Masters

The acceptance of vertical differentiation with the built-in principle of self-determination must apply on as many levels as possible. — P. W. Botha

I am not surprised by any situation. — Lailah Gifty Akita

My most earnest of all pleas to singles is abandonment of the self, surrender to Christ of all unfulfilled longings, an unequivocal willingness to receive whatever God assigns, and a determination to practice the sacrificial principle of Isaiah 58:10-11. Life becomes not only far simpler, but surprisingly joyful and free. — Elisabeth Elliot

What ultimately got me through was my single-minded determination, voiced aloud to myself and recorded in my diary, to discover the causes of my blindness and never to repeat them. Fearlessly pursuing insight was my badge of honor, my route back to self-respect. — Jeanne Safer

What's right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity - intellect and resources - to do some thing about them. — Henry Ford II

Dare to conquer your soul. — Lailah Gifty Akita

A girl should be two things: who and what she wants. — Coco Chanel

Simply being with someone is difficult because it asks of us that we share in the other's vulnerability, enter with him or her into the experience of weakness and powerlessness, become part of the uncertainty, and give up control and self-determination. — Henri Nouwen

If I follow the inclination of my nature, it is this: beggar-woman and single, far rather than queen and married. — Elizabeth I

But when did you see her, talk to me? When did you see her go into the cave? Why did you threaten to strike a spirit? You still don't understand, do you? You acknowledged her, Broud, she has beaten you. You did everything you could to her, you even cursed her. She's dead, and still she won. She was a woman, and she had more courage than you, Broud, more determination, more self-control. She was more man than you are. Ayla should have been the son of my mate. — Jean M. Auel

The historic nature of Israel's struggle for self-determination, freedom, and prosperity underscores the gravity of their circumstances and fortifies my commitment to America's responsibility as their ally. — Pete Hegseth

Dance to the music of your soul. — Lailah Gifty Akita

A man must choose his own way of life, and ... it is only by following out one's own bent that there can be the really harmonious life.
[In an interview conducted by Bram Stoker] — Winston S. Churchill

Tips can make someone a better writer but not necessarily a good writer. That's a larger package - a matter of character. Golfing is more than keeping the left arm straight. Every good golfer is a complex engine that runs on ability, ego, determination, discipline, patience, confidence, and other qualities that are self-taught. So it is with writers and all creative artists. If their values are solid their work is likely to be solid. — William Zinsser

There is a price to be paid for any accomplishment. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Is it better to work out consciously and critically one's own conception of the world and thus, in connection with the labours of one's own brain, choose one's sphere of activity, take an active part in the creation of the history of the world, be one's own guide, refusing to accept passively and supinely from outside the moulding of one' own personality? — Antonio Gramsci

Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose. — Tehyi Hsieh

The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself. — Mark Cain

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves. — William Shakespeare

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim. — Nora Ephron

The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Be awake and arise to fulfill your dreams. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Read. Learn. Write. Travel. — Lailah Gifty Akita

If one could be enraged by the loss of a favorite sports team, shouldn't his anger rise at the entrenchment of a scheme whereby no innocent person was safe, where self-determination was a crime punished by the vagaries of an opaque & impervious justice system? — Ausma Zehanat Khan

You ought to learn as best as you can. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Self-determination has to mean that the leader is your individual gut, and heart, and mind or we're talking about power, again, and its rather well-known impurities. Who is really going to care whether you live or die and who is going to know the most intimate motivation for your laughter and your tears is the only person to be trusted to speak for you and to decide what you will or will not do. — June Jordan

Our life force is a form of flowing energy, a blast of verve renewed through our ongoing daily interactions and the inevitable collisions between the id and the ego. — Kilroy J. Oldster

If you want money, you must work to earn it. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Rely on your own strength of body and soul. Take for your star self-reliance, faith, honesty and industry. Don't take too much advice - keep at the helm and steer your own ship, and remember that the great art of commanding is to take a fair share of the work. Fire above the mark you intend to hit. Energy, invincible determination with the right motive, are the levers that move the world. — Noah Porter

If you focus on the sunshine in life, you will see the darkness fade. — Lailah Gifty Akita

It was not by gentle sweetness and self-abnegation that order was brought out of chaos; it was by strict method, by stern discipline, by rigid attention to detail, by ceaseless labor, by the fixed determination of an indomitable will. — Lytton Strachey

What unified the Balochis in their quest to regain self-determination, which resulted in the 'existing state'? On the one hand, authoritarianism, militarization, and conquest has robbed them of their history and put them into the do or die situation. On the other hand, natural resources which would allow the citizens at large to achieve a respectable existence have been controlled by the military or political elites, well connected to feudal political elites in Pakistan. — Nilantha Ilangamuwa

The greatest strength is the spirit of endurance. — Lailah Gifty Akita

[I]n the end this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a Queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin. — Elizabeth I

