Own Terms Quotes

#1. As long as we insist on relating to it strictly on our own terms-as strange to us or subject to us-the wilderness is alien, threatening, fearful.

Wendell Berry

#2. I suspect that all the agony that goes into writing is borne precisely because the writer longs for acceptance-but it must be acceptance on his own terms.

Ralph Ellison

#3. As a senior in high school, you figure out what you want to do with your life. I asked myself if I wanted to get back into acting and thought: 'Yes, but under my own terms and nothing like it was before.'

Macaulay Culkin

#4. The TUC's new slogan 'a future that works' sets a profound challenge. Austerity and rapid deficit reduction is failing in its own terms, but even at its best it is short-sighted, muddle-through politics with no vision of a new economic model.

Frances O'Grady

#5. I'm intrigued and drawn to people who know exactly who they are, who know what they want, who live life on their own terms.

Taylor Swift

#6. Life was neither something you defended by hiding nor surrendered calmly on other people's terms, but something you lived bravely, out in the open, and that if you had to lose it, you should lose it on your own terms.

Edwidge Danticat

#7. The new anthropology required each culture to be understood on its own terms, as a product of its own evolution rather than as merely an earlier stage in the ascent toward Western civilization.

Guy Deutscher

#8. God is not a bargaining God. You cannot barter with Him. You must do business with Him on His own terms.

Billy Graham

#9. Being happy requires that you define your life in your own terms and then throw your whole heart into living your life to the fullest. In a way, happiness requires that you be perfectly selfish in order to develop yourself to a point where you can be unselfish for the rest of your life.

Brian Tracy

#10. Religion is man's attempt to make peace with God on his own terms. Redemption is God's offer of peace through Jesus Christ. But this is "peace through the blood of His cross" (Col. 1:20).

Warren W. Wiersbe

#11. True hospitality is marked by an open response to the dignity of each and every person. Henri Nouwen has described it as receiving the stranger on his own terms, and asserts that it can be offered only by those who 'have found the center of their lives in their own hearts'.

Kathleen Norris

#12. Once I started reinventing for myself what being an artist was - not going into a studio, but making things on my own terms in response to being out in the world - I started to really enjoy it ... I realized that everything else for me was hell.

Cornelia Parker

#13. The decision to move to the second post-college city (or suburb, or town), however, is usually made independent of friends. No matter if you do it for love, career, family, or school, the second move is on your own terms.

Rachel Bertsche

#14. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a rock star, not an actor. It means I can do what I want on my own terms.

Iwan Rheon

#15. Be excellent in your own terms. Do not look for approval from a single soul on this planet. Respect yourself and in time the whole world will respect you.

Abhijit Naskar

#16. I want to change things on my own terms, to show that there's no right or wrong way to change the world. There's no entry test. You don't need to suck anything up. Pay any dues. Just you and your anger and your voice is enough. If you only have the courage to use it.

Holly Bourne

#17. If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.

Anna Quindlen

#18. My point is that we much decolonize our minds and re-name and re-define ourselves ... In all respects, culturally, politically, socially, we must re-define ourselves and our lives, in our own terms.

Max Roach

#19. To me, Slow parenting is about bringing balance into the home. Children need to strive and struggle and stretch themselves, but that does not mean childhood should be a race. Slow parents give their children plenty of time and space to explore the world on their own terms.

Carl Honore

#20. Most of the women correspondents couldn't make a marriage last. We'd tasted too much of life on our own terms and you didn't find men who could manage with that.

Phyllis Edgerly Ring

#21. I can understand other people's situations in their own terms, but I still can't understand mine.

Edie Sedgwick

#22. But always and sometimes questioning the old modes
And the new wondering, the poem, growing up through the floor,
Standing tall in tubers, invading and smashing the ritual
Parlor, demands to be met on its own terms now,
Now that the preliminary negotiations are at last over.

