What does this quote mean?

“Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person.”

Paine presents independence of judgment as personally valuable because it allows principles to be considered without automatic deference to status, nationality, or person.

Source note: Rights of Man; this sentence precedes Paine’s well-known cosmopolitan statement about country and doing good.

“Above all, don’t lie to yourself.”

Self-deception is presented as especially damaging because it corrupts the person’s ability to recognize truth both inwardly and around them.

Source note: The Brothers Karamazov, Book II, Father Zossima’s counsel; Constance Garnett translation.

“He that walketh uprightly walketh surely.”

Consistent upright conduct reduces the need to maintain conflicting stories or hidden motives.

Source note: Proverbs 10:9 in the King James Version; the opening clause is quoted here.

“This above all: to thine own self be true.”

Polonius frames integrity as consistency between inward conviction and outward conduct, although the advice belongs to a fallible fictional counselor.

Source note: Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3; Polonius gives Laertes this advice before Laertes leaves for France.

“One principal of action is sufficient—Respect thyself.”

Wollstonecraft makes self-respect a moral standard rather than self-flattery: conduct should remain compatible with one’s own sense of truth and justice instead of being reorganized around gaining a respectable social position.

Source note: An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution, Project Gutenberg #68724. Wollstonecraft connects “Respect thyself” with religion, justice and self-love while criticizing social arrangements that encourage people to sacrifice truthful character for status.

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”

Emerson places inner integrity above conformity, arguing that a person should examine inherited standards rather than surrender judgment merely because they are socially approved.

Source note: Self-Reliance, in the passage beginning with Emerson’s argument for nonconformity.