Individual Agency Quotes

Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.

No man is free who is not master of himself... Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose?

Remember, it's not conditions but decisions that determine our lives.

Highly proactive people don't blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice.

We can't sit around waiting for big government, big business, big religion etc. to save us. We need to get informed and take inspired action.

You must personally accept the responsibility of improving your own life.

Our lives are the results of our choices. To blame and accuse other people, the environment, or other extrinsic factors is to choose to empower those things to control us.

The better-informed we are, the more we can do to make sure what's happening is in our interests and is accountable to us.

We all love narratives where we're the captain of our boat, and Americans love them more than anybody else.

I have some notions that have people conceiving of themselves as capable of changing the world. That's why, for me, the issues of self-love, self-respect and self-regard are preconditions for human agency and especially black agency, given the fact that we have been and are such a hated and despised people.

The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.

Institutions don't change the world in fundamental ways. The way the world changes is heart to heart to heart by individuals, not by institutions.

As human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values.

I am responsible for my own actions and for nobody else's actions.

We do have the power to kind of make this world what we want it to be. But we have to just choose to do it ourselves and not wait for someone else.

What really matters is what you do with what you have.

You know how they say a man's house is his castle? I think for a woman, it's her body. I feel so strongly about a woman's right to choose. This is my Zionism. It's not a "right" any more than it's a right to breathe, to take in oxygen.

People blame their environment, their education, their opportunities, their luck, for their condition. They are wrong. There is one person to blame — and only one — THEMSELVES.

There's nothing new under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome. And people cannot provide it for you. I can't wake you up. You can wake you up. I can't cure you. You can cure you.

I’ve only ever met one woman who actually was a prostitute of her own free will. She didn’t have a pimp. She could pick and choose her customers. That’s so rare. So we have to look at the reality and not romanticize it. We have to be clear that you have the right to sell your own body but nobody has the right to sell anybody else’s body. No one has that right.

I am glad I am born in this era, but, at the same time, my success will totally depend on the choices I make.

The only power you have on this planet is the power of your decisions.

Laws provide against injury from others. God himself will not save men against their wills.

Most people don't lead their own lives - they accept their lives