Quotes About Individualism

You can only rise so far by climbing on others' shoulders, you know.

By far the most significant consequence of "selfish capitalism" (Thatch/Blatcherism) has been a startling increase in the incidence of mental illness in both children and adults since the 1970s.

But let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you - and why?

In a society in which individualism is becoming rampant, people more and more believe that they are the center of the world. Such a belief system makes individual failure almost inconsolable.

Sometimes the most positive thing you can be in a boring society is absolutely negative.

Man is not made for society, but society is made for man. No institution can be good which does not tend to improve the individual.

[M]odern society is indeed often, at least in surface appearance, nothing but a collection of strangers, each pursuing his or her own interests under minimal constraints.

Was I a criminal? No. I was a good member of society. Only my society and the one making the laws are different.

I must make up my mind which is right – society or I.

Independent self-reliant people would be a counterproductive anachronism in the collective society of the future where people will be defined by their associations.

Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.

This was replaced by a widespread and aggressive individualism whereby everyone looks out for himself, at the expense of others and without worrying about the good of society.

Um aspecto muito visível do desaparecimento das velhas garantias é a nova fragilidade dos laços humanos. A fragilidade e transitoriedade dos laços pode ser um preço inevitável do direito de os indivíduos perseguirem seus objetivos individuais, mas não pode deixar de ser, simultaneamente, um obstáculo dos mais formidáveis para perseguir eficazmente esses objetivos -- e para a coragem necessária para persegui-los.

not to mention forever – since they fear that such a state may bring burdens and cause strains they neither feel able nor are willing to bear, and so may severely limit the freedom they need – yes, your

Los sentimientos de injusticia que podrían ser aprovechados para conseguir una mayor igualdad se reorientan hacia las manifestaciones más claras del consumismo, y se dividen en miríadas de quejas individuales que se resisten a la agregación o a la combinación, y en actos esporádicos de envidia y venganza dirigidos contra otras personas de su propio bando.

Consumer freedom means orientation of life towards market-approved commodies and therefore precludes one crucial freedom: freedom from the market, freedom that means anything else but the choice between standard commercial products. Above all, consumer freedom successfully deflects aspirations of human liberty from communal affairs and the management of collective life.

I]n consumer culture choosing and freedom are two names of the same condition; and treating them as synonymous is correct at least in the sense that you can abstain from choosing only by at the same time surrendering your freedom.

What has been cut apart cannot be glued back together. Abandon all hope of totality, future as well as past, you who enter the world of fluid modernity.

Postmodernity means the exhilarating freedom to pursue anything, yet mind-boggling uncertainty as to what is worth pursuing and in the name of what one should pursue it.

Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.

manner, to the selfish and original

Comparisons have been made with Stirner, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Camus, to name only a few.3 He won tributes from Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn, who acknowledged his formative influence on their work in both content and style.

The central question is, is this guy right? Or is he mad? What do you, the reader, think about this? Which struck me as a properly anarchist solution. I didn't want to tell people what to think, I just wanted to tell people to think and consider some of these admittedly extreme little elements, which nevertheless do recur fairly regularly throughout human history.