Self Initiative Quotes & Sayings

(...) psychiatrists today recognize the contortionist's act that was required of women in an age when they were expected to stifle their own healthiest impulses. (...) "To be able to renounce your own achievements without feeling that you were sacrificing requires constant effort. To be lovely and unaggressive, a woman spends a lifetime keeping hostile or resentful impulses down. Even healthy self-assertion is often sacrificed since it may be mistaken by hostility. Therefore, [women] often repress their initiative, give up their aspirations, and unfortunately end up excessively dependent with a deep sense of insecurity and uncertainty about their abilities and their worth. — Colette Dowling

Sir Alric is big on self-motivation, initiative, that kind of guff. — Gabriella Poole

You see, I have come to believe in self-help, individual initiative, the love of what you do, and the full development of all individuals. I am constantly disappointed by how little we expect of ourselves and of the world. — Hanif Kureishi

You are essentially who you create yourself to be and all that occurs in your life is the result of your own making. — Stephen Richards

It is hope in this wider sense which enabled my father to build, from scratch, one of India's largest modern enterprises. His was an undertaking powered by hard work, initiative, self-belief but, above all else, the capacity, as he would often say, "to dream with your eyes wide open". — Anil Ambani

What would you call America's most priceless asset? Surely not its limitless natural resources, not its matchless national wealth, not its unequalled store of gold, not its giant factories, not its surpassing railroads, not its unprecedented volume of cheap power. Is not its most priceless asset the character of its people, their indomitable self-confidence, their transcendent vision, their sleepless initiative and, perhaps above all, their inherent, irrepressible optimism? — B.C. Forbes

If there is no God then we have no interest in the minimal religion or any other. We will not make a lie even to save civilization. But if there is, then it is so probable as to be almost axiomatic that the initiative lies wholly on His side. If He can be known it will be by self-revelation on His part, not by speculation on ours. — C.S. Lewis

If we seek spiritual heroism ourselves, the old ego is just back in control under a new name. There would not really be any change at all, but only disguise, just bogus self-improvement on our own terms. — Richard Rohr

If freedom, personal responsibility, self-initiative, honesty, integrity, and concern for others rank high in your system of values, and if they represent characteristics you would like to see in your children, then you will want to be a trustful parent. None of these can be taught by lecturing, coercion, or coaxing. They are acquired or lost through daily life experiences that reinforce or suppress them. You can help your children build these values by living them yourself and applying them in your relationship with your children. Trust promotes trustworthiness. Self-initiative and all of the traits that depend on self-initiative can develop only under conditions of freedom. — Peter Gray

If you try anything, if you try to lose weight, or to improve yourself, or to love, or to make the world a better place, you have already achieved something wonderful, before you even begin. Forget failure. If things don't work out the way you want, hold your head up high and be proud. And try again. And again. And again! — Sarah Dessen

Because of its exceptional capacity for self-criticism, the West took the initiative in abolishing slavery; the calls for abolition did not resonate even in black Africa, where rival African tribes took black prisoners to be sold as slaves in the West. — Ibn Warraq

Doing for people what they can, and ought to do for themselves, is a dangerous experiment," the great labor leader Samuel Gompers said. "In the last analysis, the welfare of the workers depends on their own initiative." The classic "liberal" believed individuals should be masters of their own destiny and the least government is the best government; these are precepts of freedom and self-reliance that are at the root of the American way and the American spirit. — Ronald Reagan

A saint is not to take the initiative toward self-realization, but toward knowing Jesus Christ. A spiritually vigorous saint never believes that his circumstances simply happen at random, nor does he ever think of his life as being divided into the secular and the sacred. He sees every situation in which he finds himself as the means of obtaining a greater knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he has an attitude of unrestrained abandon and total surrender about him. — Oswald Chambers

From the freedom to explore comes the joy of learning. From knowledge acquired by personal initiative arises the desire for more knowledge. And from mastery of the novel and beautiful world awaiting every child comes self-confidence. — E. O. Wilson

Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help ... — Mahatma Gandhi

Initiative can neither be created nor delegated. It can only spring from the self-determining individual, who decides that the wisdom of others is not always better than his own. — R. Buckminster Fuller

