109 Inspiring Independence Quotes

In the journey toward self-reliance and personal freedom, finding inspiration can be a powerful catalyst for change. At times, words have the remarkable ability to lift our spirits and guide us toward a more empowered life. Whether you're embarking on a quest for independence in your personal life, career, or mindset, the wisdom of those who have walked similar paths can offer valuable insight. In this collection, we present 109 inspiring quotes that capture the essence of independence, encouraging you to embrace your unique path with confidence and resolve. Let these words ignite your inner strength, as you unlock the vast potential within and stride forward into a future of self-discovery and liberation.

1. “When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” - Ralph Ellison

2. “Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid ... Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.” - Bertrand Russell

3. “How wrong is it for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself?” - Anais Nin

4. “Marriage is a fine institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.” - Mae West

5. “When it can be said by any country in the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them, my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars, the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive, the rational world is my friend because I am the friend of happiness. When these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and government. Independence is my happiness, the world is my country and my religion is to do good.” - Thomas Paine

6. “I am not an angel,' I asserted; 'and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me - for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all anticipate.” - Charlotte Brontë

7. “Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” - Rumi

8. “Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.” - Henry David Thoreau

9. “Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.” - Ayn Rand

10. “...it was easy to get an incomplete picture of the world if one relied solely on experts, and how important is would be to further rely on oneself” - Robert Kurson

11. “It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men.” - Mary Wollstonecraft

12. “I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.” - Charlotte Brontë

13. “Niemand hat das Recht zu gehorchen.” - Hannah Arendt

14. “I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.” - Jane Austen

15. “For it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose.” - Marcus Aurelius

16. “I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.” - Theodore Roosevelt

17. “If onlyyou could have witnessed howmuch I have changed: sit alonein a disused theatre and feel whatI have felt, see how the world hastransformed me, like the metamorphosisof a caterpillar.” - Kiera Woodhull

18. “I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.” - Mary Wollstonecraft

19. “It’s probably not just by chance that I’m alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he’s terribly strong. And if he’s stronger than I, I’m the one who can’t live with him. … I’m neither smart nor stupid, but I don’t think I’m a run-of-the-mill person. I’ve been in business without being a businesswoman, I’ve loved without being a woman made only for love. The two men I’ve loved, I think, will remember me, on earth or in heaven, because men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness. I’ve done my best, in regard to people and to life, without precepts, but with a taste for justice.” - Coco Chanel

20. “We need to help people to discover the true meaning of love. Love is generally confused with dependence. Those of us who have grown in true love know that we can love only in proportion to our capacity for independence.” - Fred Rogers

21. “Where we choose to be, where we choose to be--we have the power to determine that in our lives. We cannot reel time backward or forward, but we can take ourselves to the place that defines our being.” - Sena Jeter Naslund

22. “Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.” - Ayn Rand

23. “Seek out the company of those who will never ask you to jump," the earth advised.Bertie remembered the rush of feathers as she soared above the audience. "I can catch myself.""Of those whose love will never fill your lungs with water-" the earth argued."But it did not kill me.""there should be more to love," said the earth, "than 'it did not kill me.' More than 'I survived it.” - Lisa Mantchev

24. “People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.” - Emma Goldman

25. “We do not deny any nation's legitimate interest in security. But protecting the security of one nation by robbing another of its national independence and national traditions is not legitimate. In the long run, it is not even secure.” - Ronald Reagan

26. “My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.” - Mary Wollstonecraft

27. “The proverb warns that, 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.” - Thomas Stephen Szasz

28. “She might be without country, without nation, but inside her there was still a being that could exist and be free, that could simply say I am without adding a this, or a that, without saying I am Indian, Guyanese, English, or anything else in the world.” - Sharon Maas

29. “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

30. “The 'will to power and independence' has become so ubiquitous that it is now considered normal.” - Wm. Paul Young

31. “Why do only the awful things become fads? I thought. Eye-rolling and Barbie and bread pudding. Why never chocolate cheesecake or thinking for yourself?” - Connie Willis

32. “America... goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.” - John Quincy Adams

33. “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

34. “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

35. “We are bent on weakening bonds in the name of growth and independance,then spend out adulthoods wondering why we have trouble getting close to other people.” - Elizabeth Hormann

