My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.-Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Every human has four endowments – self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change.-Stephen Covey
The bedrock of our democracy is the rule of law and that means we have to have an independent judiciary, judges who can make decisions independent of the political winds that are blowing.-Caroline Kennedy
Independence is happiness.-Susan B. Anthony
I wanted to be an independent woman, a woman who could pay for her bills, a woman who could run her own life – and I became that woman.-Diane von Furstenberg
True independence and freedom can only exist in doing what’s right. – Brigham Young
Diversity: the art of thinking independently together.-Malcolm Forbes
I have an independent streak. You know, it’s kind of hard to tell a independent woman what to do.-Betty Ford
The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison.-James Cash Penney
I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.-Charlotte Bronte
Originality is independence, not rebellion; it is sincerity, not antagonism.-George Henry Lewes
Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. To survive in the world, we have to act in concert with others, but to survive as ourselves, rather than simply as cogs in a wheel, we have to act alone.-Deborah Tannen
What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes.-Marcus Tullius Cicero
Work is about more than making a living, as vital as that is. It’s fundamental to human dignity, to our sense of self-worth as useful, independent, free people.-William J. Clinton
A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.-Lionel Trilling
Independence doesn’t mean you decide the way you want. – Stephen Breyer
There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no one independence quite so important, as living within your means.-Calvin Coolidge
Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Man’s life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self.-B. R. Ambedkar
True freedom is the capacity for acting according to one’s true character, to be altogether one’s self, to be self-determined and not subject to outside coercion.-Corliss Lamont
The most dangerous thing in the world is the sin of self-reliance and the stupor of worldliness.-John Piper
Many a revolution started with the actions of a few. Only 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence. A few hanging together can lead a nation to change.-Wynton Marsalis
Independence means you decide according to the law and the facts.-Stephen Breyer
It is easy to be independent when you’ve got money. But to be independent when you haven’t got a thing, that’s the Lord’s test.-Mahalia Jackson
There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance.-William F. Buckley, Jr.
I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.-Alexis de Tocqueville
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man’s initiative and independence. – William J. H. Boetcker
The four cornerstones of character on which the structure of this nation was built are: Initiative, Imagination, Individuality and Independence.-Eddie Rickenbacker
We do need a return to individual integrity, self-reliance, and old-fashioned gumption. We really do.-Robert M. Pirsig
The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.-Emma Goldman
Throughout the day no time for memorandums now. Go ahead! Liberty and independence forever.-Davy Crockett
There’s no such thing as an independent person.-Peter Jennings
I admire the courage and self-reliance it takes to start your own business and make it succeed.-Martha Stewart
Injustice in the end produces independence.-Voltaire
What you get free costs too much.-Jean Anouilh
Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of ‘crackpot’ than the stigma of conformity.-Thomas J. Watson
A declaration of the independence of America, and the sovereignty of the United States was drawn by the ingenious and philosophic pen of Thomas Jefferson, Esquire, a delegate from the state of Virginia.-Mercy Otis Warren
Those who won our independence… valued liberty as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.-Louis D. Brandeis
A tragic irony of life is that we so often achieve success or financial independence after the chief reason for which we sought it has passed away. – Ellen Glasgow
Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it.-John D. Rockefeller
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
A free and truly independent press – fiercely independent when necessary – is the red beating heart of freedom and democracy.-Dan Rather
It matters enormously to a successful democratic society like ours that we have three branches of government, each with some independence and some control over the other two. That’s set out in the Constitution.-Sandra Day O’Connor
Independence is a heady draught, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more.-Maya Angelou
Without moral and intellectual independence, there is no anchor for national independence.-David Ben-Gurion
It is very nearly impossible… to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.-James Baldwin
I have grown up alone. I’ve taken care of myself. I worked, earned money and was independent at 18.-Ingrid Bergman
I will be vigilant to protect the independence and integrity of the Supreme Court, and I will work to ensure that it upholds the rule of law and safeguards those liberties that make this land one of endless possibilities for all Americans.-John Roberts
The world is independent of my will. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent.-Nicolas Chamfort
We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.-Montesquieu
Impatience is the mark of independence, not of bondage.-Marianne Moore
At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.-Booker T. Washington
I think there’s great potential for autonomy, but we have to remember that we live in a world where people may have free will but have not invented their circumstances.-Thomas Frank
The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.-John Stuart Mill
Independence? That’s middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.-George Bernard Shaw
The important consequences to the American States from this Declaration of Independence, considered as the ground and foundation of a future government, naturally suggest the propriety of proclaiming it in such a manner as that the people may be universally informed of it.-John Hancock
The truth is that since childhood I had cultivated an existential independence. It came from perceiving the adults around me as unreliable, and without it I felt I wouldn’t have survived. I cared deeply for everyone in my family, but in the end I depended on myself.-Sonia Sotomayor
I guess you’d call me an independent, since I’ve never identified myself with one party or another in politics. I always decide my vote by taking as careful a look as I can at the actual candidates and issues themselves, no matter what the party label.-Jackie Robinson
The independence of the United States is not only more precious to ourselves but to the world than any single possession. – Henry Cabot Lodge
Mickey Mouse is, to me, a symbol of independence. He was a means to an end.-Walt Disney