“The cat may fall low, but he is always unbroken.”

Celebrating the independence and resilience he associated with cats · Essay, Cats and Dogs

• Animals
• Independence
• Strength

“You will do what he wants: he will not do what you want.”

Illustrating the power of someone who cannot be bought or intimidated. · Speech, Values in Life, 1907

• Character
• Independence
• Power

“Bury your grievance, my dear Sarah and Edward. It will take more than a Boston Committee to quench me.”

A spirited refusal to let prejudice or disappointment extinguish her determination as an artist · Letter to Sarah and Edward Whitney, 1875

• Courage
• Independence
• Resilience

“It is as wrong to encourage the man addicted to the vice of borrowing, as the one with the vice of alcohol or drugs.”

Distinguishing helpful generosity from enabling dependency · Essay, Generosity

• Generosity
• Independence
• Responsibility

“I am not cross — only more set in my ways, as I have a right to be.”

A cheerful defence of the privileges of age and established habits · Letter, The Victim of Correspondents

• Age
• Humour
• Independence

“I cannot help it. I cannot tell what she will think, — but I cannot help it.”

A candid expression of determination when choosing medicine as his profession · Letter to Phineas Barnes, 1830

• Choice
• Courage
• Independence

“No Christian—no Protestant Christian, regulates, or at least ought to regulate, his faith by any thing but what appears to him to be really taught in Scripture.”

Private judgement of scripture set above added church doctrines · A View of the General Tenor of the New Testament, 1831

• Faith
• Independence
• Religion

“Your own feelings, and none but your own, should determine such an important point.”

Urging her niece to trust her own feelings when deciding whom to marry · Letter to Fanny Knight, 30 November 1814

• Independence
• Love
• Trust

“Custom is the plague of wise men and the idol of fools.”

Warning against blind conformity and unthinking obedience to tradition · Essay, Of Liberty

• Convention
• Independence
• Wisdom

“You will find that you have no weapon in your armoury with which you can attack him; no argument with which you can appeal to him.”

Describing the unusual strength of someone who cannot be controlled through material incentives. · Speech, Values in Life, 1907

• Character
• Independence
• Power

“The comparative unpopularity of such learning renders it no less worthy of pursuit.”

Defending specialised knowledge regardless of its popularity · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

• Independence
• Knowledge
• Learning

“When my crowns are gone, if Sir Timothy refuses, I hope to be able to support myself by my writings and mine own Shelley’s MSS.”

Showing her determination to maintain herself through her literary work despite financial uncertainty. · Letter to Maria Gisborne, 17 September 1822

• Independence
• Money
• Writing

“Let no man lean on anyone save God and his own divine self.”

Advocating spiritual and personal self-reliance · Essay, Generosity

• Faith
• Independence
• Self

“You need no outlay of money, no assistance from those in power, no influence.”

Insisting that character does not depend upon privilege or social influence · Essay, The Heart of the New Thought

• Character
• Equality
• Independence

“Once he has chosen a subject he must think of nothing but giving it such an expression as will please himself.”

Arguing that the artist's first responsibility is fidelity to personal vision · Essay, Ireland and the Arts

• Art
• Independence
• Sincerity

“I consider myself as less of a sectarian than almost any one whom I am acquainted with.”

She presented scripture texts and left readers to judge for themselves · Letter on her New Testament pamphlet, c. 1831

• Faith
• Independence
• Religion

“You may meet that man on your farm, in your village, or in your legislature.”

Suggesting that moral independence can appear in every sphere of ordinary life. · Speech, Values in Life, 1907

• Character
• Independence
• Society

“The too ready lender is almost as great an evil to humanity as rum or opium.”

A deliberately provocative argument against indiscriminate financial assistance · Essay, Generosity

• Independence
• Money
• Responsibility

“It has a tendency to lower their self-respect and to make them look to you, instead of to themselves, for support.”

Warning that poorly conceived charity can undermine independence · Essay, Old Clothes

• Charity
• Dignity
• Independence

“The height is only to be reached by a pathway of our own.”

Expressing the importance of originality in creative achievement · Essay, Female Portrait Gallery, No. I

• Independence
• Perseverance
• Writing

“The greatest luxury in life is to be able to do what you like, when you like, and how you like.”

Celebrating independence and the freedom to shape one’s own life · Commonly attributed remark

• Freedom
• Independence
• Life

“There were men who would not be disciples... to not be a disciple meant to be either an abrupt and emphatic individuality or nothing.”

Reflecting on the fierce independence required of an artist standing outside established movements · Biography, James Joyce: His First Forty Years

• Art
• Independence
• Individuality

“And as they are of no school they will be fresh, as the old delights of earth are ever fresh.”

Arguing that poetry independent of schools and fashions can retain its freshness · Letter to Louise Chandler Moulton, quoted in Representative Women of New England

• Independence
• Poetry
• Tradition

“I am not aware that I have arrayed myself against any of the Causes to which you refer.”

A measured opening to a candid defence of his political independence and opinions · Letter to James Russell Lowell, November 29, 1846

• Independence
• Opinions
• Politics