#determination

Being strong-willed is not enough, however. You also have to be hard on yourself. Someone who was strong-willed but self-indulgent would not be called determined. Determination implies your willfulness is balanced by discipline. ↗

— Paul Graham

#discipline

If happy I can be I will, if suffer I must I can. ↗

— William Faulkner

#happiness #optimism #suffering #optimism

Always listen to yourself... It is better to be wrong than simply to follow convention. ↗

— Bryce Courtenay

#self-determination #self-determination

Woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circumstances requiring fortitude and strength of mind, if she have not resolution enough to resist idle interference ... It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on. You are never sure of a good impression being durable; everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm. ↗

— Jane Austen

#independence #interference #judgment #persuasion #self-determination

To know who I am is a species of knowing where I stand. My identity is defined by the commitments and identifications which provide the frame or horizon within which I can try to determine from case to case what is good, or valuable, or what ought to be done, or what I endorse or oppose. In other words, it is the horizon within which I am capable of taking a stand. ↗

— Charles Taylor

#self #self-identity #self-determination

There is no sin unless through a man's own will, and hence the reward when we do right things also of our own will." (Against Fortunatus) ↗

— Augustine of Hippo

#salvation #self-determination #sin #self-determination

Someone who is determinedly trying to show God how good he or she is is likely to become an insufferable prig. ↗

— N.T. Wright

#grace #self-righteousness #self-determination

A mother who would stop at nothing for her child is dangerous woman when crossed. ↗

— Solange nicole

#determination #love #mother-s-love #motherhood #solange

What you perceive as a failure today may actually be a crucial step towards the success you seek. Never give up. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#drive #failure #perseverance #richelle #richelle-goodrich

[F]rom my years of understanding ... I happily chose this kind of life in which I yet live [i.e., unmarried], which I assure you for my own part hath hitherto best contented myself and I trust hath been most acceptable to God. From the which if either ambition of high estate offered to me in marriage by the pleasure and appointment of my prince ... or if the eschewing of the danger of my enemies or the avoiding of the peril of death ... could have drawn or dissuaded me from this kind of life, I had not now remained in this estate wherein you see me. But so constant have I always continued in this determination ... yet is it most true that at this day I stand free from any other meaning that either I have had in times past or have at this present. ↗

— Elizabeth I Tudor

#choice #contentment #dignity #empowerment #freedom