Quotes & Sayings About Self Sufficiency

This time Elizabeth Ann didn't answer, because she herself didn't know what the matter was. But I do, and I'll tell you. The matter was that never before had she known what she was doing in school. She had always thought she was there to pass from one grade to another, and she was ever so startled to get a little glimpse of the fact that she was there to learn how to read and write and cipher and generally use her mind, so she could take care of herself when she came to be grown up. Of course, she didn't really know that till she did come to be grown up, but she had her first dim notion of it in that moment, and it made her feel the way you do when you're learning to skate and somebody pulls away the chair you've been leaning on and says, "Now, go it alone! — Dorothy Canfield Fisher

I'm stoned on my music. I'm intoxicated by my joyful calendar between the tours, and the hunting, and the charity work, and the family time, and just my lifestyle living on a ranch in Texas and back when I lived on my ranch in Michigan. It's the epitome of individual independence, self-sufficiency, hands-on, earthly celebration and we tour every summer like complete animals. — Ted Nugent

Learn to spot and avoid "writer groupies." The writer's self-sufficiency and our love for our work tend to attract insecure people who never can get enough love. They grow jealous of our work and come to regard it as a rival. These people can destroy you, so kick them out of your life or don't admit them in the first place. — Florence King

Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, which is most greatly experienced in the heart of those willing to surrender all self-sufficiency: self-promotion, self-reliance, self-protection, and self-absorption: it is a gift given. — Robin M. Bertram

Meekness implies a spirit of gratitude as opposed to an attitude of self-sufficiency, an acknowledgement of a greater power beyond oneself, a recognition of God, and an acceptance of his commandments. — Gordon B. Hinckley

The world passed through Mecca, but did not stay long enough to interfere. Arabs were able to develop their own ideology and could interpret the knowledge and expertise of their more sophisticated neighbors as they chose. They were not pressured to convert to an alien religion or conform to official orthodoxy. The closed circle of both the trade cycle and the hajj rituals symbolized their proud self-sufficiency, which, as the years passed, would become a mark of their urban culture. — Karen Armstrong

Only the self-sufficient stand alone - most people follow the crowd and imitate. — Bruce Lee

For all those who longed to find a best friend and found it in themselves — Sandra Kring

One thing that happens when you have an alcoholic for a parent is you grow up the child of an alcoholic. ... For a quick trip around the bases, it means you blame yourself for everything, you avoid reality, you can't trust people, you're hungry to please. Which isn't all bad: perfectionism makes the straight-A student; lack of trust begets self-sufficiency; low self-esteem can be a terrific motivator; if everyone were so gung-ho on reality, there'd be no art. — Maria Semple

Words of the hero: "I am my fate. — Marty Rubin

Lincoln himself once said, "The worst things you can do for those you love are the things they could and should do for themselves." He fiercely believed in self-sufficiency, and in the maturity and character that struggles and hardships can bring. — John Wooden

For some reason we human beings seem to learn best how to love when we're a bit broken, when our plans fall apart, when our myths of our self-sufficiency and goodness and safety are shattered. — Kathleen Norris

If you'd called me an ox, I'd have said I was an ox; if you'd called me a horse, I'd have said I was a horse. If the reality is there and you refuse to accept the name men give it, you'll only lay yourself open to double harassment. — Zhuangzi

It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm. — Sam Levenson

The essential cultural discrimination is not between having and not having or haves and have-nots, but between the superfluous and the indispensable. Wisdom, it seems to me, is always poised upon the knowledge of minimums; it might be thought to be the art of minimums. Granting the frailty, and no doubt the impermanence, of modern technology as a human contrivance, the man who can keep a fire in a stove or on a hearth is not only more durable, but wiser, closer to the meaning of fire, than the man who can only work a thermostat. — Wendell Berry

Listening to the music while stretching her body close to its limit, she was able to attain a mysterious calm. She was simultaneously the torturer and the tortured, the forcer and the forced. This sense of inner-directed self-sufficiency was what she wanted most of all. It gave her deep solace. — Haruki Murakami

Nuclear power generation has been given a thrust by the use of uranium-based fuel which US is set to supply to India if the deal comes through. However, there would be a requirement for ten-fold increase in nuclear power generation even to attain a reasonable degree of energy self-sufficiency for our country. — Abdul Kalam

