Quotes about individual (4878 quotes, page 7)

“Money, then, appears as this overturning power both against the individual and against the bonds of society, etc., which claim to be essences in themselves. It transforms fidelity into infidelity, love into hate, hate into love, virtue into vice, vice into virtue, servant into master, master into servant, idiocy into intelligence and intelligence into idiocy.”

Karl Marx book Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

"The Power of Money in Bourgeois Society"
Source: Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, p. 105, The Marx-Engels Reader

Money , Hate , Intelligence , Appearance

“As I have said time and again, the focal point of our economy is the individual.”

Ludwig Erhard (1897–1977) German politician

The Economics of Success (D. van Nostrand & Co., 1963), pp. 283–284

Time

“A collectivist-totalitarian economic system, which in the final analysis serves only to glorify and increase the power of the state, can achieve great success in the easily controllable field of the basic industries but it will always remain incapable of serving man, in other words of providing the rich abundance of goods which gives the individual consumer a free choice and which enriches and beautifies his life.”

Ludwig Erhard (1897–1977) German politician

The Economics of Success (D. van Nostrand & Co., 1963), p. 281

Life , Success

“In his heart every man knows quite well that, being unique, he will be in the world only once and that no imaginable chance will for a second time gather together into a unity so strangely variegated an assortment as he is: he knows it but he hides it like a bad conscience—why? From fear of his neighbor, who demands conventionality and cloaks himself with it. But what is it that constrains the individual to fear his neighbor, to think and act like a member of a herd, and to have no joy in himself? Modesty, perhaps, in a few rare cases. With the great majority it is indolence, inertia. … Men are even lazier than they are timid, and fear most of all the inconveniences with which unconditional honesty and nakedness would burden them. Artists alone hate this sluggish promenading in borrowed fashions and appropriated opinions and they reveal everyone’s secret bad conscience, the law that every man is a unique miracle.”

Friedrich Nietzsche Untimely Meditations

“Schopenhauer as educator” ("Schopenhauer als Erzieher"), § 3.1, R. Hollingdale, trans. (1983), p. 127
Untimely Meditations (1876)

Chance , Time , Hate , Law

“Prejudice is not a failing peculiar to one race, it can and does exist in people of every race and ethnic background. It takes individual effort to root it out of one’s heart. In my case my father and mother saw that it never got a start. I shall be forever grateful to them.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

As quoted in "Ronald Reagan and Race" https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/ronald-reagan-and-race-richard-nixon-tape/ (August 2019), by Jay Nordlinger, National Review
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

People , Heart , Effort

“I found the speech, after listening to it in context, vile in manner, repugnant, malicious, mean-spirited and spoken in mockery of individuals and people, which is against the spirit of Islam. While I stand by the truths that he spoke, I must condemn in the strongest terms the manner in which those truths were represented.”

Khalid Abdul Muhammad (1948–2001) American activist

Louis Farrakhan, dismissing Khalid from his Nation of Islam post. See New York Times (4 February 1994) "Farrakhan Repudiates Speech For Tone, Not Anti-Semitism"
About Khalid

Truth , People

“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men.”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

The Sacred Pipe (1953)

Peace , Soul , Understanding , People

“Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Message to Congress (2 August 1977)
Presidency (1977–1981), 1977

Penalty , Personality , Marijuana , Law

“We must ever judge each individual on his own conduct and merits, and not on his membership in any class, whether that class be based on theological, social, or industrial considerations.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Source: 1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913), Ch. VI : The New York Police

“Now, more than any time in our history, we will be judged by our capacity for compassion. Our ability to come through this, won’t just be down to what government or businesses do, but by the individual acts of kindness that we show each other. The small business who does everything they can not to lay off their staff. The student who does a shop for their elderly neighbour. The retired nurse who volunteers to cover some shifts in their local hospital. When this is over, and it will be over, we want to look back on this moment and remember the many small acts of kindness done by us and to us. We want to look back on this time and remember how we thought first of others and acted with decency. We want to look back on this time and remember how, in the face of a generation-defining moment, we undertook a collective national effort - and we stood together. It’s on all of us.”