The exploitation agenda advocated by liberals is modeled after the dependency-inducing design of the drug dealer's business model: "We'll supply the first hit for free, and after that, you'll need us forever in order to survive." In order for the liberal scheme to succeed, all attempts at self-empowerment or individual initiative are to be met with fierce resistance and social sanction. — Angela McGlowan

To summarize, then, it appears that Christian holiness is a number of things together. It has both outward and inward aspects. Holiness is a matter of both action and motivation, conduct and character, divine grace and human effort, obedience and creativity, submission and initiative, consecration to God and commitment to people, self-discipline and self-giving, righteousness and love. It is a matter of Spirit-led law-keeping, a walk, or course of life, in the Spirit that displays the fruit of the Spirit (Christlikeness of attitude and disposition). It is a matter of seeking to imitate Jesus' way of behaving, through depending on Jesus for deliverance from carnal self-absorption and for discernment of spiritual needs and possibilities. — J.I. Packer

It's time to be the leader of your own journey. There are far too many capable people who don't pursue their dreams and goals because they let their fears and others talk them out of it. They give up before they even try, and simply let life's river flow them downstream. Choose to be stronger than that and swim upstream when you have to. Choose to do the things in life that move you and make you happy. Let others lead small lives and argue over small things. Let others cry over small wounds and leave their future in someone else's hands. If you don't take the initiative to make your own dreams a reality, you will end up working for someone else, making their dreams reality. — Anonymous

Action is the music of our life. Like music, it starts from a pause of leisure, a silence of activity which our initiative attacks; then it develops according to its inner logic, passes its climax, seeks its cadence, ends, and restores silence, leisure again. Action and leisure are thus interdependent; echoing and recalling each other, so that action enlivens leisure with its memories and anticipations, and leisure expands and raises action beyond its mere immediate self and gives it a permanent meaning. — Salvador De Madariaga

If we expected self-reliance of family groups, if we expected hardiness and resilience and initiative on the part of individuals, and if we rewarded initiative instead of dependence on government, we would not only ameliorate many of the family-related social problems we see at present, but we would also reduce our vulnerability to terrorism. People who are hardy, resilient, and self reliant are a lot harder to terrorize. — Bernard Levin

Seventy years of communism had destroyed the work ethic of an entire nation. Millions of Russians had been sent to the gulags for showing the slightest hint of personal initiative. The Soviets severely penalized independent thinkers, so the natural self-preservation reaction was to do as little as possible and hope that nobody would notice you. — Bill Browder

The quality self-confidence is not bad in youth. We rather like to see it, for it indicates usually the possession or the motive power which makes a man aggressive and enterprising. He works more vigorously if he is sure that he is nearer right than other people, and has no misgivings as to his ability to accomplish his ends. The self distrustful, self-critical young man, who is always looking for direction from somebody else is pretty sure to be left behind in the race. — The New York Sun

In the heat of leadership, with the adrenaline pumping, it is easy to convince yourself that you are not subject to the normal human frailties that can defeat ordinary mortals. You begin to act as if you are indestructible. But the intellectual, physical, and emotional challenges of leadership are fierce. So, in addition to getting on the being and assess the tolls those changes are taking. If you don't, your seemingly indestructible self can self-destruct. This, by the way, is an ideal outcome for your foes-and even friends who oppose your initiative- because no one has to feel responsible for your downfall.
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When you take "personal" attacks personally, you unwittingly conspire in one of the common ways you can be taken out of action-you make yourself the issue.
Attacks may be personal, understand that they are basically attacks on positions you represent and the role you are seeking to play — Ronald A. Heifetz

IQ tests are routinely used as weapons against Black people in particular and minority groups and poor people generally. The tests are based on white middle-class standards, and when we score low on them, the results are used to justify the prejudice that we are inferior and unintelligent. Since we are taught to believe that the tests are infallible, they have become a self-fulfilling prophecy that cuts off our initiative and brainwashes us. — Huey Newton

Citizens who over-rely on their government to do everything not only become dependent on their government, they end up having to do whatever the government demands. In the meantime, their initiative and self-respect are destroyed. — Charles Koch

Instead of preparing men for life French schools solely prepare them to occupy public functions, in which success can be attained without any necessity for
self-direction or the exhibition of the least glimmer of personal initiative. — Gustave Le Bon

The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil. It is not for you to choose what he shall know, what he shall do. It is chosen and foreordained and he only holds the key to his own secret. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sports constantly make demands on the participant for top performance, and they develop integrity, self-reliance and initiative. They teach you a lot about working in groups, without being unduly submerged in the group. — Byron White