Self-sufficiency, independence, the capacity to stand apart, to differ, to resist, and to defy-all are modes of being human. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The sorrow of God lies in our fear of Him, our fear of life, and our fear of ourselves. He anguishes over our self-absorption and self-sufficiency ... God's sorrow lies in our refusal to approach Him when we sinned and failed. — Brennan Manning

Individuals motivated by self-interest, self-indulgence, and a false sense of self-sufficiency pursue selfish ambition for the purpose of self-glorification. — C.J. Mahaney

After tea, when both Mrs Fisher and Lady Caroline had disappeared again - it was quite evident that nobody wanted her - she was more dejected than ever, overwhelmed by the discrepancy between the splendour outside her, the warm, teeming beauty and self-sufficiency of nature, and the blank emptiness of her heart. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

All varieties of the producers' policy are advocated on the ground of their alleged ability to raise the party members' standard of living. Protectionism and economic self-sufficiency, labor union pressure and compulsion, labor legislation, minimum wage rates, public spending, credit expansion, subsidies, and other makeshifts are always recommended by their advocates as the most suitable or the only means to increase the real income of the people for whose votes they canvass. Every contemporary statesman or politician invariably tells his voters: My program will make you as affluent as conditions may permit, while my adversaries' program will bring you want and misery. — Ludwig Von Mises

Through practical life exercises, your child will gain confidence, self-sufficiency and the ability to properly interact with others in their world. The focus of practical life activities should be how to care for themselves and their environment, as well as safely maneuvering through it. Think along the lines of proper hand washing, dressing oneself, opening a door, carrying scissors, watering a plant, taking care of their workspace, etiquette, etc. We will later discuss a few specific activities for practical life, however you will be presented with countless opportunities throughout the day that require no planning, but rather a keen eye to acknowledge them as they occur. — Sterling Production

Even after a peak parenting experience, children never transition to a fully self-tuning physiology. Adults remain social animals: they continue to require a source of stabilization outside themselves. That open-loop design means that in some important ways, people cannot be stable on their own - not should or shouldn't be, but can't be. This prospect is disconcerting to many, especially in a society that prizes individuality as ours does. Total self-sufficiency turns out to be a daydream whose bubble is burst by the sharp edge of the limbic brain. Stability means finding people who regulate you well and staying near them. (86) — Thomas Lewis

Sinner, I would be loth to have thy soul destroyed by wilful self-delusion ... So consequently, there is a despair which is a grievous sin; and there is a despair which is absolutely necessary to thy salvation. I would not have thee despair of the sufficiency of the blood of Christ to save thee, if thou believe, and heartily obey him; nor of the willingness of God to pardon and save thee, if thou be such a one; nor yet absolutely of thy own salvation; because, while there is life and time, there is some hope of thy conversion, and so of thy salvation ... Never stick at the sadness of the conclusion, man, but acknowledge plainly, If I die before I get out of this estate, I am lost forever. It is as good deal truly with thyself as not; God will not flatter thee, he will deal plainly whether thou do or not. The very truth is, this kind of despair is one of the first steps to heaven(233). — Richard Baxter

I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ's sufficiency]. PHILIPPIANS 4:13 — Joyce Meyer

The opinions of others cannot damage you. — Veronica Roth

The business of procuring the necessities of life has been shifted from the wood lot, the garden, the kitchen and the family to the factory and the large-scale enterprise. In our case, we moved our center back to the land. — Helen Nearing

If you have a high-way on Everest, you don't meet the mountain. If everything is prepared, and you have a guide who is responsible for your security, you cannot meet the mountain. Meeting mountains is only possible if you ... are out there in self-sufficiency. — Reinhold Messner

Nationalism has two fatal charms for its devotees: It presupposes local self-sufficiency, which is a pleasant and desirable condition, and it suggests, very subtly, a certain personal superiority by reason of one's belonging to a place which is definable and familiar, as against a place that is strange, remote. — E.B. White

Indeed, the keynote of government is injustice. With the arrogance and self-sufficiency of the King who could do no wrong, governments ordain, judge, condemn, and punish the most insignificant offenses, while maintaining themselves by the greatest of all offenses, the annihilation of individual liberty. — Emma Goldman

