Quotes About Individualism

Every one is expected to look out for himself here. I fancy that there would be very little rising if men were expected to rise for the sake of others, in America.

To Buckley, she embodied the worst of what in subsequent decades would be called political correctness: the mindless application to every issue of a platitudinous egalitarianism whose practical effect invariably is to expand the reach of totalitarianism.

She [Ayn Rand] had to declare that....altruism was despicable, that only self-interest is good and noble. (About Ayn Rand)

Yes, Murray Rothbard believed in freedom, and yes, David Koresh believed in God.

What did Miss Rand in was her anxiety to theologize her beliefs. She was an eloquent and persuasive antistatist, and if only she had left it at that—but no, she had to declare that God did not exist, that altruism was despicable, that only self-interest is good and noble. She risked, in fact, giving to capitalism that bad name that its enemies have done so well in giving it; and that is a pity.

Todo hombre tiene el privilegio de destruirse a sí mismo siempre que no haga daño a nadie, siempre que viva para sí mismo y de sí mismo

It is any man's privilege to destroy himself

In fact, the flashy, antiauthoritarian vaulters were suspiciously regarded, often with reason, by the coaches and their more loyal athletes as Thoreau-reading, dope-smoking, John Carlos–loving hippies.

What do you mean do I go around with narcotics signing petitions painting slop writing books full of dirty words with a beard?

I speak as one who can no longer tolerate that simple state, the cells of my body having opted for the quixotic pursuit of individual careers.

You always know what to do, you always know exactly what to do, you always do exactly what's right for you, and the rest of the world can go hang..

We shall find that every effort to realize equality necessitates a sacrifice of liberty.

Thus Spake Zarathustra

In America, life is introverted, self-absorbed - and so is their music.

Nella nostra società individualista, e quindi lacerata e incoerente, abbiamo dimenticato il passato e non attribuiamo importanza se non all'effimero. Per questo corriamo verso la catastrofe, e le nuove tecnologie, contrariamente all'opinione diffusa, non ci salveranno affatto. La religione è l'oppio dei popoli, Internet è la sua eroina.

American sociology as a collective enterprise is at heart committed to the visionary project of realizing the emancipation, equality, and moral affirmation of all human beings as autonomous, self-directing, individual agents (who should be) out to live their lives as they personally so desire, by constructing their own favored identities, entering and exiting relationships as they choose, and equally enjoying the gratification of experiential, material, and bodily pleasures.

Mr. Grote doesn't believe in government telling him what to do. Tell the truth, he doesn't believe in government at all. He has never been to school a day in his life and doesn't see the point. But he'll send me to school if that's what it takes to keep the authorities out of his hair.

We are increasingly abandoning Aristotle's view of paideia—learning and habituating virtues for personal flourishing and the common good—in favor of technical-instrumental education leading to private wealth for some, argues philosopher Richard Eldridge: "to abandon the cultivation of virtues and instead to teach only in order to produce measurable outcomes is to capitulate to an individualist culture of instrumental control and private satisfactions."44

It seemed to me that there was a self-interest hidden in the core of all of us, which cooled us when we contemplated any fate which did not touch us directly.

The so-called inseparable cohesions of national interests vanish away as soon as you draw near to examine them. There are individual interests and a general interest, those two only. When you say "I," it means "I"; when you say "We," it means Man. So long as a single and identical Republic does not cover the world, all national liberations can only be beginnings and signals!

Within the last thirty years, the United States under the reign of market fundamentalism has been transformed into a society that is more about forgetting than learning, more about consuming than producing, more about asserting private interests than democratic rights.

City life is millions of people being lonesome together.

We should distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.

Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him better take a closer look at the American Indian.