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Independence .... is loyalty to one's best self and principles, and this is
often disloyalty to the general idols and fetishes.
- Notebook, 1888
The quality of independence was almost wholly left out of the human race. The
scattering exceptions to the rule only emphasize it, light it up, make it glare.
- Mark Twain's Autobiography
There are certain sweet-smelling sugar-coated lies current in the world which
all politic men have apparently tacitly conspired together to support and perpetuate.
One of these is, that there is such a thing in the world as independence: independence
of thought, independence of opinion, independence of action. Another is that
the world loves to see independence -- admires it, applauds it.
- Mark Twain's Autobiography
...all men -- kings & serfs alike -- are slaves to other men & to circumstance
-- save alone, the pilot -- who comes at no man's back and call, obeys no man's
orders & scorns all men's suggestions. The king would do this thing, &
would do that: but a cramped treasury overmasters him in the one case &
a seditious people in the other. The Senator must hob-nob with canaille whom
he despises, & banker, priest & statesman trim their actions by the
breeze of the world's will & the world's opinion. It is a strange study,
-- a singular phenomenon, if you please, that the only real, independent &
genuine gentlemen in the world go quietly up and down the Mississippi river,
asking no homage of any one, seeking no popularity, no notoriety, & not
caring a damn whether school keeps or not.
- Letter to Will Bowen, 25 August 1866
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