L15 · Lens
Autonomy from opinion
Move the court of judgement inside: live by one's own reasoned standards rather than the gaze of others.
Use: Approval-seeking, status anxiety, conformity, shame.
Boundary: Autonomy is not contempt; feedback can still be weighed.
Cues
Showing 20 of 24 cues
“It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.”
“Whatever anyone does or says, I must be emerald and keep my colour.”
“Why do I not rather seek some real good - one which I could feel, not one which I could display? These things that draw the eyes of men, before which they halt, which they show to one another in wonder, outwardly glitter, but are worthless within.”
“No one is laughed at who begins by laughing at himself.”
“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
“I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Mans”
“A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition ... I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways ... Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none.”
“The impetus that makes you fly is our great human possession. Everybody has it. It is the feeling of being linked with the roots of power, but one soon becomes afraid of this feeling ... That is why most people shed their wings and prefer to walk and obey the law.”
“The concept of greatness entails ... being able to be different.”
“Why do you take pleasure in praise from those you cannot praise yourself?”
“Put up with being laughed at on occasion; look around you, and give yourself a good shaking to find out who you really are.”
“Whatever it be, whether art or nature, that has inscribed in us this condition of living by reference to others, it does us much more harm than good. We defraud ourselves out of what is actually useful to us in order to make appearances conform to common opinion. We care less about the real truth of our inner selves than about how we are known to the public.”
“To be ashamed only of what was really shameful, and to ignore men’s low opinion of other things.”
· Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 6.58; Robin Hard translation in Sayings and Anecdotes (2012)
“When someone said to Diogenes, ‘Most people laugh at you’, he replied, ‘And doubtless donkeys laugh at them; but just as they pay no heed to the donkeys, I pay none to them.’”
“The greatest height of heroism to which an individual can attain is to know how to face ridicule; better still, to know how to make oneself ridiculous and not to shrink from the ridicule.”
“When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think as I really think; after a time it always seems as though they want to banish me from myself and rob me of my soul ... I then require the desert, so as to grow good again.”
“[Chekhov] made a vow to himself: no more bowing and apologizing to people; no more complaining and blaming; no more disorderly living and wasting time. The answer to everything was work and love, work and love.”
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.”
“Nobody can build the bridge for you to walk across the river of life, no one but you yourself alone. There are, to be sure, countless paths and bridges and demi-gods which would carry you across this river; but only at the cost of yourself; you would pawn yourself and lose. There is in the world only one way, on which nobody can go, except you: where does it lead?”
Socrates unfazed by belittlement
Mocked by Hippias for repeating himself, Socrates calmly turned the jibe into a boast, persisting throughout his life in exhorting Athenians to examine how they ought to live.