Life & Wisdom Quote by John Gay

Self-reliance is pitched here less as an uplifting slogan than as a hard-edged survival tactic. John Gay, writing in an era when patronage was the freelance economy and status ran on favors, understood dependence as a kind of social debt: you can borrow security from others, but the interest rate is humiliation. The line’s force comes from its blunt hierarchy of trust. “No dependence” widens the target to include not just fickle friends, but the whole apparatus of promises - courts, patrons, even institutions that claim to steady your life. Then Gay tightens the screw with “can be sure,” a phrase that drags the reader out of idealism and into risk assessment. Certainty, he implies, is not a moral category; it’s a practical one.

The wording matters. “Dependence upon one’s self” isn’t the same as “independence.” It admits you will depend on something; the question is whether that something is outside your control. The subtext is quietly cynical about human goodwill: people can admire you, sponsor you, love you, and still fail you for reasons that aren’t even personal. So you build a life where your baseline does not require their consistency.

Coming from a poet often read alongside Swift and Pope, Gay’s maxim carries Augustan clarity: polished, balanced, and a little cold. It flatters the reader with agency while warning them that society’s most charming feature is also its most dangerous one - its ability to make you believe you’re secure right up until the terms change.