36. “You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore...But let there be spaces in your togetherness...Love one another, but make not a bond of love. Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not of the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.” - Kahlil Gibran

37. “Most men claim to desire driven, independent and confident women. Yet when confronted with such a creature reverence often evolves into resent. For just like women, men need to be needed.” - Tiffany Madison

38. “While the Zionists try to make the rest of the World believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn't even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organisation for their international world swindler, endowed with its own sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a university for budding crooks. It is a sign of their rising confidence and sense of security that at a time when one section is still playing the German, French-man, or Englishman, the other with open effrontery comes out as the Jewish race.” - Adolf Hitler

39. “The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” - Michel de Montaigne

40. “Then, one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...you give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore.” - Neil Gaiman

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

42. “No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.” - Henry Miller

43. “He saw in happiness the seeds of independence, and in independence the seeds of revolt.” - Mervyn Peake

44. “Injustice in the end produces independence.” - Voltaire

45. “Praise and blame alike mean nothing. No, delightful as the pastime of measuring may be, it is the most futile of all occupations, and to submit to the decrees of the measurers the most servile of attitudes.” - Virginia Woolf

46. “Life with Ilona was invariably lived on two levels, or rather in two simultaneous and parallel directions. On the one hand, your feet were always on the ground, you were always intelligently but not obsessively alert to what each day offered in response to the routine question of surviving. On the other hand, imagination and unbounded fantasy suggested a spontaneous and unexpected sequence of scenarios that were always aimed at the radical subversion of every law ever written or established. This was a permanent, organic, rigorous subversion that never permitted travel on the beaten path, the road preferred by most people, the traditional patterns that offer protection to those whom Ilona, without emphasis or pride but without any concessions either, would call "the others.” - Alvaro Mutis

47. “I shall not change my course because those who assume to be better than I desire it.” - Victoria Claflin Woodhull

48. “I'm through accepting limits''cause someone says they're soSome things I cannot changeBut till I try, I'll never know!Too long I've been afraid ofLosing love I guess I've lostWell, if that's loveIt comes at much too high a cost!” - Stephen Schwartz

49. “And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” - Thomas Jefferson

50. “With the spread of conformity and image-driven superficiality, the allure of an individuated woman in full possession of herself and her powers will prove irresistible. We were born for plenitude and inner fulfillment.” - Betsy Prioleau

51. “...Goddamn himself for letting his independence slip away from him. He didn't even know how it had happened, how he had lost the ability to function on his own, or what the hell he was going to do about it now.” - Kimberly Gardner

52. “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice."[Stanford University commencement speech, 2005]” - Steve Jobs

53. “...freedom is of more account than the height of a roof beam. I ought to know; mine cost me eighteen years' slavery. The man who lives on his own land is an independent man. He is his own master. If I can keep my sheep alive through winter and can pay what has been stipulated from year to year - then I pay what has been stipulated; and I have kept my sheep alive. No, it is freedom that we are all after, Titla. He who pays his way is a king. He who keeps his sheep alive through the winter lives in a palace.” - Halldor Laxness

54. “We are so accustomed to the comforts of "I cannot", "I do not want to" and "it is too difficult" that we forget to realize when we stop doing things for ourselves and expect others to dance around us, we are not achieving greatness. We have made ourselves weak.” - Pandora Poikilos

55. “She tried to act as though it were nothing to go to the library alone. But her happiness betrayed her. Her smile could not be restrained, and it spread from her tightly pressed mouth, to her round cheeks, almost to the hair ribbons tied in perky bows over her ears.” - Maud Hart Lovelace

56. “Be that strong girl that everyone knew would make it through the worst, be that fearless girl, the one who would dare to do anything, be that independent girl who didn't need a man; be that girl who never backed down.” - Taylor Swift

57. “Because two people in love don't make a hive mind. Neither should they want to be a hive mind, to think the same, to know the same. It's about being separate and still loving each other, being distinct from each other. One is the violin string one is the bow.” - Graham Joyce

58. “I will not be "famous," "great." I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one's self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded.” - Virginia Woolf

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

60. “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.” - William Shakespeare

