Quotes About Individualism

On such an approach, Mill argues, anyone could demand as a 'social right' that nobody act in any way falling short of her own standards of perfection. He sees this as a 'monstrous' principle with the potential to justify virtually any interference with individual liberty – ultimately leaving us no zone of freedom beyond, perhaps, 'that of holding opinions in secret, without ever disclosing them' (Mill [1859] 1974: 158).

Rousseau and his disciples were resolved to force men to be free; in most of the world, they triumphed; men are set free from family, church, town, class, guild; yet they wear, instead, the chains of the state, and they expire of ennui or stifling lone lines.

It's always precisely the sort of smug old wanker you would never ever want to end up like. We don't live the way you tell us to because we're afraid that if we do we'll grow up to be like you, and the thought of that is unbearable. It's alright for you because you'll be dead soon anyway, but we've still got another fifty or sixty years to live in this stinking country.

It is a frightful satire and an epigram on the modern age that the only use it knows for solitude is to make it a punishment, a jail sentence.

Nobody has the right to not be offended. That right doesn't exist in any declaration I have ever read. If you are offended it is your problem, and frankly lots of things offend lots of people.

Liberals tend to understand that a person can be lucky or unlucky in all matters relevant to his success. Conservatives, however, often make a religious fetish of individualism. Many seem to have absolutely no awareness of how fortunate one must be to succeed at anything in life, no matter how hard one works. One must be lucky to be able to work. One must be lucky to be intelligent, physically healthy, and not bankrupted in middle age by the illness of a spouse.

I wanna kiss you. I couldn't care less about the team struggling.

There is only one right in the world and that right is one's own strength.

With a strength I can be proud of, I live only for myself, and only die for myself. I'll never die for someone, cause I know the pain of who remains alive, this is my pride.

The more I learn about the evolution of ideas, the more I have become aware that I am simply an unrepentant Old Whig-with the stress on the "old.

I break away from all conventions that do not lead to my earthly success and happiness.

I don't think I was very structured in that society and I don't really believe in personal success, which most Americans believe in.

Oh, what is man!' d'Avrigny muttered. 'The most egoistical of all animals, the most personal of all creatures, who cannot believe otherwise than that the earth revolves, the sun shines and death reaps for him alone – an ant, cursing God from the summit of a blade of grass!

c'est qu'en amour chacun pour soi.»

Lo que voy a deciros se os antojará extraño a vosotros, señores socialistas, progresistas, humanitaristas, y es que yo no me ocupo nunca de mi prójimo, no procuro nunca proteger a la sociedad que no me protege, y diré aún más, que no se ocupa generalmente de mí, sino para perjudicarme, y retirándoles mi estimación y guardando la neutralidad frente a ellos, es aún la sociedad y mi prójimo quienes me deben agradecimiento.

And that you alone, among the men whom you do not recognize as your brothers- for you have said so, observed Villefort, in a tone that faltered somewhat- you alone are perfect.

Oh, o homem (...), o mais egoísta de todos os animais, a mais personalista de todas as criaturas, sempre a acreditar que a terra gira, que o sol brilha, que a morte ceifa só para ele; formiga a amaldiçoar Deus do alto de uma folha de relva!

A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.

Patriotism is most often nothing more but an extension of individual egoism

He who in given cases consents to obey his fellows with servility, and who submits his will, and even his thoughts, to their control, how can he pretend that he wishes to be free?

In democratic society each citizen is habitually busy with the contemplation of a very petty object, which is himself.

Although men cannot become absolutely equal unless they be entirely free, and consequently equality, pushed to its furthest extent, may be confounded with freedom, yet there is good reason for distinguishing the one from the other.

Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but it hides his descendants, and separates his contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever upon himself alone, and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart.

Egotism fears its own self.