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Autonomy Quotes

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Autonomy Quotes

“Government surveillance is a surreptitious infringement on our basic human rights, an affront to the principles of autonomy and individuality that form the bedrock of a just society. Its literal ramifications extend far beyond the boundaries of legality, seeping into the emotional and psychological well-being of individuals who find themselves under constant scrutiny. Trust, once eroded by the overreach of surveillance, becomes a casualty, fragmenting the delicate bond between citizens and their government. Instances of surveillance overreach, both historical and contemporary, reveal the potential for grave abuse, reinforcing the imperative to resist such infringements in the name of preserving our liberties and maintaining the emotional health of our collective consciousness.”

GovernmentRightsSocietyTrustHumanIndividualityAutonomySurveillanceInfringementLiberties
Author:James William Steven Parker
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“Government surveillance is an egregious violation of personal autonomy, leaving in its wake not only legal ramifications but a trail of emotional turmoil and shattered trust. The emotional toll on individuals living under constant scrutiny is immeasurable, fostering an environment of anxiety and self-censorship. Trust, a cornerstone of democracy, crumbles when citizens become aware of being surveilled, creating a chasm between the governed and those in power. Historical examples, from McCarthyism to contemporary revelations, underscore the profound consequences of unchecked surveillance, emphasizing the urgency to recognize its unlawfulness and protect the emotional well-being and trust that are integral to the fabric of a free society.”

GovernmentDemocracyEmotionalTrustAnxietyAutonomyViolationSurveillanceTurmoilEgregious
Author:James William Steven Parker
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“Where we are strongest it is the easiest to stay open, fluid-- curtains of lace and linen instead of walls of steel-- open borders (at least for those with passports and visas or the will to earn citizenship in our personal territory), never losing clarity, because that is where we are strong. Where our resolve is weakest is where we have to draw the hardest lines for ourselves, for others, for the world. We can't afford to give a little, because, well, our resolve is too likely to give way when so tested. It sounds so simple. But it can be so hard to do. Where we are weak, the hard lines must be drawn strong.”

RiskStrengthBoundariesClarityBordersResolveOpennessAutonomyWallsHard Lines
Author:Shellen Lubin
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“Father had stretched out his long legs and was tilting back in his chair. Mother sat with her knees crossed, in blue slacks, smoking a Chesterfield. The dessert dishes were still on the table. My sisters were nowhere in evidence. It was a warm evening; the big dining-room windows gave onto blooming rhododendrons. Mother regarded me warmly. She gave me to understand that she was glad I had found what I had been looking for, but that she and father were happy to sit with their coffee, and would not be coming down. She did not say, but I understood at once, that they had their pursuits (coffee?) and I had mine. She did not say, but I began to understand then, that you do what you do out of your private passion for the thing itself. I had essentially been handed my own life. In subsequent years my parents would praise my drawings and poems, and supply me with books, art supplies, and sports equipment, and listen to my troubles and enthusiasms, and supervise my hours, and discuss and inform, but they would not get involved with my detective work, nor hear about my reading, nor inquire about my homework or term papers or exams, nor visit the salamanders I caught, nor listen to me play the piano, nor attend my field hockey games, nor fuss over my insect collection with me, or my poetry collection or stamp collection or rock collection. My days and nights were my own to plan and fill.”

ImaginationChildhoodParentingCuriosityAutonomyBenign Neglect
Book:An American Childhood
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“In our own day, there has been too much of a tendency towards authority, and too little care for the preservation of initiative. Men in control of vast organisations have tended to be too abstract in their outlook, to forget what actual human beings are like, and to try to fit men to systems rather than systems to men.”

EducationAuthorityInnovationIndividualityStatus QuoAutonomySystemAcademiaNonconformityStandardization
Book:Authority and the Individual
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“The ... conditions of democracy in the public sphere ... bear very directly upon the democratisation of personal life. Violent and abusive relationships are common in the sexual domain and between adults and children. Most such violence comes from men and is directed towards beings weaker than themselves. As an emancipatory ideal of democracy, the prohibition of violence is of basic importance. Coercive influences in relationships, however, obviously can take forms other than physical violence. Individuals may be prone, for example, to engage in emotional or verbal abuse of one another; marriage, so the saying goes, is a poor substitute for respect. Avoidance of emotional abuse is perhaps the most difficult aspect of the equalising of power in relationship; but the guiding principle is clearly respect for the independent views and personal traits of the other.”

MarriageDemocracyRespectAbuseIndividualityIntimacyAutonomyPrivate Life
Book:The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies
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“FUCK "UNITY"!! What a pathetic way of thinking. How arrogant of Progressives to think that my hopes and dreams mirror their hopes and dreams. What an absolute bore.... what an total lack of originality or individuality... I believe in individual liberty. I am an extremist on the topic of individual liberty, precisely because I value original thinking and original accomplishments. Fuck unity of purpose. Fuck collectivism. My life is not your life. I have my own path. Get out of my way.”