Self sufficiency appears to be a worthy goal, but it's now impossible if you want to actually get anything done. All our productivity, leverage and insight comes from being part of a community, not apart from it. The goal, I think, is to figure out how to become more dependent, not less. — Seth Godin

The store customer, who comes home with a package under his arm has learned nothing, except that a ten dollar bill is a source of power in the market place. The man or woman who has converted material into needed products via tools and skills has matured in the process. — Helen Nearing

The consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to plant their whole life in the hands of some other person. I would describe this method of searching for happiness as immature. Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency. — Quentin Crisp

English restrictive legislation merely hastened the process and inadvertently pushed Americans toward self-sufficiency. At — Robert G. Ahearn

You can leave a kid alone and it will learn to fend for itself, how to work the remote, a tin opener, and the microwave. I see the holidays as a chance for kids to learn self-sufficiency. — Al Murray

When will we learn, when will the people of the world get up and say, enough is enough? God created us for fellowship. God created us so that we should form the human family, existing together because we were made for one another. We are not made for an exclusive self-sufficiency but for interdependence and we break the law of our being at our peril. — Desmond Tutu

It must not be supposed that happiness will demand many or great possessions; for self-sufficiency does not depend on excessive abundance, nor does moral conduct, and it is possible to perform noble deeds even without being ruler of land and sea: one can do virtuous acts with quite moderate resources. This may be clearly observed in experience: private citizens do not seem to be less but more given to doing virtuous actions than princes and potentates. It is sufficient then if moderate resources are forthcoming; for a life of virtuous activity will be essentially a happy life. — Aristotle.

Over the years, Americans in particular have been all too willing to squander their hard-earned independence and freedom for the illusion of feeling safe under someone else's authority. The concept of self-sufficiency has been undermined in value over a scant few generations. The vast majority of the population seems to look down their noses upon self-reliance as some quaint dusty relic, entertained only by the hyperparanoid or those hopelessly incapable of fitting into mainstream society. — Cody Lundin

Freedom is the greatest fruit of self sufficiency. — Epicurus

Water has never known thirst. — Marty Rubin

Singleness would be recognized as a vital stage of the journey to maturation, a time to learn about who we are, to learn responsibility and self-sufficiency, to identify our true desires, and to confront our inner strengths and demons. — Harville Hendrix

Sometimes God has to remind you that you're weak so that you can be set free from your "self-sufficiency." — Tullian Tchividjian

My sufficiency is in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. — Lailah Gifty Akita

If God were always visible, humans could not exist at all. "No one can see Me and live," says God. "If we continue to hear the voice of God, we will die," say the Israelites at Sinai. But if God is always invisible, hidden, imperceptible, then what difference does His existence make? It will always be as if He were not there. The answer to this dilemma is holiness. Holiness represents those points in space and time where God becomes vivid, tangible, a felt presence. Holiness is a break in the self-sufficiency of the material world, where infinity enters space and eternity enters time. In relation to time, it is Shabbat. In relation to space, it is the Tabernacle. These, in the Torah, are the epicentres of the sacred. — Jonathan Sacks

Many of us have a tendency to forget the Gracious Hand which has preserved our nation, enriched it, strengthened it. Many of us imagine in the foolishness of pride, that our manifold blessings are due not to God's goodness, but to our own wisdom and virtue. Too many of us have been so drunk with self-sufficiency as no longer to feel the need of prayer. — Ezra Taft Benson

All global ambitions are based on a definition of productivity and the good life so alienated from common human reality that I am convinced it is wrong and that most people would agree with me if they could perceive an alternative. We might be able to see that if we regained a hold on a philosophy that locates meaning where meaning is genuinely to be found - in families, in friends, in the passage of seasons, in nature, in simple ceremonies and rituals, in curiosity, generosity, compassion, and service to others, in a decent independence and privacy, in all the free and inexpensive things out of which real families, real friends, and real communities are built - then we would be so self-sufficient we would not even need the material "sufficiency" which our global "experts" are so insistent we be concerned about. — John Taylor Gatto

At thirty-nine, I learned how to change a tyre, how to shovel snow, how to stack wood. I learned how to meet a deadline without a shoulder to whine on. I became obsessed with firewood. If only there was alsways a fire in the fireplace, I knew that everything would be all right. (Prometheus must have been a women. I reverted to my ancient nature: inventing fire all day, having my liver plucked out all night.) — Erica Jong

