Great Throughts Treasury

"Though we best know and cannot deny our imperfections, it is not for us to lose our self-reliance and true manhood." -

"Three men are my friends - he that loves me, he that hates me and he that is indifferent to me. Who loves me, teaches me tenderness; who hates me, teaches me caution; who is indifferent to me, teaches me self-reliance." - J. E. Dinger

"Humility is part of wisdom, and is most becoming in men. But let no one discourage self-reliance; it is, of all the rest, the greatest quality of true manliness." - Louis Kossuth, also Lajos Kossuth, fully Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva

"The difficulties, hardships, and trials of life, the obstacles one encounters on the road to fortune, are positive blessings. They knit the muscles more firmly, and teach self-reliance. Peril is the element in which power is developed." - William Matthews

"Opposition is what we want and must have, to be good for anything. Hardship is the native soil of manhood and self-reliance." - John Neal

"Proposed four consumption criteria for simple living. (1) Does what I own or buy promote activity, self-reliance, and involvement, or does it induce passivity and dependence? (2) Are my consumption patterns basically satisfying, or do I buy much that serves no real need? (3) How tied is my present job and lifestyle to installment payments, maintenance and repair costs, and the expectations of others? (4) Do I consider the impact of my consumption patterns on other people and on the Earth?" - Duane Elgin and Arnold Mitchell (1918-1985)

"These two things, contradictory as they may seem, must go together - manly dependence and manly independence, manly reliance and manly self-reliance." - William Wordsworth

"Fear feeds on itself; so does confidence and self-reliance. Make your choice." - Leonard Leeman

"Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own person is its ultimate reward." - Patricia Sampson, fully A. Patricia Sampson

"Self-reliance and self-respect are about as valuable commodities as we can carry in our pack through life." - Luther Burbank

"Discontent is the want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The basis of good manners is self-reliance." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Self-reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on God." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"In almost every enterprise, government has provided business with opportunities for private gain at public expense. Government nurtures private capital accumulation through a process of subsidies, supports, and deficit spending and an increasingly inequitable tax system. From ranchers to resort owners, from brokers to bankers, from auto makers to missile makers, there prevails a welfare for the rich of such magnitude as to make us marvel at the corporate leaders’ audacity in preaching the virtues of self-reliance whenever lesser forms of public assistance threaten to reach hands other than their own." - Michael Parenti

"The People with AIDS Coalition (PWAC) was founded in New York City in 1985 by a group of nine people who had contracted AIDS. The founders were inspired by the Denver Principles, a manifesto adopted in 1983 by PWAs at the National Lesbian and Gay Health Conference held in Denver. The Denver Principles proclaimed the need for self-empowerment and self-reliance by PWAs as well as the necessity of their taking an active role in the formulation of decisions affecting their lives. During thealmost eight years of its corporate existence PWAC became the largest self-help organization of people living with AIDS/HIV in America. Projects developed by PWAC include the Community Research Initiative (CRI), a network of medical doctors and patients who undertook their own drug studies; the People With AIDS Health Group, a not-for-profit buyer's club set up to provide easier access to drugs and other therapeutic substances difficult to obtain; a national telephone hotline; and a newsletter." - People with AIDS Coalition NULL

"Increasing self-reliance means decreasing GDP. If you eat at home more, you are failing to do your part to grow the GDP; if you grow your own food, you" - Richard Heinberg

"The thoughts cannot be suppressed nor can they be thrown away anywhere, you can only watch them, not naming them as good or bad. Then you are free from the roles of an experiencer and an actor, you enter into the state of an observer of non-reactional attention." - Vimala Thakar

"This (man) shall live and shall not die, we rouse this man (to life). I make for him a remedy, O death, do not slay the man." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda