“A woman who does not know herself has no choice other than to live with other people’s evaluations. But no one can adapt perfectly to public opinion. And herein lies the source of their destruction.”

“A women who does not know herself has no choice other than to live with other people's evaluations.”

“People said it because other people said it. They did not know why it was being said and heard everywhere. They did not give or ask for reasons. 'Reason,' Dr. Pritchett had told them, 'is the most naive of all superstitions.' 'The source of public opinion?' said Claude Slagenhop in a public radio speech. 'There is no source of public opinion. It is spontaneously general. It is a reflex of the collective instinct of the collective mind.”

“Just remember: other people’s opinions are simply that—other people’s opinions. They are not fact, and they are certainly not “the truth.” It is your responsibility to question the authority you give others, to question opinions they want you to adopt as your own, and to question how it is they are observing the world themselves that has them seeing things as they do. Sometimes you need to take back the authority you are giving to the opinions of others and place a bit more trust in yourself.”

“I am the one who knows better than to ask for help. I am the one who picked up the pieces, the one who does not deserve to be thanked, the one with no expectations, the one who has learned to rely on herself, the one who became convinced that love and happiness are things bestowed upon other people.”

“A woman means by Unselfishness chiefly taking trouble for others; a man means not giving trouble to others...thus, while the woman thinks of doing good offices and the man of respecting other people’s rights, each sex, without any obvious unreason, can and does regard the other as radically selfish.”