Rishi Sunak (1980) Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom

Statement on the Coronavirus as Chancellor (20 March 2020)

Instagram post @rishisunakmp https://www.instagram.com/p/B990ItXHhXW/ (21 March 2020)
2020

Business , Time , History , Effort

“My expectation is that our families package, which we will be introducing as a matter of priority will have the effect of lifting tens of thousands of children out of poverty. From there, though, I want to establish clear targets. We’ve always said that we want them put in legislation, and every year we will then report, as part of the Public Finance Act, on how much progress we’ve made. So, I can say now that, yes, I wanted to match their 100,000, but I want incremental goals to hold us to account. In my mind, some of the targets that we’ve set ourselves, some of the goals that we measure ourselves on as a society, don’t take into account the effects on individuals, on their wellbeing. This will be a government that takes into account those markers, and the wellbeing of people will be my sign of success.”

Jacinda Ardern (1980) Prime Minister of New Zealand

Interview with Lisa Owen at Newshub Nation, 21 October 2017

Family , Success , Children , People

“In the distant past, this recognition already came to a few individuals. A man called Gautama Siddhartha, who lived 2,600 years ago in India, was perhaps the first who saw it with absolute clarity. Later the title Buddha was conferred upon him. Buddha means “the awakened one.””

Eckhart Tolle book A New Earth

A New Earth (2005)

Past , Distant

“In 20th-century England, an individual announcing that he was the son of God and would return after death in glory would probably attract psychiatric attention; but earlier generations might have regarded such claims as unsurprising.”

Anthony Storr (1920–2001) English psychiatrist

Source: Feet of Clay; Saints, Sinners, and Madmen: A Study of Gurus (1996, 1997), Chapter 7 "The Jesuit and Jesus" (p. 144)

God , Death

“The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

Source: 1880s, Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885), Ch. 3

War , Time

“The most successful relationships consist of compromises regarding expectations; all expectations are not equal, and therefore in each case one must judge the level of their individual desires.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1986

Success

“The development of fixed capital indicates in still another respect the degree of development of wealth generally, or of capital…
The creation of a large quantity of disposable time apart from necessary labour time for society generally and each of its members (i.e. room for the development of the individuals’ full productive forces, hence those of society also), this creation of not-labour time appears in the stage of capital, as of all earlier ones, as not-labour time, free time, for a few. What capital adds is that it increases the surplus labour time of the mass by all the means of art and science, because its wealth consists directly in the appropriation of surplus labour time; since value directly its purpose, not use value. It is thus, despite itself, instrumental in creating the means of social disposable time, in order to reduce labour time for the whole society to a diminishing minimum, and thus to free everyone’s time for their own development. But its tendency always, on the one side, to create disposable time, on the other, to convert it into surplus labour...
The mass of workers must themselves appropriate their own surplus labour. Once they have done so – and disposable time thereby ceases to have an antithetical existence – then, on one side, necessary labour time will be measured by the needs of the social individual, and, on the other, the development of the power of social production will grow so rapidly that, even though production is now calculated for the wealth of all, disposable time will grow for all. For real wealth is the developed productive power of all individuals. The measure of wealth is then not any longer, in any way, labour time, but rather disposable time. Labour time as the measure of value posits wealth itself as founded on poverty, and disposable time as existing in and because of the antithesis to surplus labour time; or, the positing of an individual’s entire time as labour time, and his degradation therefore to mere worker, subsumption under labour. The most developed machinery thus forces the worker to work longer than the savage does, or than he himself did with the simplest, crudest tools.”

Karl Marx book Grundrisse

Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Notebook VII, The Chapter on Capital, pp. 628–629.

Time , Wealth , Art , Appearance

“Communism differs from all previous movements in that it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production and intercourse, and for the first time consciously treats all natural premises as the creatures of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals. Its organisation is, therefore, essentially economic, the material production of the conditions of this unity; it turns existing conditions into conditions of unity. The reality, which communism is creating, is precisely the true basis for rendering it impossible that anything should exist independently of individuals, insofar as reality is only a product of the preceding intercourse of individuals themselves.”

Karl Marx book The German Ideology

Source: The German Ideology (1845-1846), Vol. I, Part 4.

