“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more
unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”...“I'll walk where my
own nature would be leading. It vexes me to choose another guide.” ~
Charlotte Bronte', "Jane Eyre"
“It was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it. I knew what happened when you let yourself get close to someone, when you started to believe they loved you; you'd be disappointed.
Depend on someone, and you might as well admit you're
going to be crushed, because when you really needed them, they wouldn't
be there. Either that, or you'd confide in them and you added to their
problems. All you ever really had was yourself.” ~ Jodi Picoult, "Handle
With Care "
“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.”
~ Walt Whitman, "Leaves of Grass"
“Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have
never been. Sleep out alone under the stars. Learn how to drive a stick
shift. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say
no when you don’t want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are
strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide whether you want
to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important than
finding out what you’re doing here. Believe in kissing.” ~ Eve Ensler
“Don't compromise yourself. You're all you've got.” ~ Janis Joplin
“I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. I've just done
what I damn well wanted to, and I've made enough money to support
myself, and ain't afraid of being alone.” ~ Katharine Hepburn
“You can't trust other people. If it's important, you have to do it yourself.” ~ Neil Gaiman, "The Graveyard Book"
“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” ~ Michel de Montaigne
“I don't need anyone to hold me, I can hold my own.” ~ Ani DiFranco
“If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.” ~Napoleon Bonaparte
“I think the girl who is able to earn her own living and pay her own
way should be as happy as anybody on earth. The sense of independence
and security is very sweet.” ~ Susan B. Anthony
“Sure, it
sucked to be lost, but I'd long ago realized I preferred it to depending
on anyone else to get me where I needed to go. That was the thing about
being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened- good, bad,
or anywhere in between- it was always, if nothing else, all your own.” ~
Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key
“Associate with noblest people
you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty. But learn to be
happy alone. Rely upon your own energies, and so not wait for, or
depend on other people.” ~ Thomas Davidson
“Remember, this is important: Never trust that you will be saved by anyone.” ~ Amanda Boyden, "Pretty Little Dirty"
“In yourself right now is all the place you've got.” ~ Flannery O'Connor, "Wise Blood "
“Maybe your country is only a place you make up in your own mind.
Something you dream about and sing about. Maybe it's not a place on the
map at all, but just a story full of people you meet and places you
visit, full of books and films you've been to. I'm not afraid of being
homesick and having no language to live in. I don't have to be like
anyone else. I'm walking on the wall and nobody can stop me.” ~ Hugo
Hamilton, "The Speckled People: A Memoir of a Half-Irish Childhood "
“Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong..” ~ Winston Churchill
"Take my advice: Don't think you will find it in another person. You
won't. It's not there. You must find it in yourself.”" ~ Iain Pears,
"The Dream of Scipio"
“Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.” ~ Henry David Thoreau, "Walden"
“Love unconditionally, but rely only on yourself.” ~ Marty Rubin
“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every
moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of
the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half
possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach
him.”...“Truly speaking, it is not instruction, but provocation, that I
can receive from another soul. What he announces, I must find true in
me, or reject; and on his word, or as his second, be he who he may, I
can accept nothing.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Here must thou be, O man,
Strength to thyself — no helper hast thou here —
Here keepest thou thy individual state:
No other can divide with thee this work,
No secondary hand can intervene
To fashion this ability. 'Tis thine,
The prime and vital principle is thine
In the recesses of thy nature, far
From any reach of outward fellowship,
Else 'tis not thine at all.”
~ William Wordsworth
"Some tough battles have to be fought alone. Some paths have to be
crossed alone. So never be emotionally attached to anyone. You never
know when you will have to walk alone." ~ Halona Leonora
