by one's bootstraps

1. see under pull oneself up.

Example Sentences

Cooperman, whose relocation from New Jersey to Florida took him from a high-tax state to one without income taxes, complained that Warren was trampling on the American dream of raising oneself by one’s bootstraps.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

To further quell their culpability and show that the American Dream still functions as advertised, conservatives are fond of trotting out success stories — people who prove that pulling one’s self up by one’s bootstraps is still a possibility and, by extension, that those who don’t succeed must own their shortcomings.

Read more on Salon

His stump speech was little more than warmed-over babble about the evils of “big government,” the importance of being “self sufficient” and the dangers of people becoming dependent on government instead of lifting oneself up by one’s bootstraps.

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This looks very much like lifting oneself by one's bootstraps.

Read more on Project Gutenberg

Since to raise prices means to reduce the value of the dollar, Dr. Warren demanded to know whether trying to reduce the value of the dollar and still maintaining its gold content at 23.22 grains was not the equivalent of raising oneself by one's bootstraps.

Read more on Time Magazine Archive