John Ashbery

#23. As a writer of both novels and screenplays, I can say that screenwriting is a vastly rewarding creative life - if you fight hard enough to do it on your own terms. Whether I write books or not, my screenwriting life has been creatively rewarding and remains so.

John Fusco

#24. You have to work in this business on your own terms. Don't sell out for money, fame, or notoriety.

Morgan Brittany

#25. If you are going to live life on your own terms, there need to be terms, and somehow you need to live up to them.

Robert B. Parker

#26. It's possible and available to any artist to be himself or herself on their own terms, to be accepted and embraced by black people. You don't have to be a thug to get love from black people.

Mos Def

#27. No man can have society upon his own terms.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#28. Oh, but I don't abide by your time frame, giant," Reyna said. "A Roman does not wait for death. She seeks it out, and meets it on her own terms.

Rick Riordan

#29. No, I do not need an outrageous quest to prove my worth. I deserve happiness
happiness on my own terms.

Anna Bayes

#30. Letting the Bible speak for itself, that is, letting it speak in its own terms, includes letting the Bible speak from within its own worldview rather than merely our own.

Vern Poythress

#31. I have played cricket on my own terms.

Kapil Dev

#32. I make my own time. I make my own terms. I cannot see how God or Nature can ever get the start of me.

Henry David Thoreau

#33. Lead a life of your own design, on your own terms
-not one that others, or the environment have
scripted for you.

Tony Robbins

#34. To hope under the most extreme circumstances is an act of defiance that permits a person to live his life on his own terms. It is part of the human spirit to endure and give a miracle a chance to happen.

Jerome Groopman

#35. Our incapacity to comprehend other cultures stems from our insistence on measuring things in our own terms.

Arthur Erickson

#36. He has demonstrated his own weakness: an inability to read a novel on its own terms. All he knows is judgment,

Azar Nafisi

#37. I'd rather die on my own terms than live on theirs. I'd rather die loving Alex than live without him.

Lauren Oliver

#38. Define success on your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life you're proud to live.

Anne Sweeney

#39. He loves us. On our own terms. He treats us as equals to the men around him; he listens; he does not belittle; he honors us; he challenges us; he teaches us; he includes us - calls us all beloved. Gloriously, this flies in the face of the cultural expectations of his time - and even our own time.

Sarah Bessey

#40. You must give up your right to decide what is good and evil on your own terms. That is a hard pill to swallow - choosing to live only in me. To do that, you must know me enough to trust me and learn to rest in my inherent goodness.

William Paul Young

#41. I was still a nerd in some ways, but I'd be that nerd on my own terms. Not to please anyone else. Not to be anyone else.

Bijou Hunter

#42. I've run into certain geniuses of individualism - they are very few and far between - who live their lives completely on their own terms; they are very powerful and have a great amount of happiness. We all should aspire to that.

David Duchovny

#43. Most of the time, as an artist, I can be self-indulgent, fulfilling my own impulses, embracing imagery that contains poetry on my own terms, without immediate regard to an audience or the particular placement of my finished work.

Clifford Ross

#44. We think we'd be delighted to have an unconditional relationship, but that's only as long as it's on our own terms.

Pema Chodron

#45. All the genres of philosophy, science, high art, athletics and politics were invented by men. But by the Promethean law of conflict and capture, woman has a right to seize what she will and vie with man on her own terms.

Camille Paglia

#46. I suppose if I had my time again I would refuse it and stay at Fulham because I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, and secondly I would have taken it on my own terms.

Kevin Keegan

#47. To name the world in your own terms, to tell your own story, is an act of authority and power. When you write, you are saying, in effect, 'I have a voice. I have a story. This is what I have to say.'

Rebecca McClanahan

#48. We consume luxury. We participate in the image industry in a meaningful way, and we have a look and a background that should be taken on its own terms.

Hari Nef

#49. What counts most is finding new ways to get the world down in paint on my own terms.

Georg Baselitz

#50. I've learned over and over that life happens on its own terms, not mine.

