“No man is free who cannot control himself.”
“He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.”
"Honest People Have Rights, Too" (8 February 1960).
Scientology Bulletins
Source: The Conquest of Fear (1921), Chapter III : God And His Self-Expression, § VIII
Context: I was to see myself as God's Self-Expression working with others who were also His Self-Expression to the same extent as I. It was in the fact of our uniting together to produce His Self-Expression that I was to look for my security. No one could effectively work against me while I was consciously trying to work with God. Moreover, it was probable that no one was working against me, or had any intention of working against me, but that my own point of view being wrong I had put the harmonious action of my life out of order. Suspicion always being likely to see what it suspects the chances were many that I was creating the very thing I suffered from.
This does not mean that in our effort to reproduce harmonious action we should shut our eyes to what is evidently wrong, or blandly ignore what is plainly being done to our disadvantage. Of course not! One uses all the common-sense methods of getting justice for oneself and protecting one's own interests. But it does mean that when I can no longer protect my own interests, when my affairs depend upon others far more than on myself — a condition in which we all occasionally find ourselves — I am not to fret myself, not to churn my spirit into nameless fears. I am not a free agent. Those with whom I am associated are not free agents. God is the one supreme command. He expresses Himself through me; He expresses Himself through them; we all.
[2003, Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism, World Wisdom, 220, 978-0-94153227-3]
Spiritual life, Happiness
“A man cannot free himself from the past more easily than he can from his own body.”
Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Thinking
“Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap.”
As quoted in Forbes Vol. 78 (1956), and in Lifetime Speaker's Encyclopedia (1962) by Jacob Morton Braude, p. 275
Context: Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.
Attributed in Forbes Vol 38 Iss. 2 (1936) p. 18, and in Lifetime Speaker's Encyclopedia (1962) by Jacob Morton Braude, p. 275
L 98
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook L (1793-1796)
