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Margaret Fuller Quotes About Self-Respect

Browse 7 quotations connecting Margaret Fuller with Self-Respect, with meanings, source notes and related themes.

Sources

Where these self-respect quotations appear

Sources represented here include Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Life Without and Life Within.

7 shown
Quotations

7 matching quotations with meanings and source context

Source identified1
For the soul seeks not adorers, but peers.

“For the soul seeks not adorers, but peers.”

Respectful relationship is distinguished from worship or dependency: a developed person seeks equals capable of intelligent sympathy rather than admirers who surrender judgment.

Source details

Life Without and Life Within, Part I ‘Reviews,’ essay ‘Menzel's View of Gœthe,’ Project Gutenberg #39037. ‘For the soul seeks not adorers, but peers’ appears in Fuller's discussion of the youth of genius, mockers and worshippers, immediately contrasting blind worship with ‘intelligent sympathy.’ It remains nineteenth-century literary criticism and intellectual reflection rather than a universal social or relationship rule.

Source identified2
I must depend on myself as the only constant friend.

“I must depend on myself as the only constant friend.”

The statement does not deny friendship with others; it names the continuity of one’s relationship with oneself as a reason to cultivate dependable inward resources.

Source details

Woman in the Nineteenth Century; spoken by Fuller’s illustrative figure Miranda while explaining the self-dependence encouraged by her upbringing.

Source identified3
That her hand may be given with dignity, she must be able to stand alone.

“That her hand may be given with dignity, she must be able to stand alone.”

A relationship entered from the ability to stand independently can preserve dignity more fully than one made necessary by the inability to exist outside it.

Source details

Woman in the Nineteenth Century; Fuller connects the dignity of freely giving oneself in relationship with the prior ability to stand independently.

Source identified4
And let your self-respect forbid you to do imperfectly anything that you do at all.

“And let your self-respect forbid you to do imperfectly anything that you do at all.”

Self-respect becomes a standard for workmanship: valuing oneself should appear not only in feeling but in the care brought to responsibilities and chosen work.

Source details

Woman in the Nineteenth Century and Kindred Papers; the sentence appears in advice about practical education, precision, and the development of the whole person.

Source identified5
I have urged upon the sex self-subsistence in its two forms of self-reliance and self-impulse.

“I have urged upon the sex self-subsistence in its two forms of self-reliance and self-impulse.”

Fuller argues for the ability to stand and act from within rather than living only through prescribed dependence, making self-reliance part of a wider claim to human development.

Source details

Woman in the Nineteenth Century; Fuller explicitly names self-subsistence, self-reliance, and self-impulse within her argument about women’s independence.

Source identified6
A dignified sense of self-dependence was given as all her portion, and she found it a sure anchor.

“A dignified sense of self-dependence was given as all her portion, and she found it a sure anchor.”

Fuller presents self-dependence as an anchor that makes relationships more secure rather than less human, because connection is no longer built entirely on dependence.

Source details

Woman in the Nineteenth Century, in Fuller’s account of “Miranda”; this is the narrator’s description of the illustrative figure rather than a standalone autobiographical maxim.

Source identified7
That faith and self-respect had early been awakened which must always lead, at last, to an outward serenity and an inward peace.

“That faith and self-respect had early been awakened which must always lead, at last, to an outward serenity and an inward peace.”

Self-respect and inward faith are presented as foundations that can survive adversity and gradually produce greater steadiness in both outward life and inner experience.

Source details

Woman in the Nineteenth Century, in the discussion of Miranda; Fuller explicitly connects awakened self-respect with serenity and inward peace.

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