Quotes About Individualism

Let every American become steeled against coddling. Americans ought to resent coddling. It is a drug. Stand up and stand out; let weaklings take charity.

Two different people appealing to a search engine with the same question do not necessarily receive the same answers. The concept of truth is being relativized and individualized—losing its universal character.

Stay away from people They'll slow you down and break your heart

Rand herself composed a sentence that could have come from the pen of a Southern planter: "The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all their brains.

If he had a reason for preferring Liberalism to the Conservatism of many in his set, it was not that he considered Liberalism more reasonable, but because it suited his manner of life better.

And suddenly both of them felt that though they were friends, though they had been dining and drinking together, which should have drawn them closer, yet each was thinking only of his own affairs, and they had nothing to do with one another.

If everybody fought for nothing but his own convictions, there wouldn't be any wars,

The savage recognizes life only in himself and his personal desires. His interest in life is concentrated on himself alone. The highest happiness for him is the fullest satisfaction of his desires. The motive power of his life is personal enjoyment.

C'è sempre stato bisogno che l'uomo intelligente fosse il portabandiera di una ideologhia... L'uomo professionalmente libero, che non crede in nessuna ideologhia e invece si colloca di fronte alle cose con spirito critico, non ha fortuna.

Come tutti i siciliani "buoni", come tutti i siciliani migliori, Majorana non era portato a far gruppo, a stabilire solidarietà e a stabilirvisi (sono i siciliani peggiori quelli che hanno il genio del gruppo, della cosca).

People only like whatever concerns themselves and I am no exception to this rule.

up. "The thing you have to understand about people," he says, "is that most of them suck, and you don't want to be like them anyway.

In a consumer society where the freedom of every citizen to express his or her personal preference is taken as fundamental to human happiness-whether this personal preference is in respect of washing powder or sexual behavior-it will be natural to conclude that adherence to the Christian tradition is also simply an expression of personal preference.

She started wearing black and listening to the Smiths and reading Camus

If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does.

If everybody minded their own business, the world would go round a good deal faster than it does.

Collective inquiry is less prone to error than is solitary inquiry, individualism in this case being an impediment to knowledge.

when we profit on exchange or convert 'one man's gift to another man's capital' – we nourish that part of our being (or our group) which is distinct and separate from others. Negative reciprocity strengthens the spirits – constructive or destructive – of individualism and clannishness.

Except in a few well-publicized instances (enough to lend credence to the iconography painted on the walls of the media), the rigorous practice of rugged individualism usually leads to poverty, ostracism and disgrace. The rugged individualist is too often mistaken for the misfit, the maverick, the spoilsport, the sore thumb.

I wasn't made to take orders. My grandmother used to tell me: 'Laws are for idiots.' She was right.

Capitalism requires individual responsibility and accountability. People are seen as atomized units in a capitalist system - they are either useful, or they are not. They are not seen racially or ethnically or religiously. They consume and they produce, and those are their only relevant characteristics.

There are only individual people, different individual people, with their own individual lives. Using one of these people for the benefit of others uses him and benefits the others. Nothing more. What happens is that something is done to him for the sake of others. Talk of an overall social good covers this up.

The egoist is fooled by no ideals: he discards them or uses them, as may suit his own interest.

I myself have been on my own and utterly independent since I graduated. I haven't belonged to any company or any system. It isn't easy to live like this in Japan.