61. “Independence has made us Soft” - Houari Boumediene

62. “She did not date. She did not have time for men. Men were never, ever worth a great amount of energy. She was the kind of woman that looked down on what she called ‘settlers’, women who chose love and fleeting passion that turned to dull, lifeless marriages over a career and independence.” - Mandy Nachampassack-Maloney

63. “Maybe the truly handicapped people are the ones that don't need God as much.” - Joni Eareckson Tada

64. “[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

65. “I'll walk where my own nature would be leading. It vexes me to choose another guide.” - Charlotte Brontë

66. “Every time government attempts to handle our affairs, it costs more and the results are worse than if we had handled them ourselves.” - Benjamin Constant

67. “Bjarne Møller, my former boss, says people like me always choose the line of most resistance. It's in what he calls our 'accursed nature'. That's why we always end up on our own. I don't know. I like being alone. Perhaps I have grown to like my self-image of being a loner, too....I think you have to find something about yourself that you like in order to survive. Some people say being alone is unsociable and selfish. But you're independent and you don't drag others down with you, if that's the way you're heading. Many people are afraid of being alone. But it made me feel strong, free and invulnerable.” - Jo Nesbø

68. “No: I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne.""I ask why? I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy of you."She stood on the hearth; she was pale as the white marble slab and cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsmiling."And I ask in what sense that young man is worthy of me?” - Charlotte Brontë

69. “There are certain phrases potent to make my blood boil -- improper influence! What old woman's cackle is that?""Are you a young lady?""I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman, and as such I will be treated.” - Charlotte Brontë

70. “I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand -- they only. Know this at last.” - Charlotte Brontë

71. “It really is something ... that men disapprove even of our doing things that are patently good. Wouldn't it be possible for us just to banish these men from our lives, and escape their carping and jeering once and for all? Couldn't we live without them? Couldn't we earn our living and manage our affairs without help from them? Come on, let's wake up, and claim back our freedom, and the honour and dignity that they have usurped from us for so long. Do you think that if we really put our minds to it, we would be lacking the courage to defend ourselves, the strength to fend for ourselves, or the talents to earn our own living? Let's take our courage into our hands and do it, and then we can leave it up to them to mend their ways as much as they can: we shan't really care what the outcome is, just as long as we are no longer subjugated to them.” - Moderata Fonte

72. “[In 16th century European society] Marriage was the triumphal arch through which women, almost without exception, had to pass in order to reach the public eye. And after marriage followed, in theory, the total self-abnegation of the woman.” - Antonia Fraser

73. “The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.” - Christopher Hitchens

74. “But I'm learning it's human nature to want the things you can't have. What changes is how you go about pursuing the things you want. When you're a little kid and you're told no, you scream and throw a temper tantrum. When you're a teenager and your parents tell you no, you're old enough to internalize your temper tantrum. But you're smarter and you're sneakier this time around. So you nod and act like you care when they say no, when they tell you who you can be friends with, when they say the know what's best. But then you go behind their backs to do it anyway. Because at some point, you need to start calling the shots. At some point, you need to start believing you know whats best. Or, I thought with a smile, you just stop asking for their permission in the first place.” - Katie Kacvinsky

75. “The foraging for food and water, the struggle for life in a world without masters, housed in a body that man had made dependent on himself.” - Richard Matheson

76. “At the evident risk of seeming ridiculous, I want to begin by saying that I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously. I hope this isn't too melodramatic or self-centred a way of saying that I attempt to write as if I did not care what reviewers said, what peers thought, or what prevailing opinions may be.” - Christopher Hitchens

77. “All my life, I thought I was this independent woman. I was on all the right committees, made speeches for all the right causes, traveled all over the world. I had my little part-time job, I made all my own decisions, but . . . there was always someone there to fall back on when things went bad. Funny, how after so many years of marriage you don’t think about how much you depend on the other person until . . . well, until they’re gone. And then of course there’s just the whole system in the city. Your doctor, your pharmacist, your plumber, your vet . . . there’s always someone there. You never have to find out . . . how much you can’t do.” - Donna Ball

78. “Serving as the only audience for a man raised by crowds of admirers exhausted her. [...] The buried thought that he might have found comfort elsewhere was almost a comfort to her.” - Carey Wallace

