Autonomy Quotes

• Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement.

  Daniel H. Pink

  Engagement, Compliance

  Daniel H. Pink (2011). “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”, p.108, Penguin

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• Autonomy... is freedom to develop one's self - to increase one's knowledge, improve one's skills, and achieve responsibility for one's conduct. And it is freedom to lead one's own life, to choose among alternative courses of action so long as no injury to others results.

  Thomas Szasz

  Responsibility, Self, Skills

  Thomas Szasz (1988). “The Ethics of Psychoanalysis: The Theory and Method of Autonomous Psychotherapy”, p.22, Syracuse University Press

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• Listen to the desires of your children. Encourage them and then give them the autonomy to make their own decision.

  Denis Waitley

  Family, Children, Parenting

  "Every Child Has a Thinking Style: A Guide to Recognizing and Fostering Each Child's Natural Gifts and Preferences - to Help Them Learn, Thrive, and Achieve". Book by Lanna Nakone, April 4, 2006.

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• Autonomy is the whole thing; it's what unhappy people are missing. They have given the power to run their lives to other people.

  Judith Guest

  Running, People, Missing

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• The autonomy of the individual appears to be complemented & enhanced by the movement of the group; while the effectiveness of the group seems to depend on the freedom of the individual.

  Hakim Bey

  Effectiveness, Groups, Movement

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• The three things that motivate creative people - autonomy, mastery, purpose!

  Daniel H. Pink

  People, Creative, Three

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• The twin sister to autonomy and freedom is responsibility and accountability. You cannot have one with out the other. If someone is given an area of responsibility, not only must they be set free to do it, they must also be held accountable for what they do. Accountability clarifies freedom. In the teams and companies where you see boundary confusion, power struggles, control, over-reaching of one's line of responsibility, you will also see lapses in accountability as well.

  Henry Cloud

  Team, Struggle, Responsibility

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• Moral autonomy appears when the mind regards as necessary an ideal that is independent of all external pressures.

  Jean Piaget

  Independent, Mind, Pressure

  Jean Piaget (1997). “The Moral Judgement of the Child”, p.196, Simon and Schuster

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• The proper end of teaching is to lead our students toward autonomy.

  Marshall Gregory

  Teaching, Students, Ends

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• Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness.

  Esther Perel

  Two, Needs, Pillars

  Esther Perel (2009). “Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence”, p.25, Harper Collins

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• If you are too weak to give yourselves your own law, then a tyrant shall lay his yoke upon you and say: "Obey! Clench your teeth and obey!" And all good and evil shall be drowned in obedience to him.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Law, Tyrants, Evil

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• Autonomy is impossible as long as one is driven by anything.

  Gabor Mate

  Long, Impossible, Driven

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• Those three things - autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people will agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Motivational, Success, People

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• Men are created different; they lose their social freedom and their individual autonomy in seeking to become like each other.

  David Riesman

  Freedom, Men, Class

  David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, Reuel Denney (2001). “The Lonely Crowd”, p.307, Yale University Press

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• The patient's autonomy always, always should be respected, even if it is absolutely contrary - the decision is contrary to best medical advice and what the physician wants.

  Jack Kevorkian

  Decision, Advice, Want

  "The Kevorkian Verdict". "Frontline", www.pbs.org. May 14, 1996.

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• The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg

  Women, Mean, Equality

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• Love ... is the honoring of others in a way that grants them the grace of their own autonomy and allows mutual discovery.

  Anne Truitt

  Love, Relationship, Discovery

  Anne Truitt (2013). “Daybook, Turn, Prospect: The Journey of an Artist”, p.41, Simon and Schuster

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• the world I create in writing compensates for what the real world does not give me.

  Gloria E. Anzaldúa

  Real, Writing, Giving

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• I think there's great potential for autonomy, but we have to remember that we live in a world where people may have free will but have not invented their circumstances.

  Thomas Frank

  Thinking, People, World

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• The first step toward maintaining autonomy in any programmed environment is to be aware that there's programming going on. It's as simple as understanding the commercials are there to help sell things. And that TV shows are there to sell commercials, and so on.

  Douglas Rushkoff

  Simple, Tv Shows, Understanding

  "Program or be Programmed: The GeekDad". Interview with Jason Cranfordteague, www.wired.com. July 29, 2011.

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• What do prisoners do? Write, of course; even if they have to use blood as ink, as the Marquis de Sade did. The reasons they write, the exquisitely frustrating restrictions of their autonomy and the fact that no one listens to their cries, are all the reasons that mentally ill people, and even many normal people write. We write to escape our prisons.

  Alice Weaver Flaherty

  Writing, Blood, People

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• Writing is a solitary occupation, and one of its hazards is loneliness. But an advantage of loneliness is privacy, autonomy and freedom.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Loneliness, Writing, Hazards

  "A Widow’s Story" by Joyce Carol Oates, www.newyorker.com. December 13, 2010.

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• For 70 years there's been a consensus among scholars and the American people on a reading to the Constitution that protects the right of privacy, the autonomy of individuals, while at the same time empowering the federal government to protect the less powerful.

  Joe Biden

  Powerful, Reading, Government

  U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Judge Samuel Alito's Nomination to the Supreme Court, www.washingtonpost.com. January 9, 2006.

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• By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it.

  Gloria E. Anzaldúa

  Writing, Order, Giving

  "This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers)". Book edited by Gloria E. Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga, 1981.

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• The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life.

  Georg Simmel

  Being Yourself, Inspire, Historical

  Georg Simmel, Kurt H. Wolff (1950). “The Sociology of Georg Simmel”, p.409, Simon and Schuster

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