Quotes About Individuality

I saw myself.... In the time I watched, I saw strength—and frailty. Pride and vanity, courage and fear. Of wisdom, a little. Of folly, much. Of intentions, many good ones; but many more left undone. In this, alas, I saw myself a man like any other. But this, too, I saw.... Alike as men may seem, each is different as flakes of snow, no two the same. You told me you had no need to seek the Mirror, knowing you were Annlaw Clay-Shaper. Now I know who I am: myself and none other. I am Taran.

I have never known courage to be judged by the length of a man's hair. Or, for the matter of that, whether he has any hair at all.

What! I don't care about being a princess! And since I'm already a young lady, how else could I behave? That's like asking a fish not to swim! ~Princess Eilonwy, daughter of Angharad, daughter of Regat, of the Royal house of Llyr

She was not stunningly beautiful. She could be pretty when she felt like it.

if you grow up with any kind of sense - which you sometimes make me doubt - you will very likely reach your own conclusions. They will probably be wrong. However, since they will be yours, you will feel a little more satisfied with them.

The community of the Giver had achieved at such great price. A community without danger or pain. But also, a community without music, color or art. And books.

Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. Before my time, before the previous time, back and back and back. We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with difference. We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.

A book, to me, is almost sacrosanct: such an individual and private thing. The reader brings his or her own history and beliefs and concerns, and reads in solitude, creating each scene from his own imagination as he does. There is no fellow ticket-holder in the next seat.

Well..., Jonas had to stop and think it through. If everything's the same, then there are no choices! I want to wake up in the morning and DECIDE things! A blue tunic, or a red one?

He found that he was often angry, now: irrationally angry at his groupmates, that they were satisfied with their lives which had none of the vibrance his own was taking on. And he was angry at himself, that he could not change that for them.

Gay!' he chirped. 'Gay!' It was the way he said his own name.

If everyting's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things! (Jonas) It's the choosing that's imortant, isn't it? The Giver asked him.

The next morning, for the first time, Jonas did not take his pill. Something within him, something that had grown there through the memories, told him to throw the pill away.

No one mentioned such things; it was not a rule, but was considered rude to call attention to things that were unsettling or different about individuals.

It's a funny thing about names, how they become a part of someone.

Call me The Giver," he told Jonas.

Definitely not safe," Jonas said with certainty. "What if they were allowed to choose their own mate? And chose wrong? "Or what if," he went on, almost laughing at the absurdity, "they chose their own jobs?" "Frightening, isn't it?" The Giver said. Jonas

Forgetting her promise of no questions, Littlest suddenly asked, Might we be human? But Fastidious did not reply.

This is the time, she began, looking directly at them, when we acknowledge differences. You Elevens have spent all your years till now learning to fit in, to standardize your behavior, to curb any impulse that might set you apart from the group. But today we honor your differences. They have determined your futures.

If everything's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!

He had seen a birthday party, with one child singled out and celebrated on his day, so that now he understood the joy of being an individual, special and unique and proud.

A book, to me, is almost sacrosanct: such an individual and private thing. The reader brings his or her own history and beliefs and concerns, and reads in solitude, creating each scene from his own imagination as he does.

He found that he was often angry, now: irrationally angry at his groupmates, that they were satisfied with their lives which had none of the vibrance his own was taking on.

They were arranged by their original numbers, the numbers they had been given at birth. The numbers were rarely used after the Naming. But each child knew his number, of course. Sometimes parents used them in irritation at a child's misbehavior, indicating that mischief made one unworthy of a name. Jonas always chuckled when he heard a parent, exasperated, call sharply to a whining toddler, ''That's enough, Twenty-three!