LibertyUnityIndividualityLibertarianSocialismCommunismFascismAutonomyUtopiaFascistsCollectivismUtopianIndividual LibertyIndividual RightsProgressivesCommunistsSocialists
Author:A.E. Samaan
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“With their concern for personal autonomy and individual freedom, anarchists more than any other socialists are aware of the inhumanity of both physical punishment and manipulative cure for anti-social members of the community. They look to reasoned argument and friendly treatment to deal with criminals and wish to respect their humanity and individuality.”

PhilosophyFreedomSocietyIndividualityAutonomyAnarchismIndividual Freedom
Book:Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism
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“And one thing we know is real: horror. It is so real, in fact, that we cannot be sure it could not exist without us. Yes, it needs our imaginations and our consciousness, but it does not ask or require our consent to use them. Indeed, horror operates with complete autonomy. Generating ontological havoc, it is mephitic foam upon which our lives merely float. And, all said, we must face up to it: horror is more real than we are.”

PhilosophyFearHorrorAutonomyOntology
Book:Songs of a Dead Dreamer
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“I am leery of suggesting the idea that endings are controllable. No one ever really has control. Physics and biology and accident ultimately have their way in our lives. But the point is that we are not helpless either. Courage is the strength to recognize both realities. We have room to act, to shape our stories, though as time goes on it is within narrower and narrower confines. A few conclusions become clear when we understand this: that our most cruel failure in how we treat the sick and the aged is the failure to recognize that they have priorities beyond merely being safe and living longer; that the chance to shape one’s story is essential to sustaining meaning in life; that we have the opportunity to refashion our institutions, our culture, and our conversations in ways that transform the possibilities for the last chapters of everyone’s lives.”

DeathDyingMedicineAgingIllnessPrioritiesOld AgeAutonomy
Book:Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
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“America, you whitewash history, literally, and leave out much of its meaning and discovery. And, as we try to get better at uncovering these truths, so many who want to pretend otherwise fight and legislate to push them back underground, to once again bury them. There are so many discoveries that have been found and made, and then buried and left for us to re-find (or not)--discoveries about autonomy and equality and peace and compromise and respect for all the creatures who inhabit the planet and the planet itself. Our written history has destroyed the voices of the people from whom we stole this land and the voices of those whose lives we stole to build it, the voices of women and children and people whose skin color or language or belief system did not fit the status quo of the time and place where they lived. All were destroyed because it did not serve some lust for power or control or just because the people in charge of such things really did not believe they were very important, or refused to believe that they should be.”

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Author:Shellen Lubin
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“I have no hobby. As far as my activities beyond the bounds of my recognized profession are concerned, I take them all, without exception, very seriously. So much so, that I should be horrified by the idea that they had anything to do with hobbies—preoccupations in which I had become mindlessly infatuated in order to kill the time—had I not become hardened by experience to such examples of this now widespread, barbarous mentality.”

WorkCapitalismLeisureHobbiesAutonomyFree TimeThe Culture Industry
Book:The Culture Industry
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“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.”

MenLoveWomenFreedomMarriageStrengthEmpowermentIndependenceIndividualitySelf DeterminationAutonomyMatrimonySinglesSelf SufficiencyBachelorhood
Author:Coco Chanel
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“Dalin must have whiffed the anarch in me, a man with no ties to state or society. Still, he was unable to sense an autonomy that puts up with these forces as objective facts but without recognizing them. What he lacked was a grounding in history. Opposition is collaboration; this was something from which Dalin, without realizing it, could not stay free. Basically, he damaged order less than he confirmed it. The emergence of the anarchic nihilist is like a goad that convinces society of its unity. The anarch, in contrast, not only recognizes society a priori as imperfect, he actually acknowledges it with that limitation. He is more or less repulsed by state and society, yet there are times and places in which the invisible harmony shimmers through the visible harmony. This is obviously chiefly in the work of art. In that case, one serves joyfully. But the anarchic nihilist thinks the exact opposite. The Temple of Artemis, to cite an example, would inspire him to commit arson. The anarch, however, would have no qualms about entering the temple in order to meditate and to participate with an offering. This is possible in any temple worthy of the name.”

ArtSocietyAutonomyAnarchismNihilismStateAnarch
Book:Eumeswil
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“Dressing somebody is easier than letting them dress themselves. It takes less time. It's less aggravation." So unless supporting people's capabilities is made a priority, the staff ends up dressing people like they're rag dolls. Gradually, that's how everything begins to go. The tasks come to matter more than the people.”

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Book:Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
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“With an evermore increase of industrialisation machine stops being merely a tool, develops a life of its own and imposes its rhythm onto human. Operating it he moves mechanically, becomes part of the machine.”

HumansHumanityEconomySocietyHumanCapitalismMachinesAutonomyMarxismModernitySystemCyberpunkMachineMetropolisIndustrialisationNeuromancerFritz LangMachine AutonomySystem Autonomy
Book:Fritz Lang: Filmbilder Vorbilder
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“We were all wild humans before we became civilized in that peculiar process of self-domestication known as the Neolithic agricultural revolution. The word 'wild' is related to the word 'will'; the wild creature is self-willed, autonomous, not domesticated, living by nature's ways, not the laws of human beings.”

