Quotes about individual
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Babe Ruth photo
Steve Sailer photo

“Privilege is basically a form of property, and as John Locke pointed out, property is what makes a civilization rather than a Libyan war zone of Hobbesian anarchy. The world is a better place when people can work constructively to earn privileges, individual and collective, and pass some of them on to their heirs.”

Steve Sailer (1958) American journalist and movie critic

Checking Iron Age Barbarian Prejudice http://takimag.com/article/checking_iron_age_barbarian_prejudice_steve_sailer/print#ixzz4A7r77jkG, Taki's Magazine, April 22, 2015

George Macaulay Trevelyan photo
Robert Hunter (author) photo

“To those… who see in certain underlying economic forces, the source of nearly all of our distressing social evils, individual hatred and malice can make in reality no appeal.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Violence and the Labor Movement (1914), p.xii

Adyashanti photo
Paul Watson photo
Maynard James Keenan photo

“For the music, it’s not about the individual — so the more you let the music speak for yourself, the more powerful the music will be.”

Maynard James Keenan (1964) musician

Carl Kozlowski (September 11, 2008) "Taste in the making: Tool’s Maynard James Keenan shifts his focus from writing dark lyrics to creating zesty wines" http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/taste_in_the_making/6378/, Pasadena Weekly. Southland Publishing.

Harold Macmillan photo

“The sale of assets is common with individuals and states when they run into financial difficulties. First, all the Georgian silver goes, and then all that nice furniture that used to be in the saloon. Then the Canalettos go.”

Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) British politician

"Stockton attacks Thatcher policies", The Times, 9 November 1985, p. 1.
Speech to the Tory Reform Group, 8 November 1985. Often quoted as "selling off the family silver".
1980s

Anu Partanen photo
David Crystal photo
Edmund Burke photo

“The individual is foolish; the multitude, for the moment is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and, when time is given to it, as a species it always acts right.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Speech on Reform of Representation in the House of Commons (7 May 1782)
1780s

Robert A. Heinlein photo
Le Corbusier photo
John Bright photo
G. E. M. Anscombe photo
John Dewey photo
Marianne von Werefkin photo
David C. McClelland photo
Kenneth Arrow photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Ernest Dimnet photo

“Self-expression is individuality, and our individuality is our self, which ought to be our chief concern”

Ernest Dimnet (1866–1954) French writer

Source: The Art of Thinking (1928), p. 250

Calvin Coolidge photo

“When we look over the rest of the world, in spite of all its devastation there is encouragement to believe it is on a firmer moral foundation than it was in 1914. Much of the old despotism has been swept away, While some of it comes creeping back disguised under new names, no one can doubt that the general admission of the right of the people to self-government has made tremendous progress in nearly every quarter of the globe. In spite of the staggering losses and the grievous burden of taxation, there is a new note of hope for the individual to be more secure in his rights, which is unmistakably clearer than ever before. With all the troubles that beset the Old World, the former cloud of fear is evidently not now so appalling. It is impossible to believe that any nation now feels that it could better itself by war, and it is apparent to me that there has been a very distinct advance in the policy of peaceful and honorable adjustment of international differences. War has become less probable; peace has become more secure. The price which has been paid to bring about this new condition is utterly beyond comprehension. We can not see why it should not have come in orderly and peaceful methods without the attendant shock of fire and sword and carnage. We only know that it is here. We believe that on the ruins of the old order a better civilization is being constructed.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Howard Bloom photo

“Individual perception untainted by others' influence does not exist.”

Howard Bloom (1943) American publicist and author

Source: Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), Ch.8 Reality is a Shared Hallucination

“Since human beings are highly adaptable it may be possible for an individual with any sort of competence to learn, in the end, according to any teaching strategy. But the experiments show, very clearly indeed, that the rate, quality and durability of learning is crucially dependent upon whether or not the teaching strategy is of a sort that suits the individual”

Gordon Pask (1928–1996) British psychologist

Source: Learning Strategies and Individual Competence (1972), p. 221 as cited in: Nigel Ford (2000) " Cognitive Styles and Virtual Environments http://docis.info/docis/lib/tian/rclis/dbl/jamsis/(2000)51%253A6%253C543%253ACSAVE%253E/advertising.utexas.edu%252Fvcbg%252Fhome%252FFord00.pdf" in: Journal of the American Society for Information Science. Vol 51, Is. 6, p. 543–557.

Ilana Mercer photo

“Like gun laws, spy laws, courtesy of the Surveillance State, oppress only law-abiding, harmless individuals.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"In the West, the Inmates Run the Asylym," http://praag.org/?p=21073 Praag.org, December 4, 2015.
2010s, 2015

Dora Russell photo
Kurt Lewin photo
Adam Smith photo
Herbert Marcuse photo
B.K.S. Iyengar photo
Clement Attlee photo

“…nothing short of a world state will be really effective in preventing war. As long as you rely for security on a number of national armaments you will have the difficulty as to who shall bell the cat in case of need, while you will have general staffs in all countries planning future wars. I want us to come out boldly for a real long-range policy which will envisage the abolition of the conception of the individual sovereign state. … A united navy to police the seas of the world could be attained and would incidentally bring enormous pressure to bear on Japan. The next thing would be an international air force and an international air service. … The basis of such a move would have to be a frank recognition that all states must surrender a large degree of sovereignty and that the Peace Treaties must be revised. On this basis one must then proceed to build up a world structure politically and economically. … This may sound very visionary but I am convinced that unless we see the world we want it is vain to try to build a permanent habitation for Peace and that temporary structures will catch fire very soon if we wait any longer.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Tom Attlee (1 January 1933), quoted in W. Golant, 'The Emergence of C. R. Attlee as Leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party in 1935', The Historical Journal, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Jun., 1970), p. 323
Deputy Leader of the Opposition

Milton Friedman photo
Margaret Thatcher photo

“If a Tory does not believe that private property is one of the main bulwarks of individual freedom, then he had better become a socialist and have done with it.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Article for Daily Telegraph ("My Kind of Tory Party") (30 January 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=102600
Shadow Secretary for Environment

Gregory Scott Paul photo

“[Deinonychus] is usually considered a small dinosaur. But the largest individual was an eleven-foot-long animal whose head approached half a yard long, and was of male-timber-wolf mass. If alive today it would be considered a big predator.”

Gregory Scott Paul (1954) U.S. researcher, author, paleontologist, and illustrator

Gregory S. Paul (1988) Predatory Dinosaurs of the World, Simon and Schuster, p. 367
Predatory Dinosaurs of the World

Erving Goffman photo
Norman Lamm photo
Alfred de Zayas photo
Booker T. Washington photo

“Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.”

Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor

Source: 1900s, Up From Slavery (1901), Chapter XI: Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them

Mark Satin photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Sri Aurobindo photo
Max Frisch photo

“Where the works gives scope for individuality, one sees a blossoming of self respect”

Max Frisch (1911–1991) Swiss playwright and novelist

Sketchbook 1946-1949

“Much individual enterprise in industry does not make for industrial progress. A larger and larger proportion of the energy given out in trade competition is consumed in violent warfare between trade rivals and is not represented either in advancement of industrial arts or in increase of material wealth.”

J.A. Hobson (1858–1940) English economist, social scientist and critic of imperialism

Section 11, p. 418-419
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism: A Study of Machine Production (1906), Ch. XVII Civilisation and Industrial Development

Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
Albert Pike photo
Nayef Al-Rodhan photo

“Justice is paramount to civilisational triumph because of its centrality to human dignity needs, the success of individual geo-cultural domains and the well-being of human civilisation.”

Nayef Al-Rodhan (1959) philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

Source: Sustainable History and the Dignity of Man (2009), p.219

Stanley Baldwin photo

“In the Protestant doctrine of the infinite value of the individual soul, on the one hand, and in the assembling together of the brethren in the church congregation, on the other, you have the seed-bed of modern democracy.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The John Clifford Lecture at Coventry (14 July 1930), published in This Torch of Freedom (1935), p. 38.
1930

Tibor R. Machan photo
Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo
Robert A. Dahl photo

“In considering whether a larger association would be more satisfactory, do not fail to consider its extra costs, including a possible increase in the sense of individual powerlessness.”

Robert A. Dahl (1915–2014) American political scientist

After the Revolution? (1970; 1990), Ch. 2 : Varieties of Democratic Authority

Gertrude Stein photo

“I don’t envisage collectivism. There is no such animal, it is always individualism, sometimes the rest vote and sometimes they do not, and if they do they do and if they do not they do not.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

"Answer to Eugene Jolas," Transition (March 1932)
How Writing Is Written: Previously Uncollected Writings, vol.II (1974)

Michael Moorcock photo

“Destiny was apparently a word describing an individual’s desperate need for certainty.”

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 12 (p. 349)

William Howard Taft photo

“Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution and the one which, united with that of personal liberty, has contributed more to the growth of civilization than any other institution established by the human race.”

William Howard Taft (1857–1930) American politician, 27th President of the United States (in office from 1909 to 1913)

Popular Government: Its Essence, Its Permanence and Its Perils, chapter 4, p.90 (1913).

Ilana Mercer photo
Samuel R. Delany photo
Friedrich Hayek photo
Albert Einstein photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Herman Kahn photo
John Ralston Saul photo
Albert Einstein photo

“Never before have I lived through a storm like the one this night. … The sea has a look of indescribable grandeur, especially when the sun falls on it. One feels as if one is dissolved and merged into Nature. Even more than usual, one feels the insignificance of the individual, and it makes one happy.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Entry in a travel diary (10 December 1931) discussing a storm at sea, p. 23
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)

Haruki Murakami photo
Alfred de Zayas photo
Franco Modigliani photo

“A situation where people can grow old without having a job that rewards them individually while adding to the collective well-being is morally unacceptable.”

Franco Modigliani (1918–2003) Italian-American economist

Franco Modigliani (2001) Adventures of an economist, p. 41.

Wilhelm Liebknecht photo
Richard M. Sherman photo

“Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group they're rather stupid.”

Richard M. Sherman (1928) American songwriter

Mr. Banks in Mary Poppins, 1964; cited in: Eric Grzymkowski (2011), The Quotable A**hole: More than 1,200 Bitter Barbs, Cutting Comments, and Caustic Comebacks for Aspiring and Armchair A**holes Alike. p. 190

Aldo Leopold photo
Jonah Goldberg photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Alan Charles Kors photo
Salman al-Ouda photo

“Even though homosexuality does not distance oneself from Islam, the Islam does not encourage individuals who have same-sex attraction to show their feelings in public.”

Salman al-Ouda (1956) journalist

Reported by Eilaph on 30 April 2016, citing an interview in a Swedish newspaper. http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Saudi-cleric-Homosexuality-not-a-deviation-from-Islam-should-not-be-punished-452957
2016

Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Luther H. Gulick photo
James Braid photo
Talcott Parsons photo
Donald Barthelme photo

“The present goal of the individual in group enterprises is to avoid dominance; leadership is felt to be a character disorder.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“The Crisis”.
Great Days (1979)

Henry Fairfield Osborn photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Paulo Freire photo

“Individuals who were submerged in reality, merely feeling their needs, emerge from reality and perceive the causes of their needs.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)

Yuval Noah Harari photo
Václav Havel photo
Benjamin N. Cardozo photo

“Bills of rights give assurance to the individual of the preservation of his liberty. They do not define the liberty they promise.”

Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) United States federal judge

Other writings, The Paradoxes of Legal Science (1928)

Marshall McLuhan photo

“Literacy, the visual technology, dissolved the tribal magic by means of its stress on fragmentation and specialization and created the individual.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1990s and beyond, "The Agenbite of Outwit" (1998)

Joe Biden photo

“For too long in this society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over common community. For too long as a nation, we have been lulled by the anthem of self-interest. For a decade, led by Ronald Reagan, self-aggrandizement has been the full-throated cry of this society: 'I've got mine, so why don't you get yours' and 'What's in it for me?”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Speech http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/10/us/biden-joins-campaign-for-the-presidency.html announcing entry into 1988 presidential race, Wilmington, Delaware (June 10, 1987)
1980s

Vox Day photo
Vernon L. Smith photo