Quotes About Individualism

In the history of the twentieth century, the principal dramatis personae were National and International Socialisms, better known as Nazism and Communism. Their citizens evaded the duty of self-responsibility by claiming to be following orders. Following orders -attributed to or issued by God, the State, Science, Medicine-is always the easy way out. Refusing to do so requires self-reliance and resisting temptations and threats.

Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine.

And Tracy was young, just twenty, still wet behind the ears, and the old blinders were on him so he couldn't really see what was around and he believed the bull about freedomofopportunity and a chancetorise and ifyoureallywanttoworkyoucanalwaysfindajob and ruggedindividualism and something about pursuitofhappiness.

The Good of the People was a laudable enough goal, but in denying a man's soul, an enduring part of his being, Marxism stripped away the foundation of human dignity and individual value.

The Good of the People was a laudable enough goal, but in denying a man's soul, an enduring part of his being, Marxism stripped away the foundation of human dignity and individual value.

No, those few men and women who went against the establishment from time to time, only when necessary, were what ultimately made America great.

In the life of the individual, an aesthetic sensibility is both more authentic and more commendable than a political or religious one.

Liberty, the very opposite of ownership and control, cannot, then, result from political action, either at the polls or the barricades, but rather evolves out of attitude. If it results from anything, it may be levity.

BAKUNIN:    Left to themselves, people are noble, generous, uncorrupted, they'd create a completely new kind of society if only people weren't so blind, stupid and selfish.

People who live in private spaces contribute actively to the dilution and corrosion of the public space. In other words, they exacerbate the circumstances which drove them to retreat in the first place.

they were increasingly perceived as restrictions upon the self-expression and freedom of the individual.

Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest:

Margaret Thatcher's notorious bon mot: "there is no such thing as society, there are only individuals and families".

Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose.

Above all, the new Left—and its overwhelmingly youthful constituency—rejected the inherited collectivism of its predecessor.

In an age when young people are encouraged to maximize self-interest and self-advancement, the grounds for altruism or even good behavior become obscured. Short of reverting to religious authority—itself on occasion corrosive of secular institutions—what can furnish a younger generation with a sense of purpose beyond its own short-term advantage?

We want to take our rugged individualism and turn it into a rugged covenantalism.

Americans hold sacrosanct the ideals of freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion and also believe that every human being is entitled to the same fundamental human rights. The Chinese believe that social needs and social harmony are more important than individual needs and rights and that the prevention of chaos and turbulence is the main goal of governance.

Clearly the opposing view that the writer precedes the work carries many dangers. By subordinating the work to the writer, one weakens the work's status as a product of society, overestimates the position of the writer and reinforces the notion that fiction is based on individualism.

Why do we have 47 million people without health care? Because America has become about 'me'. What's happened to 'we' as a people? I believe in that and that resonates to most people.

Each man must resolve within himself issues for which his society previously took full responsibility.

If the expressive individual sees personal satisfaction or happiness as central to the fulfilled human life, then pornography allows for the realization of that in sexual terms. It presents the sexual act as something whose significance is found simply in the pleasure of the observer or consumer.

Like Kirk, Viereck was a communitarian who was offended by libertarian romanticizing of the individual pursuit of wealth in an environment of pure laissez-faire.

Mott saw anti-slavery, peace, and women's rights as part of the same reform impulse to liberate the individual from the bonds of tradition, custom, and organized religion.