Time , Communication , Nature , Reality

“The fact is, therefore, that definite individuals who are productively active in a definite way enter into these definite social and political relations. Empirical observation must in each separate instance bring out empirically, and without any mystification and speculation, the connection of the social and political structure with production. The social structure and the state are continually evolving out of the life-process of definite individuals, but of individuals, not as they appear in their own or other people's imagination, but as they really are; i.e. as they are effective, produce materially, and are active under definite material limits, presuppositions and conditions independent of their will.
The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of the politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics of a people. Men are the producers of their conception, ideas, etc.”

Karl Marx book The German Ideology

real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life-process.
Source: The German Ideology (1845-1846)

Religion , Imagination , Law , People

“We have to remember that everything we do is a choice. We have a choice to make more sustainable decisions in the long term, whether it’s how much plastic we use or how much meat we eat – all these things will have an impact on our planet. If we can eat more sustainably, live more sustainably, we’ll have a lower carbon footprint on an individual level. Little things matter – people just need to be reminded of that.”

Austin Gallagher

Source: The Greatest Environmental Issue You’ve Never Heard Of https://hivelife.com/dr-gallagher-on-shark-conservation/ (December 10, 2018)

Making love , People , Decision

“Unity is the great goal toward which humanity moves irresistibly. But it becomes fatal, destructive of the intelligence, the dignity, the well-being of individuals and peoples whenever it is formed without regard to liberty, either by violent means or under the authority of any theological, metaphysical, political, or even economic idea. That patriotism which tends toward unity without regard to liberty is an evil patriotism, always disastrous to the popular and real interests of the country it claims to exalt and serve. Often, without wishing to be so, it is a friend of reaction – an enemy of the revolution, i.e., the emancipation of nations and men.”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism

Reasoned Proposal to the Central Committee of the League for Peace and Freedom (1867)

Country , Idea , Intelligence , People

“The global development of human society spawns so many gifted and talented individuals, whose creations will be a key factor in its further progress.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

“While their very race is exterminated, the Libertarians are angry because they do not want to use driver's licenses. These are the fools who do not realize that tyrants have always banded together to pick off individuals one at a time.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

Now or Never
Focus Fourteen

Time , Fools

“I doubt if a single individual could be found from the whole of mankind free from some form of insanity. The only difference is one of degree. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people.”

Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and theologian

As quoted in Words from the Wise : Over 6,000 of the Smartest Things Ever Said (2007) by Rosemarie Jarski, p. 312. From The Praise of Folly.

People

“You must create your own path if you wish to become successful in life. Meaning, you must seek for success where you believe it can't be found and not where many individuals claim it's found.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Success , Life

“We treat love as possession. But in reality, no one can own another individual.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Reality , Love

“The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

Earliest citation to Paine appears to be in "Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism Vol. XXIV" https://books.google.com/books?id=ITYfh67DKncC&pg=RA11-PA33&lpg=RA11-PA33&dq=The+trade+of+governing+has+always+been+monopolized+by+the+most+ignorant+and+the+most+rascally+individuals+of+mankind.&source=bl&ots=8DHXw2Ix1C&sig=ACfU3U3Bk_9QoyDZh_LDcoEB83cEaDWTcQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjp3I6MqOXxAhW2KVkFHfEsDb0Q6AEwBXoECBEQAw#v=onepage&q=The%20trade%20of%20governing%20has%20always%20been%20monopolized%20by%20the%20most%20ignorant%20and%20the%20most%20rascally%20individuals%20of%20mankind.&f=false. Not found in any of his works.
Misattributed

“The community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are considered as constituting as it were its members. The interest of the community then is what? The sum of the interests of the several members who compose it.”

Jeremy Bentham book An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

Source: An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789; 1823), Ch. 1: Of the Principle of Utility

Personality , Communication

“Just as the ancient sutras, the writings contained within this book are sacred and have come out of a state of consciousness we may call stillness. Unlike those ancient sutras, however, they don’t belong to any one religion or spiritual tradition, but are immediately accessible to the whole of humanity. There is also an added sense of urgency here. The transformation of human consciousness is no longer a luxury, so to speak, available only to a few isolated individuals, but a necessity if humankind is not to destroy itself.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), intro

Books , Religion , Sense

“We embrace this dream altogether, regardless of our class, our region, and our religious community. All these are secondary to me compared to human dignity, compared to the respect for the human being and the individual, compared to the right of the Lebanese to enjoy security, safety, and equality without any discrimination whatsoever, this is what matters to me. We must build the state of today for the year 2000, we do not want to go backward, restore and build on the remnants of the state of 1943.”