The Pharisees weren't teachable; you couldn't tell them anything. So many people are like that; they profess Christ but don't want to hear all that true Christianity demands. The call to self-denial, they reject. They hold high their own ideas, goals, and designs. They want to go their way, and when you try to teach the right way instead, they don't want to hear it. It's not because they're unteachable Christians; it's because they're sham Christians. The one who digs deep empties himself of self-righteousness and self-sufficiency, casts aside his own visions and experiences, and builds on the Word of God for God's glory and not his own. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

The first essential responsibility of the state is control of the market-place: there must be some official charged with the duty of seeing that honest dealing and good order prevail. For one of the well-nigh essential activities of all states is the buying and selling of goods to meet their mutual basic needs; this is the quickest way to self-sufficiency, which seems to be what moves men to combine under a single constitution. — Aristotle.

Really there are very few adults these days who possess the mental and emotional self-sufficiency necessary for leading satisfactory existence in these remote parts.
When the day light lasts for only five or six hours, when the Never Silent - as the Norsemen called the wind - howls down the corries and the snow is lying so deep that even the deer are unable to reach the croft in search of food, then one learns what it means to be cut off from the outside world, and either one grows to accept and appreciate spells of complete isolation, or else the isolation begins to sap one's confidence and to terrify. — Rowena Farre

[H]e developed a private philosophy of total self-reliance, an unyielding internal sufficiency that requires no external support from others. — Chinua Achebe

They thrived on the rapid turnover of acquaintances, the lack of involvement with others, and the total self-sufficiency of lives which, needing nothing, were never dissapointed. — J.G. Ballard

Above all, don't overestimate your own power as an individual. Founders are important not because they are the only ones whose work has value, but rather because a great founder can bring out the best work from everybody at his company. That we need individual founders in all their peculiarity does not mean that we are called to worship Ayn Randian "prime movers" who claim to be independent of everybody around them. In this respect Rand was a merely half-great writer: her villains were real, but her heroes were fake. There is no Galt's Gulch. There is no secession from society. To believe yourself invested with divine self-sufficiency is not the mark of a strong individual, but of a person who has mistaken the crowd's worship - or jeering - for the truth. The single greatest danger for a founder is to become so certain of his own myth that he loses his mind. But an equally insidious danger for every business is to lose all sense of myth and mistake disenchantment for wisdom. — Anonymous

You cannot want more for people than they want for themselves. — Johnnie Dent Jr.

I thought you'd be entirely self-sufficient.""Oh I am," I shoot back. "You should see my vibrator collection. — Karina Halle

Associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty; but learn to be happy alone. — Saul Bellow

We in the West seem to have made a fetish out of complete individual self-sufficiency, of not needing help, of being completely private except in a very few selected relationships. — Carl Rogers

The myth of self-sufficiency blinds us to the workings of other forces in family life. For families are not now, nor were they ever, the self-sufficient building blocks of society, exclusively responsible, praiseworthy, and blamable for their own destiny. They are deeply influenced by broad social and economic forces over which they have little control. — Kenneth Keniston

By depriving Rejewski of the keys, Langer believed he was preparing him for the inevitable time when the keys would no longer be available. He knew that if war broke out it would be impossible for Schmidt to continue to attend covert meetings, and Rejewski would then be forced to be self-sufficient. Langer thought that Rejewski should practice self-sufficiency in peacetime, as preparation for what lay ahead. — Simon Singh

I have always found that my view of success has been iconoclastic: success to me is not about money or status or fame, its about finding a livelihood that brings me joy and self-sufficiency and a sense of contributing to the world. — Anita Roddick

So if it's so important for you to be self-sufficient, why do you call my self-sufficiency stubborn? Why can't I be self-sufficient too?" Her voice got strangely hoarse on the last words, and it wasn't because she wanted to cry.
He lifted the hand that had been caressing her back and cupped her cheek with it instead. "Because I'm here", he murmured. "Because I'm here, and I want to help you. — Noelle Adams

