Quotes Tagged "self-determination"

Human evolution is essentially the progression of information gathering (knowledge) and consciousness, or the advancement in wisdom. A wise person is willing to learn at all stages of life by using their cognitive abilities open-mindedly to examine contradictory beliefs, and rationally meld various schools of thought into a living philosophy, developing over time a logical and systematic method to maintain and evaluate oneself in order to assist a person not merely survive but thrive.

I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in Sir Sidney Lee's life of the poet. She died young--alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop, opposite the Elephant and Castle. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the crossroads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh.

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.

The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.

I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists. I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings are only the objects of pity, and that kind of love which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.

Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please me.

LEONATO Well, then, go you into hell? BEATRICE No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.

LEONATO Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband. BEATRICE Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.

If [God] send me no husband, for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening ...

Obviously, a rigid, blinkered, absolutist world view is the easiest to keep hold of, whereas the fluid, uncertain, metamorphic picture I've always carried about is rather more vulnerable. Yet I must cling with all my might to … my own soul; must hold on to its mischievous, iconoclastic, out-of-step clown-instincts, no matter how great the storm. And if that plunges me into contradiction and paradox, so be it; I've lived in that messy ocean all my life. I've fished in it for my art. This turbulent sea was the sea outside my bedroom window in Bombay. It is the sea by which I was born, and which I carry within me wherever I go.

Control Your Own Destiny or Someone Else Will

Regardless of how low a person stoops, it is never too late to uncover a redemptive epiphany. Can I mine an inspirational ray of motivation from my darkest thoughts that allows me to confront the commonplace disorders and tragic interruptions of life? What physical, mental, and emotional strumming make up the tinderbox that produces the moral tension that gives meaning to the life of an ordinary person? Amongst the chaos, confusion, and compromises that mark existence, how do we go about understanding ourselves? How do we become in touch with our personal band of raw emotions? Does self-transformation commence by admitting illicit impulses, irrational thoughts, disturbing habits, mythic misgivings, and stinted worldview? Do we learn through deconstructing our maverick experiences or through intellectual abstraction? In order to move forward in life, is it sometimes necessary to dissect ourselves? Would it prove helpful systematically to take apart nightmarish experiences that seemly never let go of a person?

Life has a tendency to provide a person with what they need in order to grow. Our beliefs, what we value in life, provide the roadmap for the type of life that we experience. A period of personal unhappiness reveals that our values are misplaced and we are on the wrong path. Unless a person changes their values and ideas, they will continue to experience discontentment.

It may take little time to get where you want to be, but if you pause and think for a moment, you will notice that you are no longer where you were. Do not stop—keep going.

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

Our success is directly related to our clarity and honesty about who we are, who we’re not, where we want to go, and how we’re going to get there.

We cannot judge each minor or even major vignettes of life as a final statement of our worth. The totality of our deeds comprises our final scorecard. If a person struggles in the earnest quest of accomplishing their ultimate destination, their demonstrative sincerity exhibited traveling with an open mind and displaying disciplined application of assiduous effort to improve their own self, while unselfishly avoiding harming other people provides a measure of satisfaction, even if a person fails to attain his or her ultimate visage.

Every step in life is a testing ground. Some active and perceptive people never stop blossoming regardless of what experience they encounter while other people seem to wilt with the slightest provocation.

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.

Let every man be master of his time.