Bachir Gemayel (1947–1982) Lebanese politician and militia commander

Source: History of the Kataeb Party

Communication , Dreams

“I am an unpredjudiced and tolerant individual.

My mind
is like
a
whore's legs.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Whore

“A Distinguished Individual's Pursuits are Within Themselves;

Where as, a Small Insignificant Individual Pursues is in Others.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

“Growth occurs outside the comfort zone.
You can not expect to evolve as a well rounded individual if you are afraid to get dirty.
I am never regretful of having tragedy and loss any longer…for I see how strong these horrendous experiences have caused me to become a pillar of strength amongst others.
From every negative circumstance any of us experience…there is another part of us that becomes engorged with strength
which not only allows us to get through that terrible circumstance, but maintain ourselves once the trauma has diminished enough for us to see things more clearly in retrospect…and experience this wonderful inner strength.
The struggle you're in today is developing the strength you need for tomorrow.
Strength comes from struggle. When you learn to see your struggles as opportunities to become stronger, better, wiser, then your thinking shifts from 'I can't do this' to 'I MUST do this!'
Also, The struggles in your life creates empathy. One can relate to pain, being abandoned, having people not love you nor care that they are intentionally trying to decimate you. It is when you are faced with pure evil…when the people who were your life change and turn on you…enjoying to make you suffer. They know what they are doing. They are responsible for your pain.
Don't give up.
Look within.
Don't wear white.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Love , Life , Pain , People

“So many people are most miserable these days.
The reason they find it so difficult to be happy is that they always view the past to be better than it was, the present dramatically worse than it is, and the future less resolute than it will be.
The idea of happiness is foreign to them.
Is this not something that is innate because babies are born with
"tabula rasa" which refers to the epistemological idea that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that therefore all knowledge comes from experience or perception. However I don't disagree with the doctrine of Innatism which holds that the mind is born already in possession of certain knowledge.
A smile, for instance is natural and innate!
So it is a combination of the two schools of thought.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Baby , Idea , Nature , Knowledge

“I don’t know if watching your own work is a good or bad thing. I don’t know how much I learn from it. Each individual circumstance holds its own world of singularities and peculiarities. But among that, you can go: “Oh yeah, I remember that was what I tried to do.””

Benedict Cumberbatch (1976) English actor and film producer

Sometimes it doesn’t fit with the cast or the energy of the scene or the beat of another character. But to sit down in the audience and go: “Oh my God, I think that was what I intended”, was great.
"Benedict Cumberbatch: ‘I loved not being a people-pleaser’" in The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/dec/17/benedict-cumberbatch-i-loved-not-being-a-people-pleaser (17 December 2021)

Learning , World

“When we have a willingness to ask that first question, Who Am I?, and then to create the answer, it is immensely powerful to not simply respond to the question intellectually, as an intellectual excursion, but to create a response that makes sense to our Soul. A response that announces Who We Choose To Be, as opposed to who we imagine ourselves to be. Who I choose to be is an Individuation of Divinity, a wave on the Ocean of God.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Soul , Imagination , God , Question

“Group consciousness is something that is not widely understood, yet it is extremely powerful and can, if you are not careful, often overcome individual consciousness. If you cannot find a group whose consciousness matches your own, be the source of one. Others of like consciousness will be drawn to you.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

“It is important to foster individuality, for only the individual can produce the new ideas.”

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

Idea

“‎Civilization has been a continuous struggle of the individual or of groups of individuals against the State and even against "society," that is, against the majority subdued and hypnotized by the State and State worship.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

“True emptiness is not empty, but contains all things. The mysterious and pregnant void creates and reflects all possibilities. From it arises our individuality, which can be discovered and developed, although never possessed or fixed.”