Find the will power and begin to chase your dreams. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Personally, I believe in self-determination, but in the context of one South Africa - so that my self-determination is based in this region, and with my people. — Mangosuthu Buthelezi

In classical understanding, education is the attempt to "lead out" from within the self a core of wisdom that has the power to resist falsehood and live in the light of truth, not by external norms but by reasoned and reflective self-determination. The inward teacher is the living core of our lives that is addressed and evoked by any education worthy of the name. — Parker J. Palmer

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself. — Harvey Fierstein

Self-definition and self-determination is about the many varied decisions that we make to compose and journey toward ourselves, about the audacity and strength to proclaim, create, and evolve into who we know ourselves to be. It's okay if your personal definition is in a constant state of flux as you navigate the world. — Janet Mock

Girls, here's the truth about the Ban Bossy campaign: It's being spearheaded by a privileged group of elite feminists who have a very vested interest in stoking victim politics and exacerbating the gender divide. They actually encourage dependency and groupthink while paying lip service to empowerment and self-determination. They traffic in bogus wage disparity statistics, whitewashing the fact that what's actually left of that dwindling pay gap is due to the deliberate, voluntary choices women in the workforce make. — Michelle Malkin

For human nature, being more highly pitched, selved, and distinctive than anything in the world, can have been developed, evolved,condensed, from the vastness of the world not anyhow or by the working of common powers but only by one of finer or higher pitch and determination than itself. — Gerard Manley Hopkins

Second, the PLAN doth provide that I shall support and clothe my good wife who hath returned to me with loyalty from the house of her father. For Mathon doth say that to take good care of a faithful wife putteth self respect into the heart of a man and addeth strength and determination to his purposes. — George S. Clason

Just as you cannot see, at pleasure, with your ears and you cannot, at will, hear with your eyes so too you cannot make the state act in the interests of the working people. As an organ in the social body, its purpose is for the repression of self-determination. — Rudolf Rocker

No one can ever save someone else, you know? We can only save ourselves. You know that, don't you? — Carrie Jones

I'll fight when needed, revel when there's an occasion, mourn when there is greif and die if my time comes ... But I will not let anyone use me against my will. — Christopher Paolini

Life ahead holds much more opportunities. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Praise Roxane Gay for her big-hearted self-examining intelligence, for her inclusive and forgiving stance, for her courage and determination ... for saying out loud the things we were thinking, for guiding us back to ourselves and returning to us what was ours all along. — Pam Houston

I judge the world by my own lights
and I come by my own hand. — Catherine Madsen

She had a very traditional Catholic upbringing and that didn't deter her. On the contrary it strengthened her determination to be true to herself, to follow her heart, even though it meant enduring a lot of self-sacrifice." Intrigued — Diane Ackerman

Don't dwell too much on the past. The lessons are useful for the present and a preparation for the future. Move on! — Lailah Gifty Akita

And in this self-expression I put all the thoughts I had about her, I released the anger she made me feel, my amorous way of thinking about her, my determination to exist for her, the desire for me to be me, and for her to be her, and the love for myself that I put in my love for her
all the things that could be said only in that conch shell wound into a spiral. — Italo Calvino

Two great appetites of the soul - the urge to independence and self-determination and the urge to self-transcendence - were fused with, and interpreted in the light of, a third - the urge to worship — Aldous Huxley

Fate is unalterable only in the sense that given a cause, a certain result must follow, but no cause is inevitable in itself, and man can shape his world if he does not resign himself to ignorance. — Pearl S. Buck

According to Callero, "Freedom of choice and self-determination are virtuous principles, but when selfish individual interests threaten to destroy the common good, the limits of individualism are exposed."4 Unfortunately but predictably, Callero is vague when it comes to defining "the common good" - a catchphrase with many variations that has been used by murderous dictators throughout history. May we therefore say that the "common good," when pushed to extremes, results in the likes of Stalin and Hitler? — George H. Smith

The achievement of dreams demands 100 percent dedication. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Work hard to fulfill your dreams. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Person-centred counselling may be thought of as 'not enough'. In my experience it is. It allows for self-determination through an acknowledgement of a person's human rights. — Suzanne Keys

I have patient to wait for what I desire. — Lailah Gifty Akita

A man don't always have to eat what he's standing life. If he wants, a man can fix a meal of his own choosing. — Nathan McCall

Chastity ... has, even now, a religious importance in a woman's life, and has so wrapped itself round with nerves and instincts that to cut it free and bring it to the light of day demands courage of the rarest. — Virginia Woolf

Humankind is an instinctive creature that is capable of feelings and rational thoughts, which accounts for why such a rich diversity exists amongst human nature. A person's unique personality is simply a crystallization of particular aspects of human nature. Freedom of thought and expression ensures that no person replicates another person's exact persona. Every person is a creature of predicable needs and impulses, infused with the poetry of multifaceted feelings, and ruled by a scientifically calculated instrument capable of precision of thought. — Kilroy J. Oldster