AUTONOMY / CONTROL

Related States & Conditions | Syntonic | Dystonic

The self-mastered man or woman sets himself or herself apart. He or she is like a tree grown in fertile ground. It grows green and doubles its yield of fruit.
Khemetic Saying
from Book of Declarations of Virtues , in Kemet and the African Worldview , Maulana Karenga and Jacob Carruthers, eds., 1986

Salvation is accomplished through the efforts of the individual. There is no mediator between man and his/her salvation.
Khemetic Saying
in Temt Tchaas: Egyptian Proverbs , Muata Ashaya Ashby, ed.

Motivate yourself by yourself; examine yourself by yourself. Thus self-controlled and fully conscious, you will live happily. For the self is master of the self; the self is the resort of the self. So control yourself, as a trader does a good horse.
Buddha
c. 563-483 BCE, Indian Prince, Mystic, Founder of Buddhism

It is better to
Conquer yourself
Than to win a thousand battles.
Then the victory is yours.
Buddha
Dhammapada

For one who is self-controlled and always disciplined in action, victory over the self is better than victory over others.
Ibid.

I do not let changes of a given time determine the way I master myself. What I call self-mastery means that my nature and life abide where they are secure.
- Taoist Huainan Masters

Each man is the architect of his own destiny.
Appius Claudius Caecus
4th-3rd Century BCE, Roman Censor, Writer
in Sallust, Ad Caesarem

Who, then, is free? The wise man who can govern himself.
Horace
65-8 BCE, Roman Lyric Poet, Satirist

No man is free who is not master of himself.
Epictetus
50-120, Greek Stoic Philosopher

The most excellent jihad is that for the conquest of the self.
Muhammad
c. 570-632, Arab Prophet, Founder of Islam

When you keep presence of mind, only then do you have autonomy. When you have autonomy, only then can you manage affairs.
Lu Tung Pin
798-?, Chinese Chan Master
The Secret of the Golden Flower: The Classic Chinese Book of Life , Thomas Cleary, tr., 1991

What I point out to you is only that you shouldn't allow yourselves to be confused by others. Act when you need to, without further hesitation or doubt. People today can't do this – what is their affliction? Their affliction is in their lack of self-confidence. If you do not spontaneously trust yourself sufficiently, you will be in a frantic state, pursuing all sorts of objects and being changed by those objects, unable to be independent.
Linji Yixuan
d. 867, Chinese Chan Master, Linji (Rinzai) School Founder
in Zen Essence: The Science of Freedom , Thomas Cleary, tr. & ed., 1989

Just be autonomous wherever you are, and right there is realization. Situations that come up cannot change you. Even if you have bad habits, you will spontaneously be liberated from them.
Ibid.

In each of us there is a king. Speak to him and he will come forth.
Scandinavian Saying

The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.
Thomas Aquinas
1225-1274, Italian Theologian, Philosopher, Saint
in Donald Attwater, Modern Christian Revolutionaries

Alone, you are a sovereign.
Yourself, a precious kingdom.
Reign with peace and harmony!
What external force can possibly invade?
Hanshan Deqing
1546-1623, Chinese Chan Master, Scholar, Poet
"Purify Your Mind," Poems by Silly Mountain , Upasaka Richard Cheung, tr.

You can never have a greater or a less dominion than over yourself.
Leonardo da Vinci
1452-1519, Italian Painter, Sculptor, Architect, Scientist

With freedom of choice and with honor, as though the maker and molder of thyself, thou mayest fashion thyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer. Thou shalt have the power to generate into the lower forms of life which are brutish. Thou shalt have the power, out of thy soul's judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms.
Pico della Mirandola
1463-1494, Italian Philosopher

How shall I be able to rule over others, that have not full power and command of myself?
Francois Rabelais
c. 1494-1553, French Monk, Physician, Satirist, Humanist

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
Montaigne
1533-1592, French Essayist, Moralist
Essais , 1580

He that would govern others first should be
The master of himself.
Philip Massinger
1583-1640, English Dramatist
The Bondman

The man who masters himself is delivered from the force that binds all creatures.
Goethe
1749-1832, German Poet, Novelist, Dramatist, Philosopher, Scientist
Die Geheimnisse

Man who man would be,
Must rule the empire of himself.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
1792-1822, English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist

Self-command is the main elegance.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist

Perhaps ordinary Hedonism makes a mistake in failing to recognize … the pleasure which lies in the denial of pleasure. In order to enjoy life one must be a master of life – for to be a slave to its inconsistencies can only mean torment; and in order to enjoy the senses one must be master of them.
Edward Carpenter
1844-1929, English Writer, Poet, Social Activist
Love's Coming of Age

I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
William Henley
1849-1903, English Writer
Invictus

A nation may conquer the waves, control the elements, develop the utilitarian problems of life seemingly to the utmost limits, and not yet realize that in the individual, the highest type of civilization is found in him who has learned to conquer self.
Vivekananda
1863-1902, Indian Guru, Writer
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 1984-1987 , 4:200

Nothing has power except what you give it. We are beyond the sun, the stars, the universe. Teach the Godhood of man. Stand up and say, I am the master, the master of all. We forge the chain, and we alone can break it.
Ibid. , 7:54

Nothing ever really sets human nature free, but self-control.
Phyllis Bottome
1884-1963, British Writer
in The Wit of Women , L. & M. Cowan, eds.

God and nature made us what we are, and then out of our own created genius we make ourselves what we want to be. Follow always that great law.
Marcus Garvey
1887-1940, Jamaican Pan-African Leader, Writer
African Fundamentalism , 1925

There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
Aldous Huxley
1894-1963, English Writer, Poet, Critic
Time Must Have a Stop , 1944

As in a democracy, the sovereignty derives ultimately from the individual voter, so in the realm of thinking, the individual is his own authority … man ought to reassert his independence. The mind always dares in the solitude of one's study in the still hours of the night. In such thinking, there is strength.
Lin Yutang
1895-1976, Chinese Writer, Dramatist, Translator
The Pleasures of a Nonconformist

Let every man have the courage to think for himself. In this capacity of man to think for himself … lies the true motive force of all human progress.
Ibid.

One has to be a light to oneself; this light is the law. There is no other law. All the other laws are made by thought and so fragmentary and contradictory. To be a light to oneself is not to follow the light of another, however reasonable, logical, historical, and however convincing. You cannot be a light to yourself if you are in the dark shadows of authority, of dogma, of conclusion.
Krishnamurti
1895-1986, Indian Philosopher, Writer
Krishnamurti's Journal , 1982

And when man faces destiny, destiny ends and man comes into his own.
Andre Malraux
1901-1976, French Writer
The Voices of Silence

We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.
Dag Hammarskjold
1905-1961, Swedish Diplomat, UN Secretary-General

Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.
Jean-Paul Sartre
1905-1980, French Philosopher, Writer, Dramatist, Critic

Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism.
Sartre

Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be … Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow.
Louis L'Amour
1908-1988, American Writer

It is far better to be free to govern, or misgovern yourself, than to be governed by anybody else.
Kwame Nkrumah
1909-1972, Ghanaian President

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.
Albert Camus
1913-1960, Algerian-French Writer, Essayist, Dramatist, 1957 Nobel Laureate
Notebooks

We must first recover possession of our own being before we can act wisely or taste any experience in its human reality. As long as we are not in our own possession, all our activity is futile. If we let all our wine run out of the barrel and down the street, how will our thirst be quenched?
Thomas Merton
1915-1968, American Trappist Monk, Writer
No Man Is an Island , 1955, 1983

Our relationship to past symbols of authority is changing because we are awakening to ourselves as individual beings with an inner rulership. Property and credentials and status are not as intimidating any more … New symbols are rising: pictures of wholeness. Freedom sings within us as well as outside us.
M. C. Richards
1916-1999, American Artisan, Poet
The Crossing Point , 1973

No force anywhere on earth is as imperialistic as the human soul. It occupies and is occupied in turn, but it always considers its empire too narrow. Suffocating, it desires to conquer the world in order to breathe.
Vilayat Khan
1916-, Indian-British Sufi Master, Writer
in Lawrence LeShan, How to Meditate , 1974

We can let circumstances rule us, or we can take charge and rule our lives from within.
Earl Nightingale
1921-1989, American Broadcaster, Writer

If you don't run your own life, someone else will.
John W. Atkinson
1923-, American Psychologist, Educator

If you want to manage your problems successfully, you need to take a chance, take charge, and take control.
Robert H. Schuller
1926-, American Cleric, Writer
Power Thoughts

It is only when one has taken the leap into the unknown of total selfhood, psychological independence and unique individuality that one is free to proceed along still higher paths of spiritual growth and free to manifest love in its greatest dimensions.
M. Scott Peck
1936-, American Psychiatrist, Writer
The Road Less Travelled , 1978

There are two things over which you have complete dominion, authority and control – your mind and your mouth.
Molefi Asante
1942-, African-American Scholar, Educator

We are the only creatures on earth who can change our biology by what we think and feel.
Deepak Chopra
1947-, Indian/American Physician, Writer
Journey Into Healing: Awakening the Wisdom Within You , 1994

Can't nothin' make your life work if you ain't the architect.
Terry McMillan
1951-, African-American Writer

There is no higher authority on the planet, when it comes to deciding what's best for you, than you. Life is a banquet, so you should eat until you're full, and do as you please as long as you're not hurting anybody else … You can't get satisfaction living your life according to someone else's rules.
RuPaul
1960-, African-American Entertainer
Lettin It All Hang Out , 1995

The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you.
Anthony Robbbins
1960-, American Writer, Motivational Speaker

Sovereignty isn't something someone gives you … It's a responsibility you carry inside yourself … each man and woman among us has to be sovereign. Sovereignty begins with yourself.
Eddie Benton-Banai
Native American Ojibway Educator, Midewiwin Priest, Poet
in Steve Wall & Harvey Arden, Wisdomkeepers , 1990

In order to become the winner that you will respect and admire … you must have control of the authorship of your own destiny … the pen that writes your life story MUST be held in your own hand.
- Irene C. Kassorda

Though he has dominion over nature, he cannot destroy it without destroying himself. The key to his expression of dominion is first to gain sovereignty of his own nature.
- The Findhorn Garden

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Wisdom for The Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, © 2004