#sovereignty

If you ever happen to turn your attention to externals in order to please anyone, be assured that you have ruined your scheme of life.

Whoever would be free, let him wish for nothing, have aversion to nothing, which depends on others; else he must necessarily be a slave.

He who has gained freedom by the faculty of reason may go where he wills and say: 'No one has power over me; I have been set free by God.'

Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.

God has entrusted me with myself. No man is my master, for God has made me free.

Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner.

Why should the lord of ten thousand chariots act lightly in public? If you act lightly, you lose your root. If you are restless, you lose your power.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

Where the state ceases—there begins the human being who is not superfluous: there begins the song of necessity, the unique and irreplaceable melody.

Can you give yourself your own evil and your own good and hang your will above yourself like a law?

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone.

Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them.

Everything can be taken from a man but the unassailable sovereignty of his inner choice; in that choice lies his eternal freedom.

True peace of mind does not come from the absence of storms, but from knowing yourself sovereign over the ship.

To be free is to be master of oneself.

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

The bird carries the sky wherever it flies.

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand.

The bird in flight knows no boundaries.

The master of oneself is the master of all realms.

The master is one who has mastered himself.

He who has conquered his own mind has conquered the world. He who is a slave to his mind remains a beggar in royal robes.

Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.

We must be our own before we can be another's.

Intellect annuls Fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.

We must be very suspicious of the pretenses of the world to help us.

What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.

Is he not a man of complete virtue, who feels no discomposure though men may take no note of him?

The commander of the forces of a large state may be carried off, but the will of even a common man cannot be taken from him.