79. “If somebody tells me what to do, I will do my best not to do it.” - Hiroko Sakai

80. “Estaba destinado a aprender su propia sabiduría aparte de los otros o a aprender la sabiduría de los otros por sí mismo, errando entre las asechanzas del mundo.” - James Joyce

81. “We have more to fear from the opinions of our friends than the bayonets of our enemies." Politician turned Union General Nathaniel Banks, in plea he couldn't abandon an untenable position.” - Shelby Foote

82. “The critic said, but don't you feel awkward about biting the hand that feeds you? I said no, I enjoy just gnawing it up to the shoulder.” - Myles Horton

83. “Whatever they may say, your story is truly your own. You have a responsibility to it, the way a father has to a child” - Miguel Syjuco

84. “You cannot want more for people than they want for themselves.” - Johnnie Dent Jr.

85. “I am living breathing freedom” - Hiroko Sakai

86. “If you're waiting for me to declare my undying love for you, I can't do that yet, blood-bond or no blood-bond. If you think I'm the swoony type of heroine you find in romance novels, who'll fall into your arms just because you saved me from an alternate reality or whatever, get ready to leave empty handed, because I don't want to be caught.” - Dianna Hardy

87. “What a tremendous power one needs to become his own master!” - Mihail Drumeş

88. “If she took Po as her husband, she would be making promises about a future she couldn't yet see. For once she became his wife, she would be his forever. And, no matter how much freedom Po gave her, she would always know that it was a gift. Her freedom would be not be her own; it would be Po's to give or to withhold. That he never would withhold it made no difference. If it did not come from her, it was not really hers.” - Kristin Cashore

89. “I'd trapped myself in a script.... But to be scripted at all is to be prepackaged, programmed, pinned to a page. Only the unwritten can truly live a life. So who I was, what I was, had to be unwritten.” - David James Duncan

90. “Being human makes us one. Being uniquely ourselves makes us individual." - Nancy S. Mure, Author of Unidentical Twins” - Nancy S. Mure

91. “I don't like favors; they oppress and make me fell like a slave. I'd rather do everything for myself, and be perfectly independent.” - Louisa May Alcott

92. “The presence of hundreds of books had finally convinced Hermione that what they were doing was right.” - J.K. Rowling

93. “Talking about independence makes me wonder, Who is truly independent in this world? A farmer who grows food is dependent on a baker, a barber, a doctor, and so on. A doctor is dependent on other people of different professions in order to survive. I am dependent and will be dependent on certain caregivers and therapists. Those caregivers and therapists need people like me to earn their bread and butter and draw their salaries. So no one is doing any favors when choosing whatever his means of livelihood is.” - Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay

94. “I don't want to be kept safe! I don't want to have someone constantly trying to keep me from tripping on my own incompetence. I want to live in a world where I know the rules, where people are just people. Not one where they keep trying to eat me. That's the reason I left the city in the first place. I don't want to be kept, not by anyone.” - Meagan Spooner

95. “I don't want to have to save your life,' Chord says softly. 'Not when you can do it.” - Elsie Chapman

96. “...the solitude was intoxicating. On my first night there I lay on my back on the sticky carpet for hours, in the murky orange pool of city glow coming through the window, smelling heady curry spices spiraling across the corridor and listening to two guys outside yelling at each other in Russian and someone practicing stormy flamboyant violin somewhere, and slowly realizing that there was not a single person in the world who could see me or ask me what I was doing or tell me to do anything else, and I felt as if at any moment the bedsit might detach itself from the buildings like a luminous soap bubble and drift off into the night, bobbing gently above the rooftops and the river and the stars.” - Tana French

97. “I once asked her if she got bored living alone, and she said, 'To say one is bored to be alone is to admit that one has no inner resources.” - Lois Battle

98. “Human beings are no longer born to their place in life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties, and such favourable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them most desirable.” - John Stuart Mill

99. “I'm lost in space and I want to find a way home. Nobody else can get me back to the planet, so I have to do it myself.” - Susan Vaught

100. “Let me tell you something, honey. Fifty percent of life is others trying to push their own agenda on you—their belief system, their views, their convictions. The other fifty percent is you deciding whether or not you’re going to let them. Or if you’re going to form your own opinions.-Miss Velma” - Rachael Wade