PhilosophyNatureFreedomHuman NatureCivilizationEcologyAutonomyAnthropologyWildnessSelf Will
Book:Green Psychology: Transforming our Relationship to the Earth
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“Free speech is the guardian of individual autonomy, a shield that allows each person to shape their own beliefs and values independent of external coercion. It is through the free exchange of ideas that individuals are exposed to diverse perspectives, broadening their understanding of the world and fostering empathy. In this way, free speech serves not only as a right but as a conduit for the continual enrichment of our collective humanity.”

ValuesHumanityEmpathyRightAutonomyGuardianPerspectivesExchangeShieldBroadening
Author:James William Steven Parker
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“My Planet, My Duty (Sonnet 2526) My sonnets, my rules - my science, my rules - my theology, my rules - my universe, my rules; my dream, my right - my failure, my fuel - my life, my ethics - my body, my choice; my divinity, my design - my truth, my decision - my society, my justice - my planet, my duty.”

FreedomLife PhilosophySocial JusticeHumanistActivistDreamerSelf DeterminationAutonomySocial ReformerPoetic License
Book:Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot
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“it’s in our nature to seek both autonomy and relatedness. We often seek support from others to undertake new adventures in our lives and also need a haven from exploration where we can just fill our own emotional cup in the “and” of a close relationship.”

SupportRelationshipAdventureExplorationAutonomyCloseRelatedness
Book:Raising a Secure Child: How Circle of Security Parenting Can Help You Nurture Your Child's Attachment, Emotional Resilience, and Freedom to Explore
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“An ever growing part of our major institutions’ functions is the cultivation and maintenance of three sets of illusions which turn the citizen into a client to be saved by experts...The first enslaving illusion is the idea that people are born to be consumers and that they can attain any of their goals by purchasing goods and services. This illusion is due to an educated blindness to the worth of use-values in the total economy. In none of the economic models serving as national guidelines is there a variable to account for non-marketable use-values any more than there is a variable for nature's perennial contribution.”

EducationEconomicsInstitutionsValueConsumerismAutonomyUsefulnessIllusions
Book:The Right to Useful Unemployment: And Its Professional Enemies
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“Work done off the paid job is looked down upon if not ignored. autonomous activity threatens the employment level, generates deviance, and detracts​ from the GNP...Work no longer means the creation of a value perceived by the worker but mainly a job, which is a social relationship. Unemployment means sad idleness, rather than the freedom to do things that are useful for oneself or for one's neighbour. An active woman who runs a house and brings up children and takes in those of others is distinguished from a woman who 'works,' no matter how useless or damaging the product of this work might be.”

WorkFreedomSocietyValueEmploymentAutonomyUsefulnessGdpChildrearingGnp
Book:The Right to Useful Unemployment: And Its Professional Enemies
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“Differences between nations, so long as they do not lead to hostility, are by no means to be deplored. Living for a time in a foreign country makes us aware of merits in which our own country is deficient, and this is true whichever country our own may be. The same thing holds of differences between different regions within one country, and of the differing types produced by different professions. Uniformity of character and uniformity of culture are to be regretted. Biological evolution has depended upon inborn differences between individuals or tribes, and cultural evolution depends upon acquired differences. When these disappear, there is no longer any material for selection. In the modern world, there is a real danger of too great similarity between one region and another in cultural respects. One of the best ways of minimising this evil is an increase in the autonomy of different groups.”

DiversityVarietyAutonomyNationalities
Book:Authority and the Individual
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“It struck me that in every family, culture, or religion, ideas of right and wrong are the hot cattle prods, the barking sheepdogs that keep the masses in the herd. They are the bars that keep us caged. I decided that if I kept doing the "right" thing, I would spend my life following someone else's directions instead of my own. I didn't want to live my life without living my life. I wanted to make my own decision as a free woman, from my soul, not my training. But the problem was, I didn't know how.”

SelfReligionAgencyAutonomy
Book:Untamed
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“I told her a bit about unicycles. “The unicycle is the ultimate symbol of autonomy—with the adversity of only having one wheel, there is a struggle to move forward. When you grow more comfortable with your knowledge of the mechanics of the bike and the lay of the land, you learn to manoeuvre gracefully on any terrain life can throw at you. It’s the same as the test of gaining your own autonomy.”

SelfKnowledgeSelf ImprovementAutonomyUnicycle
Book:There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
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“You feel lonely and see it as a void, a painful emptiness that must be filled by another person. When a man appears, you push him into that void to stop the horrible feeling. This is the 'clinging.' It is a frantic attempt to use another person as insulation against yourself. I felt that same void. But I learned to see it not as an absence, but as a space. An empty room. And I understood that my life's primary task was not to find someone to move into that room with me, but to furnish it myself.”

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Author:Charlotte Eriksson
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“Freedom is essential to the pursuit of happiness. Freedom is essential to artistic evolution and expression. Freedom is essential to the expansion of the human mind. Freedom is essential to the development and application of basic humanitarianism. Freedom is essential to the creation of an individual's will, motivations, preferences, and unique talents. In essence, freedom is essential to the success and progress of humanity.”

FreedomBirthIndependenceRichelle GoodrichRichelle E GoodrichYearningRichelleAutonomyIndependence Day
Book:Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
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