Quotes About Individualism

The anarch nurtures no expectations. He stakes on no one but himself. Basically, people remain pied pipers, whatever melodies they play to introduce themselves. And as for the rats - that is a chapter unto itself.

One of the anarch's emoluments is that he is distinguished for things that he has done on the side or that go against his grain.

O bien poseer un destino propio o bien equivaler a un número: ésa es la disyuntiva que hoy nos viene impuesta -ciertamente por la fuerza- a todos y cada uno de nosotros, pero el inclinarse por lo uno o por lo otro es algo que corresponde decidir a cada uno por sí mismo

I had often doubted; now I was convinced: there were still noble beings among us in whose hearts knowledge of the higher order was preserved and perpetuated. A lofty example enjoins us to follow, and I swore before this head that for all the future I would cast my lot with the solitary and free rather than the triumphant and servile.

But communism must be voluntary, freely desired, and accepted; for were it instead to be imposed, it would produce the most monstrous tyranny which would result in a return to bourgeois individualism.

David Seabury's book The Art of Selfishness

Individualism is the growth-stunting, maturity-inhibiting habit of understanding growth as an isolated self-project. Individualism is self-ism with a swagger. The individualist is the person who is convinced that he or she can serve God without dealing with God.

I am not a labor leader. I don't want you to follow me or anyone else. If you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of the capitalist wilderness you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into this promised land if I could, because if I could lead you in, someone else could lead you out.

In a way, part of the widespread success of happiness actually lies in that it delivers a legitimate, universalizing and apolitical discourse for individualism - a discourse that conceives one's life as separate from community and which sees the inner life as the cause and root of all behaviors.

This excessive blame of individuals for their failure to lead happier lives would actually explain in part why individuals of individualist societies tend to rank themselves as above 7 out of 10 points in happiness questionnaires. According to some studies, a cognitive positive bias would account for the strong and systematic tendency amongst individuals of these societies to protect their self-esteem by inhibiting negative evaluations of their lives.

Far from being a 'haven' from the marketplace, modern romantic love is a practice intimately complicit with the political economy of late capitalism.

In climbing there is no question of right or wrong. Moral right or wrong, that is a religious question, they have nothing to do with anarchical activity, and classical mountaineering is a completely anarchical activity.

You may call me selfish if you will, conservative or reactionary, or use any other harsh adjective you see fit to apply, but an American I was born, an American I have remained all my life.

Personal disintegration remains always an imminent danger.

With free market and free man, if you remove one of them, it is not called capitalism in my dictionary.

We hold that what one man cannot morally do, a million men cannot morally do, and government, representing many millions of men, cannot do.

I continue to take inspiration from John Locke, John Stuart Mill and those more recent freedom fighters of the 1960s who challenged conformism and repression.

As long as I'm not hurting anybody, I don't think that anything I do is wrong.

See, as a libertarian, I am actually far more liberal on the issue of immigration than many people might expect.

I have made my own choice, which is vegetarianism, but it's not the choice I'm imposing on anybody else.

At Manchester, everyone plays for himself and does what he wants but it works out in the end.

In the past goodness was always a collective experience. Then goodness became privatised.

Self-reliance - that's a dirty word to Democrats. They want people to believe that self-reliance means you don't do anything with anybody. They don't want it thought of as accepting responsibility for one's life. Enterprise. Imagination. Independence. Entrepreneurism.

Most artists like to think of themselves as rugged individualists, as independent characters.