Quotes About Individualism

Democracy extends the sphere of personal independence; socialism confines it. Democracy values each man at his highest; socialism makes of each man an agent, an instrument, a number. Democracy and socialism have but one thing in common—equality. But note well the difference. Democracy aims at equality in liberty. Socialism desires equality in constraint and in servitude.

Nothing is more repugnant to the human mind in an age of equality than the idea of subjection to forms.

for a taste for variety is one of the characteristic passions of democracy.

Each man is forever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.

Americans owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands. Thus democracy throws [a man] back forever upon himself alone, and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart.

Everyone shuts himself up tightly within himself and insists upon judging the world from there.

When the inhabitant of a democratic country compares himself individually with all those about him, he feels with pride that he is the equal of any one of them; but when he comes to survey the totality of his fellows, and to place himself in contrast to so huge a body, he is instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his own insignificance and weakness.

When hereditary wealth, the privileges of rank, and the prerogatives of birth have ceased to be, and when every man derives his strength from himself alone, it becomes evident that the chief cause of disparity between the fortunes of men is the mind.

It appears to me beyond doubt that sooner or later we shall arrive, like the Americans, at an almost complete equality of conditions.

There is a sort of American who, instead of going to dance joyously in the public square in his leisure moments, as people of his profession continue to do in a great part of Europe, goes off alone to the depth of his home to drink. This man enjoys two pleasures at once: he dreams of his trade and gets drunk decently within the family home.

Aristocracy links everybody, from peasant to king, in one long chain. Democracy breaks the chain and frees each link. . . . Thus, not only does democracy make men forget their ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is forever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart

Le despotisme, qui, de nature, est craintif, voit dans l'isolement des hommes le gage le plus certain de sa propre durée, et il met d'ordinaire tous ses soins à les isoler. Il n'est pas de vice du cÅ"ur humain qui lui agrée autant que l'égoïsme : un despote pardonne aisément aux gouvernés de ne point l'aimer, pourvu qu'ils ne s'aiment pas entre eux.

No vice of the human heart is so acceptable to it as egotism: a despot easily forgives his subjects for not loving him, provided they do not love each other.

Each of them, withdrawn and apart, is like a stranger to the destiny of all the others; his children and his particular friends form the whole human species for him; as for dwelling with his fellow citizens, he is beside them, but he does not see them; he touches them and does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone, and if a family still remains for him, one can at least say that he no longer has a native country.

It occurs to me that I am America. I am talking to myself again.

The purely rational economic man is, indeed, close to being a social moron.

Walk in God's footsteps, Ferro Maljinn." "Huh. They have no God here." "Say rather that they have many." "Many?" "Had you not noticed? Here, each man worships himself.

Walk in God's footsteps, Ferro Maljinn." "Huh. They have no God here." "Say rather that they have many." "Many?" "Had you not noticed? Here, each man worships himself." She nodded. That seemed close to the truth.

For too long in this society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over common community.

How do you choose between your kids and your parents? I feel like we're all just a bunch of vikings, moving around so we can pillage and burn, make a better living. Some choose their kids, some their parents, and some both. Some people just choose themselves

Steven Pinker dristar sig till och med till att hävda att högre intelligens leder till mer klassiskt liberala attityder, som individualism och frihet framför tradition, auktoritet och kollektivism.

We could work less and buy less. It would prevent the environment—our habitat—from being systematically destroyed. But we don't do it, because we are isolated in our individual cages.

In a world that thinks there's no such thing as society, the idea that our depression and anxiety have social causes will seem incomprehensible. It's like talking in ancient Aramaic to a twenty-first-century kid.

We live in an extremely individualistic culture, where we are constantly pushed to see our problems as individual failings, and to seek out individual solutions. You're unable to focus? Overweight? Poor? Depressed? We are taught in this culture to think: That's my fault. I should have found a personal way to lift myself up and out of these environmental problems.