So long as you’re still worried about what others think of you, you are owned by them. Only when you require no approval from outside yourself can you own yourself.” It’s true that when you summon the

As long as other people's opinions matter more than your own, you're owned by them. You're not even free.

You’re owned by your ideas.

Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.” I still believe in this quote from two of my previous books — maybe now more than ever. But I know that it takes more than courage to own your story. We own our stories so we don’t spend our lives being defined by them or denying them. And while the journey is long and difficult at times, it is the path to living a more wholehearted life.

Do not be too much a slave of others' opinions of you! Be self-sufficient! Why, in the end, does the opinion of the whole world trouble you, if you do what you should?

Your problem, Werner,” says Frederick, “is that you still believe you own your life.

Writers don't own their words. Since when do words belong to anybody? 'Your very own words,' indeed! And who are you?

We are not our own any more than what we possess is our own. We did not make ourselves, we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We are not our own masters. We are God's property. Is it not our happiness thus to view the matter? Is it any happiness or any comfort, to consider that we are our own? It may be thought so by the young and prosperous. These may think it a great thing to have everything, as they suppose, their own way–to depend on no one–to have to think of nothing out of sight, to be without the irksomeness of continual acknowledgment, continual prayer, continual reference of what they do to the will of another. But as time goes on, they, as all men, will find that independence was not made for man–that it is an unnatural state–will do for a while, but will not carry us on safely to the end …'

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream.

True ownership can come only from within. It comes from a disdain for anything or anybody that impinges upon your mobility, from a confidence in your own decisions, and from the use of your time in constant pursuit of education and improvement.

Stop giving a s— what other people think of you. We make decisions too often based on that…When we start to live for ourselves, and be a little bit more selfish, I think we’ll lead more fulfilling lives. So I think what we need to do, is stare at ourselves in the mirror a little bit longer, and really own who we are and not try to be what we think others want us to be.

You refuse to own yourself, you permit others to do it for you

We are not our own any more than what we possess is our own. We did not make ourselves, we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We are not our own masters.

Because if you base your self-worth on what everyone else thinks of you, you hand all your power over to other people and become dependent on a source outside of yourself for validation.