Jack Kornfield (1945) American writer

Source: A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“If you don't believe what I'm telling you, then ask yourself this: would any decent, kind-hearted individual become a writer? Of course not.”

Brandon Sanderson Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

Source: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

Heart

“When you translate the Bible with excessive literalism, you demythologize it. The possibility of a convincing reference to the individual's own spiritual experience is lost. (111)”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Source: Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor

“It is easier to confront a threat as a mass, a group, not individuals who must be evaluated one by one…”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“Survival," I said softly. "It's selfish, and it's dark, and we've always been a species willing to do anything to satisfy our needs. Individuals have morals. Mobs have appetites.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Total Eclipse

Selfishness

“It is not learning we need at all. Individuals need learning but the culture needs something else, the pulse of light on the sea, the warm urge of huddling together to keep out the cold. We need empathy, we need the eyes that still can weep.”

Lydia Millet (1968) American writer

Source: Oh Pure and Radiant Heart

Light , Learning , Sea

“Do not let your assumptions about a culture block your ability to perceive the individual, or you will fail.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

“Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Love , Disease , Boy

“No social stability without individual stability.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

“Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.”

Arthur Koestler (1905–1983) Hungarian-British author and journalist

Source: Drinkers of Infinity: Essays 1955-1967 (1967).

Learning , Teachers

“Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government-- in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Motivation , Freedom , Loss , Help

“We can never establish with certainty what part of our relations with others is the result of our emotions - love, antipathy, charity, or malice - and what part is predetermined by the constant power play among individuals.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Love , Parting

“Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three.”

Stanley Wolpert (1927–2019) American indologist

Source: Jinnah of Pakistan

World , History

“Education must provide the opportunities for self-fulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Education , Way

“It all comes down, as it must, to the desires of individual men. Oh, and women too of course, bless their empty little heads.”

Thomas Pynchon book Gravity's Rainbow

Source: Gravity's Rainbow

Women , Men

“Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding.”

Milan Kundera book The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Part Four: Lost Letters (p. 106)
Source: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979)
Context: The proliferation of mass graphomania among politicians, cab drivers, women on the delivery table, mistresses, murderers, criminals, prostitutes, police chiefs, doctors, and patients proves to me that every individual without exception bears a potential writer within himself and that all mankind has every right to rush out into the streets with a cry of "We are all writers!"
The reason is that everyone has trouble accepting the fact that he will disappear unheard of and unnoticed in an indifferent universe, and everyone wants to make himself into a universe of words before it's too late.
Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding.

Life , Age , Understanding , Universe

“Oh, can I really believe the poet's tales, that when one first sees the object of one's love, one imagines one has seen her long ago, that all love like all knowledge is remembrance, that love too has its prophecies in the individual.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

On Regine Olsen (2 February 1839)
1830s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1830s
Context: Oh, can I really believe the poet's tales, that when one first sees the object of one's love, one imagines one has seen her long ago, that all love like all knowledge is remembrance, that love too has its prophecies in the individual. … it seems to me that I should have to possess the beauty of all girls in order to draw out a beauty equal to yours; that I should have to circumnavigate the world in order to find the place I lack and which the deepest mystery of my whole being points towards, and at the next moment you are so near to me, filling my spirit so powerfully that I am transfigured for myself, and feel that it's good to be here.

Love , Imagination , Knowledge

“And a new philosophy emerged called quantum physics, which suggest that the individual’s function is to inform and be informed. You really exist only when you’re in a field sharing and exchanging information. You create the realities you inhabit.”

Timothy Leary (1920–1996) American psychologist

Source: Chaos & Cyber Culture

Reality

“Every relationship is fundamentally a power struggle, and the individual in power is whoever likes the other person less.”

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Personality

“Without trust, there can be no genuine peace. Neither in politics, nor in the quiet individuality of the heart and spirit.”

Timothy Zahn book Vision of the Future

Source: Vision of the Future

Peace , Heart

“And the truth must finally lie in that which every oppressed individual feels within himself but hasn't the courage to express”

Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) Austrian-American psychoanalyst

Source: Beyond Psychology: Letters and Journals, 1934-1939

Truth , Lie , Feeling , