Maya Angelou Quotes

Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgement and nothing can help you escape it - that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life.

One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself.

I don't ever want to be the type of person to tell you what to think or what to believe. Whatever stage in your life that you are in, I want you to organically reach whatever conclusions that you possibly reach.

Thinking for yourself - that's scarier than any devil image.

The first move of leadership is learning to think for yourself.

I feel very strongly in my opinion that everyone is responsible to themselves for what they do.

I believe very firmly in the principle of free agency - people making their own decisions and doing what they think is right.

Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.

I believe we've been given free will, and we can take responsibility for our own lives and for creating our own environments - which I think at times can be a little much for people to deal with.

Be yourself and think for yourself, and while your conclusions may not be infallible they will be nearer right than the inclusions forced upon you by those who have a personal interest in keeping you in ignorance.

Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.

Advice to intellectuals: let no-one represent you.

I don't substitute anybody else's judgment for my own.

Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices.

I'm really only responsible for my own actions.

Man must assume responsibility for the direction of his life and destiny.

Each of you, as an individual, must pick your own goals. Listen to others, but do not become a blind follower.

Most actions derive not from your own initiative but from your family circumstances, your education, your calling, and so on. You must therefore give up a little time to performing actions which derive from yourself alone. They need not be important; quite insignificant actions fulfill the same purpose.

Everyone has to run their own race and make their own decisions.

You must think for yourself, what you must do. If someone tells you, then you are not trying. -An-mei

Should we have a leader or should we think for ourselves? Obviously the latter in principle. But-sometimes there lies a gulf between what is theoretically right and that which is practical.

Where the realm of freedom of thought and action begin, the determination of individuals according to generic laws ends.

One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself. Then you can come to an intelligent decision for yourself. If you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you will be walking west when you think you're going east, and you will be walking east when you think you're going west.

No one tells me what to think. I think for me.

Self-reliance leads to intellectual independence. Each man must think for himself, must train the mind to think, must habituate the soul to observe and analyze.