Quotes About Empowerment

We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seeded refusal of that which others have made of us.

Books ... rarely, if ever, talk about what children can make of themselves, about the powers that from the day or moment of birth are present in every child.

To be a man is to feel that one's own stone contributes to building the edifice of the world.

A sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.

If Moses had been a committee, the Israelites would still be in Egypt.

I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

Behind every successful man is a surprised woman!

If one is willing to do a thing he is afraid to do, he does not have to ... face a situation fearlessly, and [if] there is no situation to face; it falls away of its own weight.

There is something healthy and invigorating about direct action.

I have met brave women who are exploring the outer edge of human possibility, with no history to guide them, and with a courage to make themselves vulnerable that I find moving beyond words.

Courage isrequired not only in a person's occasional crucial decision for his own freedom, but in the little hour-to-hour decisions which place the bricks in the structure of his building of himself into a person who acts with freedom and responsibility.

Hereditary boundsmen! Know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?

Since changes are going on anyway, the great thing is to learn enough about them so that we will be able to lay hold of them and turn them in the direction of our desires. Condi-tions and events are neither to be fled from nor passively acquiesced in; they are to be utilized and directed.

Human Salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

Full maturity ... is achieved by realizing that you have choices to make.

We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.

It is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble your foe.

The last, if not the greatest, of the human freedoms: to choose their own attitude in any given circumstance.

Every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them.

The greatest blessing of our democracy is freedom. But in the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves.

Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

If I ever felt inclined to be timid as I was going into a room full of people, I would say to myself, "You're the cleverest member of one of the cleverest families in the cleverest class of the cleverest nation. ... Why should you be frightened?"

It's the moment you think you can't that you realize you can.