“If we have no intuition of ourselves as independent, unmediated beings in the world, then we cannot conceive ourselves surviving our liberation; for what our liberation will do is dissolve the structures and dismantle the mechanisms by which Woman is mediated by Man. If we cannot imagine ourselves surviving this, we certainly will not make it happen.”

Source: Brave New World

Source: The Year of Magical Thinking

Source: Persuasion

A Declaration of Independence (12 March 1964) http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1148 <br class="br">Variant: We cannot think of uniting with others, until after we have first united among ourselves. We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves. <br class="br">Context: There can be no black-white unity until there is first some black unity. There can be no workers&#x27; solidarity until there is first some racial solidarity. We cannot think of uniting with others, until after we have first united among ourselves. We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves. One can&#x27;t unite bananas with scattered leaves.

Source: Island

Entry (1955)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)
Context: Our doubts about ourselves cannot be banished except by working at that which is the one and only thing we know we ought to do. Other people's assertions cannot silence the howling dirge within us. It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.

On Writing (2002)

54 min 25 sec
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update), Who Speaks for Earth? [Episode 13]

Source: Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer