Quotes About Individualism

Place nothing above the verdict of your own mind.

If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? . . . Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability.

Why no. I'm too conceited. If you want to call it that. I don't make comparisons. I never think of myself in relation to anyone else. I just refuse to measure myself as part of anything. I'm an utter egotist.

I am, therefore I'll think

I dont work with collectives. I don't consult, i don't co-operate, I don't collaborate.

Everyone has the right to make his own decisions, but none has the right to force his decision on others.

Never ask people. Not about your work. Don't you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?

Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.

To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. This and nothing else.

A "collective" mind does not exist. It is merely the sum of endless numbers of individual minds. If we have an endless number of individual minds who are weak, meek, submissive and impotent – who renounce their creative supremacy for the sake of the "whole" and accept humbly that the "whole's" verdict – we don't get a collective super-brain. We get only the weak, meek, submissive and impotent collective mind.

Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.

A Conformist is a man who declares, It's true because others believe it - but an Individualist is NOT a man who declares, It's true because I believe it. An Individual declares, I believe it because I see in reason that it is true.

I am not the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds, I am not a sacrifice on their altars.

I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.

I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire.

We are on strike against martyrdom—and against the moral code that demands it. We are on strike against those who believe that one man must exist for the sake of another. We are on strike against the morality of cannibals, be it practiced in body or in spirit. We will not deal with men on any terms but ours—and our terms are a moral code which holds that man is an end in himself and not the means to any end of others.

An attempt to achieve the good by force is like an attempt to provide a man with a picture gallery at the price of cutting out his eyes.

How do you always manage to decide? How can you let others decide for you?

The only thing that matters my goal my reward my beginning my end is the work itself. My work done my way. A private personal selfish egotistical motivation. That's the only way I function. That's all I am.

She's a writer. The kind of writer who wouldn't be published outside. She believes that when one deals with words, one deals with the mind.

He stepped to the window and pointed to the skyscrapers of the city. He said that we had to extinguish the lights of the world, and when we would see the lights of New York go out, we would know that our job was done.

The cult of moral grayness is a revolt against moral values.

I do not seek the good of others as a sanction for my right to exist, nor do I recognize the good of others as a justification for their seizure of my property or their destruction of my life.

I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.