Quotes About Individualism

He who stands aloof runs the risk of believing himself better than others and misusing his critique of society as an ideology for his private interest. While he gropingly forms his own life in the frail image of a true existence, he should never forget its frailty, nor how little the image is a substitute for true life. Against such awareness, however, pulls the momentum of the bourgeois within him.

IT IS A MISTAKE to suppose that all men, or at least all Englishmen, want to be free. On the contrary, if freedom entails responsibility, many of them want none of it. They would happily exchange their liberty for a modest (if illusory) security.

I just say it as I see it, behave as I do. If people don't like it, they can take a running jump.

I have never kept diaries. I just remember a lot and am more self-centered than most people.

I'm an Angus King independent.

Part of the reason young people are getting involved with gangs, leading to the use of guns and knives, is not the lack of stop and search but the individualistic, consumerist society we live in.

If had to label myself, I guess classical liberal would be best.

With no finish line, no referees, no one right way to do it, hiking is perhaps the quintessential sport for anarchists.

Indeed, he said as late as 1976 that he would have remained a socialist all his life if he had thought that it was possible to reconcile socialist egalitarianism with freedom.

The cult of the individual is killing us. I think Twitter signals the death of western civilisation, but people have been saying that since Demosthenes.

The Selfish Society.

Homo economicus may be the smallest unit of analysis in economic theory—equivalent to the atom in Newton's physics—but, just like an atom, his composition has profound consequences.

I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.

Collectivism and freedom are mortal enemies. Only one will survive

My county? Another concept to which you attach from a distance a rather vague ideal. You want to know what "my country" really is? Nothing more or less than a gathering of shareholders, a form of property, bourgeois mentality, and vanity. Think about all the people in your country whom you wouldn't go near, and you'll see that the ties that are supposed to bind us together don't go very deep....

I am beyond Right and Left, just as I am beyond good and evil… I am a man devoted to life, not to formulas.

You would think women would want to stick together when there weren't that many of them, but they never did. It was as if being a woman was a disease that you didn't wish to catch. As long as you didn't associate with the other women, you could imply to the majority, the men: I'm not like those other ones.

Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.

America: the only country in the world where failing to promote yourself is regarded as being arrogant.

Solo, tell me what you want; I'll get it for you, I swear! You're a guy who looks out for number one, aren't you? Isn't that what you are, Solo?" Han stared at his own lean reflection. In another man, he'd have said those eyes were too used to concealing everything but cynicism.

On Mars, Venus, Mercury, and the moons of Jupiter, human beings were more free—free to found their own petty nations and ruin their own lives their own way. But

Islam has strong social aspects based around the concept of ummah – the community of believers – and expressions of individualism or nonconformity tend to be frowned upon. Members are expected to pull together and behave (at least in public) in ways that uphold its Islamic ethos. Thus, when someone breaks away from established norms – especially if they do so publicly – they are liable to be seen as damaging communal solidarity

I am against marriage, and I don't give a fig for society.

My guitar was loud as hell, and I had no sympathy for anybody else.