Richard Francis Burton Quotes

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.

Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.

We are ultimately alone in that we are ultimately responsible for ourselves.

Do everything yourself.

You have to be concerned with yourself because if you're not on it all the time, nobody else is going to be.

I don't need to be motivated by anybody. Never have.

And truly it demands something god like in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!

Self-help must precede help from others. Even for making certain of help from heaven, one has to help oneself.

Your task is to stand straight; not to be held straight.

I very linearly [sic] wish you would exert yourself so as to keep all your matters in order your self without depending on others as that is the only way to be happy to have all your business in your own hands.

The only person who is going to give you security and the life you want is you.

It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views.

At the bottom no one in life can help anyone else in life; this one experiences over and over in every conflict and every perplexity: that one is alone. That isn't as bad as it may first appear; and again it is the best thing in life that each should have everything in himself; his fate, his future, his whole expanse and world.

In the absence of government each man learns to think, to act for himself, without counting on the support of an outside force which, however vigilant one supposes it to be, can never answer all social needs. Man, thus accustomed to seek his well-being only through his own efforts, raises himself in his own opinion as he does in the opinion of others; his soul becomes larger and stronger at the same time.

Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity.

There are things one must do for oneself.

I'm in control of my life, not anyone in Hollywood.

I am a good, strong word giver; I am a jealous guard of my own secrets. Freedom is the rule; I am hungry for one good thing I can do.

I have to do things for myself, and if those standards are set high, then it's up to me to pass or fail.

I don't need government to be successful.

Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.

My mom raised me to never have anything control me.

People who truly understand what is meant by self-reliance know they must live their lives by ethics rather than rules.

I am not driven.

No matter who is watching or paying the paycheck, we are ultimately each our own boss.