Many supervisors will tell you what they want are people with energy, initiative, and imagination, but in reality, they feel threatened by people who have different views from theirs, and thus discourage or diminish those who carry bad news or make mistakes. Those who expect to harness the power and muscle of stallions must be self-confident, open-minded, intellectually honest, and also humble. — Lim Siong Guan

Political and social justice requires, not the disintegration of a country and destruction or humiliation of a class which shows initiative, intelligence and drive, but equality of opportunity for all, genuine freedom for self-fulfilment, in which all men irrespective of caste or creed may share. — Syama Prasad Mukherjee

The notion of marriage as a union between two sovereign selves affirms virtues like independence, initiative, and self-reliance. Yet while attending to the virtues associated with the integrity of the individual, our contemporary discourse on marriage entirely neglects the virtues that are essential to the integrity of bonds
virtues like fidelity, kindness, forgiveness, modesty, gratitude, loyalty, patience, generosity, and selflessness. — Barbara Dafoe Whitehead

Another form on sagacity and self-defence consists in reacting as seldom as possible and withdrawing from situations and relationships in which one would be condemned as it were to suspend ones 'freedom', ones initiative, and become a mere reagent. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The fear of criticism robs man of his initiative, destroys his power of imagination, limits his individuality, takes away his self-reliance, and does him damage in a hundred other ways. — Napoleon Hill

The initiative to undertake your most important duty in life is often buried beneath the accumulated debris of human habits. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Taking initiative is a form of self-empowerment. — Stephen Covey

They recognized that they had little as compared to those in the top 10 percent, but they remained Republicans until their death, believing that freedom and self-initiative is the best for them and the country. — Glenn Beck

What the carburetor, sparkplug and self-starter are to an automobile, initiative, private enterprise and executive ability are to industry as a whole, including the wage earner, wage payer, wage spender and wage saver, i.e., the investor. If the sparkplug and self-starter get out of commission, the car will come to a standstill. — William J.H. Boetcker

There is nothing that so raises a young man's self-esteem, that so contributes to the formation of his character as for him to find himself unexpectedly confronted with a task which he has to accomplish entirely on his own initiative and by his own efforts. — Stefan Zweig

This was the second job she had lost in the last eight months, and for the same reasons. Not a people person. Not a self-starter. Showed no initiative. She wanted to argue that minimum-wage jobs such as this shouldn't require initiative. She knew how to live inside an hour, how to weather the slow passing of time. She could endure boredom better than anyone she knew. Wasn't that enough? Apparently not. — Laura Lippman

According to Ehrenberg, depression spreads when the commandments and prohibitions of disciplinary society yield to self-responsibility and initiative. In reality, it is not the excess of responsibility and initiative that makes one sick, but the imperative to achieve: the new commandment of late-modern labor society. — Byung-Chul Han

There can be no doubt that the young of today have to be protected against certain poisonous effects inherent in present-day civilization. Five social diseases surround them, even in early childhood. There is the decline in fitness due to modern methods of locomotion; the decline in initiative due to the widespread disease of spectatoritis; the decline in care and skill due to the weakened tradition of craftsmanship; the decline in self-discipline due to the ever-present availability of tranquilizers and stimulants, and the decline in compassion, which William Temple called spiritual death. — Kurt Hahn

The State always moves slowly and grudgingly towards any purpose that accrues to society's advantage, but moves rapidly and with alacrity towards one that accrues to its own advantage; nor does it ever move towards social purposes on its own initiative, but only under heavy pressure, while its motion towards anti-social purposes is self-sprung. — Albert J. Nock

As soon as I decided I'd have to dig down still deeper to uncover the root of my listless withdrawal from life, I became aware of some interference from the past distracting and confusing my thoughts, causing me a sensation that was at the same time oppressive, expectant and empty. In these somewhat contradictory feelings, I came to recognize my childish sense of having run down like a clock that needed someone to wind it before it could go again; and saw that I was now no less helpless than in those far-off days when I waited for somebody to take me by the hand and tell me what to do. On my own initiative I could do nothing, take no responsibility, make no decisions only watch my existence unroll. — Anna Kavan

