Quotes About Individuality

Imagine what our story would look like if, rather than succumbing to the insistent voices of family or culture, we determined that our vocation was to be a better human.

The way I look at it, love does not necessarily make for a happy ending any more than winning does. What makes for a happy ending is what Addie said all along: freedom. The freedom to be who you are without anybody calling you names. —Bobby Goodspeed

What's wrong with being out there, out there like a star shining in the night when that's the only way the star can be seen? You never tell a star: Hey Tone it down.

Every man has a right to kill himself.

Sin is obviously relative to the man, and not a universal attribute.

I'm the kind of a guy who dont like to get too close to any individual, to see his faults; if I do, it shuts off the love I feel; then I get angry and hate myself for it afterwards; and if I have to stay close to the guy, or the thing, I eventually get to hate him, or it, too.

What's in a name? That is what we ask ourselves in childhood when we write the name that we are told is ours.

Redheaded women buck like goats.

To discover the mode of life or of art whereby my spirit could express itself in unfettered freedom.

If he had smiled why would he have smiled? To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity.

As I am. As I am. All or not at all.

I am other I now.

The intellectual imagination! With me all or not at all. NON SERVIAM!

When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.

Each imagining himself to be the first last and only alone, whereas he is neither first last nor last nor only not alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity.

You have asked me what I would do and what I would not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use--silence, exile, and cunning.

Look here, Cranly, he said. You have asked me what I would do and what I would not do. I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use?silence, exile, and cunning.

No, it did a lot of other things, too. [turning down fan who asked to kiss the hand that wrote Ulysses

I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use---silence, exile and cunning.

Non servirò ciò in cui non credo più, si chiami questo la casa, la patria o la Chiesa: e tenterò di esprimere me stesso in un qualunque modo di vita o di arte quanto più potrò liberamente e integralmente, adoperando per difendermi le sole armi che mi concedo di usare: il silenzio, l'esilio e l'astuzia.

No man, said the Nolan, can be a lover of the true or the good unless he abhors the multitude; and the artist, though he may employ the crowd, is very careful to isolate himself.

You have asked me what I would do and what I would not do. I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use -- silence, exile, and cunning.

You have asked me what I would do and what I would not do. I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of art as freely as I can, and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use -- silence, exile, and cunning.

He was destined to learn his own wisdom apart from others or to learn the wisdom of others himself wandering among the snares of the world.