She doesn't have any terrific talent for acting, but that's how it appears to go. People don't do what they have a talent for but what the preoccupation leads to. If they're good at auto-repairing they have to sing Don Giovanni; if they can sing they have to be architects; and if they have a gift for architecture they wish to become school superintendents or abstract painters or anything else. Anything! It's a spite. It's having to prove full and ultimate self-sufficiency or some such monster dream that you don't need anyone else to do these things for you. — Saul Bellow

The experience of love and the experience of death destroy the illusion of our self-sufficiency. The two are closely connected, and to become fully human we must experience both of them. — David Steindl-Rast

The concept of loneliness and exile and self-sufficiency continually bucks me up. — Christopher Hitchens

Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth . — Epicurus

The bike does this; it is an apotheosis of self-sufficiency, in which a well-loved machine will unhesitatingly and quietly mediate intentional being into momentum. As you ride a bike and start to ride it well, there are moments when it becomes an affirmation of life devoid of separation and distinction; you ride through the earth unthinkingly rather than across it. There is no need to account for who you are in others' terms, in language, even. Your characteristics give way to your being. The effort put into the bike can take you out of your socialized, represented self into what Heidegger called 'disclosing self', where you simply are ever-shifting endeavour. — Robin Holt

The myth of self-sufficiency demands optimism without end, downplays life's challenges, and shames us when, inevitably, we fall short. — Ashton Applewhite

Our sinful nature breeds envy, self-sufficiency, entitlement, and transgression. Envy, self-sufficiency, entitlement, and transgression breed isolation. Isolation breeds life problems (emotional, behavioral, rela-tional). — Henry Cloud

My self is all to me. I don't have any need of you. — Joyce Carol Oates

Singlehood is about finding and committing to the love of your life. I'm talking about the literal love of your life. Being in a place of self-sufficiency, strength, independence, comfort, confidence, and happiness is what matters. No relationship, no matter how seemingly perfect and compatible you are, can give you these things. You have to find them within. You have to bring them to your relationship. Because in the end, you don't have to be alone to be single. And being single doesn't mean that you are alone. — Elisa Lorello

I might be alone, but i'm never lonely. — Megan Hart

[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

How does our self-sufficiency ruin safety? Primarily by preventing us from experiencing our impoverishment. People who "have it together" are not hungry, or thirsty, for others. They do not feel a lack within when they're alone or in distress. They do not connect with other people, because they do not experience any need for it. — Henry Cloud

Great literature will insist upon its self-sufficiency in the face of the worthiest causes — Harold Bloom

The dangers of apparent self-sufficiency explain why Our Lord regards the vices of the feckless and dissipated so much more leniently than the vices that lead to worldly success. — C.S. Lewis

The greatest fruit of self-sufficiency is freedom. — Epicurus

And such in fact is the behaviour of the specialist. In politics, in art, in social usages, in the other sciences, he will adopt the attitude of primitive, ignorant man; but he will adopt them forcefully and with self-sufficiency, and will not admit of- this is the paradox- specialists in those matters. By specialising him, civilisation has made him hermetic and self-satisfied within his limitations; but this very inner feeling of dominance and worth will induce him to wish to predominate outside his speciality. The result is that even in this case, representing a maximum of qualification in man- specialisation- and therefore the thing most opposed to the mass-man, the result is that he will behave in almost all spheres of life as does the unqualified, the mass-man. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

History and literature rebuke our self-sufficiency; that's one reason why we ought to study them. It's not so much that people of olden times were the finest exemplars of higher humanity, for they too fell short of their ideals, as must all who aspire to higher things--that's what ideals are for. It's that we have abandoned those ideals once animating our civilization, refusing to learn them anew with each generation. We have assumed their transfer to be automatic. We have not indeed jettisoned the hope and drive that keep us working for a better world (that's the good news), but we have forgotten to cultivate ourselves as individuals. — Tracy Lee Simmons

A breath, to keep one going, must be one's own. — Marty Rubin

I felt my own self-sufficiency, my own Walden Pond, seeping out of me as if I'd sprung a leak. Self soaked into everything around me - the floor, the walls, the one window, the grass. The words on the page. — Olivia Sudjic

The denial of assistance is sometimes the greatest assistance. The trick is recognizing when this is the case. — Richelle E. Goodrich

And partly, the worst thing you could do in my family was need something from someone. So physical strength represented an avenue of self-sufficiency to me. — Alison Bechdel