101. “When we embrace the opposites within ourselves and understand that inner harmony arises when they mature, we find the love, joy, silence and freedom that are hidden in every moment. It is my experience that it is through the inner female side that we find the depth within ourselves – independent of if we are a man or a woman. It is through the female side that we find the inner source of love and truth. It is through the female side that we lit the light of our own consciousness. The more we learn to know the inner man and woman and the more we accept their different visions of life, the more a meeting happens between them that makes us happy and satisfied. Through embracing both these sides in ourselves, we realize that we really lack nothing – but that we already are love. When both the male and female side is capable of living in trust, a love begins to flow between them – a love that was always possible, but not realized. The inner woman is the meditative quality within ourselves. The inner woman is the source of love and truth. The inner woman is the capacity to surrender to life. It is through the inner woman that we are in contact with life. It is the inner woman that is the door to belongingness with the Whole.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

102. “Dickinson left the rostrum to applause, loud shouts of approval. Franklin was surprised, looked toward Adams, who returned the look, shook his head. The chamber was dismissed, and Franklin pushed himself slowly up out of the chair. He began to struggle a bit, pain in both knees, the stiffness holding him tightly, felt a hand under his arm.“Allow me, sir.” Adams helped him up, commenting as he did so, “We have a substantial lack of backbone in this room, I’m afraid.”Franklin looked past him, saw Dickinson standing close behind, staring angrily at Adams, reacting to his words.“Mr. Dickinson, a fine speech, sir,” said Franklin.Adams seemed suddenly embarrassed, did not look behind him, nodded quickly to Franklin, moved away toward the entrance. Franklin saw Dickinson following Adams, began to follow himself. My God, let’s not have a duel. He slipped through the crowd of delegates, making polite acknowledgments left and right, still keeping his eye on Dickinson. The man was gone now, following Adams out of the hall. Franklin reached the door, could see them both, heard the taller man call out, saw Adams turn, a look of surprise. Franklin moved closer, heard Adams say, “My apologies for my indiscreet remark, sir. However, I am certain you are aware of my sentiments.” Dickinson seemed to explode in Adams’ face. “What is the reason, Mr. Adams, that you New England men oppose our measures of reconciliation? Why do you hold so tightly to this determined opposition to petitioning the king?” Franklin heard other men gathering behind him, filling the entranceway, Dickinson’s volume drawing them. He could see Adams glancing at them and then saying, “Mr. Dickinson, this is not an appropriate time...” “Mr. Adams, can you not respond? Do you not desire an end to talk of war?” Adams seemed struck by Dickinson’s words, looked at him for a long moment. “Mr. Dickinson, if you believe that all that has fallen upon us is merely talk, I have no response. There is no hope of avoiding a war, sir, because the war has already begun. Your king and his army have seen to that. Please, excuse me, sir.” Adams began to walk away, and Franklin could see Dickinson look back at the growing crowd behind him, saw a strange desperation in the man’s expression, and Dickinson shouted toward Adams, “There is no sin in hope!” - Jeff Shaara

103. “وَلي دونَكُم أَهلَونَ سيدٌ عَمَلَّسٌ وَأَرقَطُ زُهلولٌ وَعَرفاءُ جَيأَلُ” - الشنفرى

104. “I value my ownindependence so highly that I can fancy no degradation greater than thatof having another man perpetually directing and advising and lecturingme, or even planning too closely in any way about my actions. He mightbe the wisest of men, or the most powerful--I should equally rebel andresent his interference...” - Elizabeth Gaskell

105. “I have never deceived anyone, for I have never belonged to anyone. My independence was all my wealth: I have known no other happiness.” - Cora Pearl

106. “Whoever has the power takes the noun while the less powerful get an adjective. No one wants her achievements modified.We all just want to be the noun.” - Sheryl Sandberg

107. “We can only save ourselves through elevating our individual consciousness, by realizing there is already completeness within, and exercising as much considerate independence, respect and fairness as is possible.” - Bryant McGill

108. “There shall come a day when Birds shall be free... :) and humans will see...” - K. Hari Kumar

109. “To make a real independent film where the filmmaker is in charge creatively, one must sacrifice personal, financial, and physical well-being.” - Mark Polish