individualism Quotes

“Individualism is a mature and calm feeling, which disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellow-creatures; and to draw apart with his family and his friends; so that, after he has thus formed a little circle of his own, he willingly leaves society at large to itself.”

“We sat still and we held our breath. For our face and our body were beautiful. Our face was not like the faces of our brothers, for we felt no pity when looking upon it. Our body was not like the bodies of our brothers, for our limbs were straight and thin and hard and strong. And we thought that we could trust this being who looked upon us from the stream, and that we had nothing to fear with this being.”

“Dare not choose in your minds the work you would like to do when you leave the Home of the Students. You shall do that which the Council of Vocations shall prescribe for you.”

“There is fear hanging in the air of the sleeping halls, and in the air of the streets. Fear walks through the City, fear without name, without shape. All men feel it and none dare to speak.”

“No single one can possess greater wisdom than the many Scholars who are elected by all men for their wisdom. Yet we can. We do.”

“And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.”

“There was no pain in their eyes and no knowledge of the agony of their body. There was only joy in them, and pride, a pride holier than it is fit for human pride to be.”

“We are one in all and all in one. There are no men but only the great WE, One, indivisible and forever.”

“We strive to be like all our brother men, for all men must be alike.”

“Many men in the Homes of the Scholars have had strange new ideas in the past . . . but when the majority of their brother Scholars voted against them, they abandoned their ideas, as all men must.”

“I am. I think. I will.”

“I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning.”

“He believed with complete conviction that no animal was permanently ruined. Every horse could be improved. He lived by a single maxim: ‘Learn your horse. Each one is an individual, and once you penetrate his mind and heart, you can often work wonders with an otherwise intractable beast.‘”

“Back in February he had commented to the Seattle Times’ George Varnell that ‘there are more good individual men on this year’s squad than on any I have coached.’ The fundamental problem lay in the fact that he had felt compelled to throw that word ‘individual’ into the sentence. There were too many days when they rowed not as crews but as boatfuls of individuals. The more he scolded them for personal technical issues, even as he preached teamsmanship, the more the boys seemed to sink into their own separate and sometimes defiant little worlds.”

“The most beautiful thing about you is that you’re not a sock puppet.”

“Each is a proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental or spiritual.”

“Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.”

“The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.”

“The nature of man is a dual nature. He must be both an individualist and a collectivist.”