He's quite a bit of a snob, you know, and when he hears I'm going to marry the daughter of an earl - "
"I say, old man," I couldn't help saying, "aren't you looking ahead rather far?"
"Oh, that's all right. It's true nothing's actually settled yet, but she practically told me the other day she was fond of me."
"What!"
"Well, she said that the sort of man she liked was the self-reliant, manly man with strength, good looks, character, ambition, and initiative."
"Leave me, laddie," I said. "Leave me to my fried egg. — P.G. Wodehouse

When you take the free will out of education, that turns it into schooling. — John Taylor Gatto

Where self-interest is suppressed, it is replaced by a burdensome system of bureaucratic control that dries up the wellsprings of initiative and creativity. — P. J. O'Rourke

The social order will be all the more stable, the more it takes this fact into account and does not place in opposition personal interest and the interests of society as a whole, but rather seeks ways to bring them into fruitful harmony. In fact, where self-interest is violently suppressed, it is replaced by a burdensome system of bureaucratic control which dries up the wellsprings of initiative and creativity. When people think they possess the secret of a perfect social organization which makes evil impossible, they also think that they can use any means, including violence and deceit, in order to bring that organization into being. Politics then becomes a "secular religion" which operates under the illusion of creating paradise in this world. — Pope John Paul II

Founded on the principles of private initiative, entrepreneurship and self-employment, underpinned by the values of democracy, equality and solidarity, the co-operative movement can help pave the way to a more just and inclusive economic order. — Kofi Annan

The idea that blacks, or anyone for that matter, need the government to get ahead in life is despicable. And even more important, this idea is a failure. Our communities are just as poor as they've always been. Our schools continue to fail children. Our prisons are filled with young black men who should be at home being fathers. Our self-initiative and our self-reliance have been sacrificed in exchange for allegiance to our overseers who control us by making us dependent on them. — Elbert Guillory

we must believe that we can bend reality to our own preferences, crafting the lives we desire through disciplined learning and initiative. We mustn't wait for permission or perfect timing any longer. Instead we must be courageous and self-reliant, moving forward at a moment's notice. We must see struggle as positive and necessary for our growth and ability to innovate and serve. And we must know all that we need is accessible in the Now - there is abundance in this world to be had, and everything we need to begin the great quest toward a free and fulfilling life is already within us. Should we live from these beliefs, then we shall reach levels of motivation and happiness undreamed of by the timid masses. — Brendon Burchard

Furnish an example, stop preaching, stop shielding, don't prevent self-reliance and initiative, allow your children to develop along thier own lines. — Eleanor Roosevelt

Buddhism holds that everything is in constant flux. Thus the question is whether we are to accept change passively and be swept away by it or whether we are to take the lead and create positive changes on our own initiative. While conservatism and self-protection might be likened to winter, night, and death, the spirit of pioneering and attempting to realize ideals evokes images of spring, morning, and birth. — Daisaku Ikeda

We may as well face the fact, and face it squarely, that we are too much governed. The agencies of government have multiplied, their ramifications extended, their powers enlarged, and their sphere widened, until the whole system is top-heavy. We are drifting into dangerous and insidious paternalism, submerging the self-reliance of the citizen, and weakening the responsibility and stifling the initiative of the individual. We suffer not from too little legislation but from too much. We need fewer enactments and more repeals. — Roland H. Hartley

Happiness supports enthusiasm and empowers creativity and initiative.
Happiness makes you a better person in your private, family, and
work spheres.
Happiness keeps you healthy and lets you stick to your plans.
Cultivate happiness as the most precious flower in your Garden.
- From HAPPY DIVORCE, by Rossana Condoleo
gardenRossana Condoleo — Rossana Condoleo

There is one aspect of the change in moral values brought about by the advance of collectivism which at the present time provides special food for thought. It is that the virtues which are held less and less in esteem and which consequently become rarer and precisely those on which the British people justly prided themselves and in which they were generally agreed to excel. The virtues possessed by Anglo-Saxons in a higher degree than most other people, excepting only a few of the smaller nations, like the Swiss and the Dutch, were independence and self-reliance, individual initiative and local responsbility, the successful reliance on voluntary activity, noninterference with one's neighbor and tolerance of the different and queer, respect for custom and tradition, and a healthy suspicion of power and authority. — Friedrich Hayek

Challenge negative forces with hope, self-confidence and conviction. I believe that ambition and initiative will ultimately triumph. — Dhirubhai Ambani