Kate Walsh

#51. Whatever path you choose, whatever star you wish to pray, people will judge you...live your life on your own terms

Tommy Sorrow

#52. A free society, to be truly worthy of that name, owes healthy, competent individuals the right to end their lives on their own terms.

Jacob M. Appel

#53. Success lies in being true to yourself - and living life on your own terms.

Robin S. Sharma

#54. Motley Crue, collectively and individually, have done things on our own terms.

Nikki Sixx

#55. Each individual woman's body demands to be accepted on its own terms.

Gloria Steinem

#56. Like Dewey, I was lucky. I got to leave on my own terms. Find your place. Be happy with what you have. Treat everyone well. Live a good life. It isn't about material things; it's about love. And you can never anticipate love.

Vicki Myron

#57. It seems that every text has more sources than it can reconstruct within its own terms.

Judith Butler

#58. Toddlers need to get off the soccer field and onto the playground. Children need to get out of the gym and into neighborhood stickball games. We need to give kids room to create their own rules, set their own terms, and move their bodies in their own ways.

Darell Hammond

#59. To live life on your own terms, you've got to understand that you're going to get it wrong sometimes, but you'll have power of knowing that you are giving it everything you've got and blazing your own trail.

Steven Aitchison

#60. It was fine to be mocked or disliked on his own terms. But his sexual orientation was such a naked target, unfortified by nonchalance and lacking the benefit of being a persona he'd constructed. Gay Mark wasn't sheddable like Smart-Ass Mark or Bitter-About-the-Move Mark.

Lisa Henry

#61. I believe that the American poet ought to be a tough son of a bitch. He sought to hold his own in this culture on his own terms and not compromise under any circumstances.

James Dickey

#62. But obviously you don't want to just be the guy who comes in and sort of spices up every movie. So yeah, definitely moving into more of a leading man role would be great, but on my own terms.

Danny McBride

#63. When I got into the music industry, I wasn't focused on being the most famous artist or even getting a major record deal. It was just to make music on my own terms or create my own image, do my own hair, do my own makeup.

Janelle Monae

#64. God comes on his own terms. He comes when commands are revered, hearts are clean, and confession is made.

Max Lucado

#65. I think music is what language once aspired to be. Music allows us to face God on our own terms because it reaches beyond life.

Simon Van Booy

#66. All I would tell people is to hold onto what was individual about themselves, not to allow their ambition for success to cause them to try to imitate the success of others. You've got to find it on your own terms.

Harrison Ford

#67. All we can do is find our friends and make sure we die on our own terms." "Well said, son. Well said.

James Dashner

#68. I think my mother ... made it clear that you have to live life by your own terms and you have to not worry about what other people think and you have to have the courage to do the unexpected.

Caroline Kennedy

#69. Well, ye're kind, too," he said, considering. "Verra kind. Though ye are inclined to do it on your own terms. Not that that's bad, mind," he added,

Diana Gabaldon

#70. Rich people can be generous, even the ones with bloodcurdling political views can be generous, but most believe in generosity on their own terms, and underneath (not so deep, either), they're always afraid someone is going to steal their presents and eat their birthday cake.

Stephen King

#71. And for many, politics has become gestural: it is about refusing to engage with power on power's own terms; about action, not ideas; about the symbolic control of territory to create islands of utopia.

Paul Mason

#72. Few have abilities so much needed by the rest of the world as to be caressed on their own terms; and he that will not condescend to recommend himself by external embellishments must submit to the fate of just sentiment meanly expressed, and be ridiculed and forgotten before he is understood.

Samuel Johnson

#73. Allison, how you live your life is up to you. I can only give you the skills you need to survive. But eventually, you will have to make your own decisions, come to your own terms about what you are. You are Vampire, but what kind of monster you become is out of my hands.

Julie Kagawa

#74. People relate to the spirit of the band, which is to live your way and succeed on your own terms. There's no hypocrisy in being successful and still railing against conformity.

