Quotes About Individualism

The self is the modern substitute for the soul.

A value-creating man is a plausible substitute for a good man, and some such substitute becomes practically inevitable in pop relativism, since very few persons can think of themselves as just nothing. The respectable and accessible nobility of man is to be found not in the quest for or discovery of the good life, but in creating ones own life-style, of which there is not just one but many possible, none comparable to another.

Bacon, Locke, Descartes, Hume, and all the others knew they were giving rights to vulgarity. But in so doingin addition to caring for mans well-beingthey were providing rights for themselves.

No woman (or man) becomes a corporate manager, gets tenure at a university, or is elected to public office by showing their capacity for cooperation, sharing, emotional sensitivity, and nurturing.

A melancholy conclusion, if such were really the case for, were it so, good and evil would be alike devoid of aim every man would be justified in thinking only of himself, and in subordinating every other consideration to the satisfaction of his material instincts. Thus all social ties would be broken, and the holiest affections would be destroyed forever.

Everything I had been taught to regard as a vice - and I still regard them as vices - under Thatcherism was in fact a virtue: Greed, selfishness, no care for the weaker, sharp elbows, sharp knees.

The anti-individualist enemies that Ayn Rand battled are still the enemy, but they've shifted their line of attack. Political collectivists are no longer much interested in taking things away from the wealthy and creative.

Will Rogers wasn't helpful to me at all. He was just concerned with his way of doing things. He didn't like me much because I used to wear slacks to the studio, and that was not done much in those days, so I guess he thought I was rather fast.

Social media has made the web all about me, me, me.

I've never been involved in any kind of political movement.

I'm a very individualistic person. That is why I don't belong to any political party or anything. I really believe in justice and freedom.

Actually, I consider myself to be pretty politically conservative.

Laissez Faire was very good sauce for the goose, labor, but was very poor sauce for the gander, capital.

The ideology of capitalism makes us all into connoisseurs of liberty - of the indefinite expansion of possibility.

The only possible ethic is to do what one wants to do.

I would say I'm a 19th-century liberal, possibly even an 18th-century one.

Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force.

Myself, I'm a post-ideological conservative.

I'm basically a libertarian, and I'm a conservative on economic matters, and I'm a social liberal.

I'm willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian.

In the contemporary world, artists are almost entirely self-referential.

I very much want to do things my way, and I want to control the result.

When I was younger, I was like, 'I'm working now, and you go work.' That was all I knew, because I was trying to keep my head above water. Now I'm more willing to say, 'Let's do our work side by side and cooperate.' That's really difficult to do in this sport sometimes because it can be so individualized.

It's one thing to buy a copy of 'Atlas Shrugged.' You actually have to read it to get anything out of it.