Superiority makes every man feel its equal. It is courtesy without condescension; affability without familiarity; self-sufficiency without selfishness; simplicity without snide. It weighs sixteen ounces to the pound without the package, and it doesn't need a four-colored label to make it go. — George Horace Lorimer

In the early nineteenth century, the doctrine of self-sufficiency came to apply to families as well as individuals ... The familybecame a special protected place, the repository of tender, pure, and generous feelings (embodied by the mother) and a bulwark and bastion against the raw, competitive, aggressive, and selfish world of commerce (embodied by the father) ... In performing this protective task, the good family was to be as self-sufficient as the good man. — Kenneth Keniston

The amount of satisfaction you get from life depends largely on your own ingenuity, self-sufficiency, and resourcefulness. People who wait around for life to supply their satisfaction usually find boredom instead. — William C. Menninger

I am determined to seek self-sufficiency in energy as an urgent national priority. My goal is to make America independent of foreign energy sources by 1985. — Gerald R. Ford

In Sweden, self-sufficiency and autonomy is all; [interpersonal] debt of any kind, be it emotional, a favor, or cash, is to be avoided at all cost. The Swedes don't even like to owe a round of drinks. — Michael Booth

the bottom line of assurance comes when you stop analyzing and you look to Christ and you look and you look and you look until Christ himself in his glory and his sufficiency by reflex, as it were, awakens a self-forgetful "Yes!" to him. — John Piper

We must rip the foundations out from under all the bastions of human reasoning that say, "I don't need God!" We must demolish every non-God story of life. We must pulverize every God-is-not-good life narrative. — James MacDonald

I don't want anyone to look to me, not for protection, not for happiness, not for love, not for anything. — P.D. James

Self-sufficiency which first reared its head in the Garden of Eden, is the most fatal sin because it pulls us as if by a magnet that their lack of self-sufficiency is obvious to them every day. They must turn somewhere for strength, and sometimes they go through life relying on their natural gifts. But there's a chance, just a chance, that people who lack such natural advantages may cry out to God in their time of need. — Philip Yancey

The idea of dependence is an explanation, whereas self-sufficiency is an unprecedented, nonanalogous concept in terms of what we know about life within nature. Is not self-sufficiency itself insufficient to explain self-sufficiency? — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Recognizing that family self-sufficiency is a false myth, we also need to acknowledge that all today's families need help in raising children. The problem is not so much to reeducate parents but to make available the help they need and to give them enough power so that they can be effective advocates with and coordinators of the other forces that are bringing up their children. — Kenneth Keniston

I should understand the land, not as a commodity, an inert fact to be taken for granted, but as an ultimate value, enduring and alive, useful and beautiful and mysterious and formidable and comforting, beneficent and terribly demanding, worthy of the best of man's attention and care ... [My father] insisted that I learn to do the hand labor that the land required, knowing
and saying again and again
that the ability to do such work is the source of a confidence and an independence of character that can come no other way, not by money, not by education. — Wendell Berry

But certainly, their lives are such as very often produce either inordinate self-sufficiency, or a morbid state of conscience. — Elizabeth Gaskell

Judgment is not the last word; it is never the last word. Judgment is necessary because of centuries of hardheartedness; its proper work is to open our hearts to the reality beyond ourselves, to crack the carapace of self-sufficiency so that we can experience the inrushing grace of the healing, merciful, forgiving God. — Eugene H. Peterson

To be specific, the self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them — A.W. Tozer

The police state We now have well over 100,000 domestic federal law enforcement agents armed and ready to enforce the laws to "make everyone safe and secure." We also have our TSA "friends" at the airports protecting us with an army of over 50,000 bureaucrats. The Department of Homeland Security has more than 240,000 employees. The FBI has about 35,000 employees. Around 90,000 IRS employees enforce draconian tax laws that limit self-sufficiency, put people in fear, and are used as a political tool to help suppress dissenters to the empire. There are many thousands of others "making sure we're safe and secure from our foreign enemies" while our domestic enemies, including politicians, bureaucrats, and government profiteers, are ignored. — Ron Paul

The wise man who has become accustomed to necessities knows better how to share with others than how to take from them, so great a treasure of self-sufficiency has he found. — Epicurus