Paul Stanley

#75. I try to consider each body of work on its own terms, discretely, so terms like 'sculpture' or 'photography', in their broad sense, don't really enter into my thinking.

Walead Beshty

#76. Some things arrive in their own mysterious hour, on their own terms and not yours, to be seized or relinquished forever.

Gail Godwin

#77. Create enterprise, live on your own terms, and you'll find the key to happiness.

Ziad K. Abdelnour

#78. Being rich is living life on your own terms - according to your possibilities, not your limitations.

Paul McKenna

#79. Comic art is just different. It's art on its own terms.

Joe Simon

#80. That's what drew me to rock music in the first place - that sense of remaking the world on your own terms.

Stephan Jenkins

#81. The truth of an upright man must be accepted on his own terms. Moreover, since natures vary, we must agree that all the beauties of human excellence may be fostered by faiths that we do not share.

Victor Hugo

#82. Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.

Angela Carter

#83. I love the novel of 'The English Patient'; I think it's a profoundly beautiful novel. I love the movie of 'The English Patient'; I think it's a profoundly beautiful movie. And they're totally different. You accept each on its own terms, and that's kind of the ideal.

Ayelet Waldman

#84. Wake up and live your life on your own terms, you are a king in your own kingdom, a god in your own universe

Bangambiki Habyarimana

#85. There's a flipside to this; if you as an individual have the right to live on your own terms, you must have the right to both succeed and fail on them.

Daniel Keys Moran

#86. It does seem that a fantasy, working out in its own terms, stretching you beyond the normal concerns of your own life, gains you a peculiar charge of energy which inexplicably enriches you. At least, this is my ideal of a fantasy, and I am always trying to write it.

Diana Wynne Jones

#87. I loved teaching. And I always used to say that acting was just something I did purely on my own terms, and that if I had to make a living from it there would be too much pressure.

Brendan Gleeson

#88. I loved that these two guys argued with each other as if movies actually mattered. Nobody I knew talked about movies that way, but Siskel and Ebert took each movie as it came and talked about whether it was a success on its own terms.

Sarah Vowell

#89. If you haven't the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it offers you.

T. S. Eliot

#90. Huguette was a formidable personality who lived life as she wanted, always on her own terms.

In her own way, she found what life may be, a life of integrity.

Bill Dedman

#91. There are two basic groups of German verbs ... strong and weak. Weak verbs are regular verbs that follow typical rules. Strong verbs are irregular. They don't follow patterns. You deal with strong verbs on your own terms ... Like people, ... The strong ones stand out. The weak ones are the same.

Jill Alexander Essbaum

#92. Consolidation isn't new, though ... it was a major factor in our rush to form the Gathering and place a stake in the ground to ensure that there is a solid path for developers who are willing to stay independent and build their own companies on their own terms.

Mike Wilson

#93. If evil means to be self-motivated, to be the center of one's own universe, to live on one's own terms, then every artist, every thinker, every original mind, is evil.

Janet Fitch

#94. Abel's sacrifice was accepted by God because it was made according to God's instructions. Cain, however, tried to approach God in his own way and was rejected by God (Genesis 4:3-5). From that point on, Cain became a symbol of those who try to approach God on their own terms.

Robert Jeffress

#95. When blessings come, they come on their own terms.

Marty Rubin

#96. I was either told or I realised on my own terms that if you're going to be star-struck with the people you're working with, you're not going to work very well.

James Frecheville

#97. I wanted success, but I wanted it on my own terms.

Ken Stott

#98. Everybody has their own rules, and so do I. I have always lived on my own terms. As far as mistakes are concerned, I've made them and acknowledged them as mistakes, not regrets. I consider my life a success. There's nothing that I would re-do. I've always done what I felt was right.

Kajol

#99. One must love a cat on its own terms.

Paul Gray

#100. Very often, when you're listening to a piece for the first time, you're listening through a model of other pieces that you know. At a certain point, a piece becomes idiosyncratic and you start to understand it on its own terms.

Paul Lansky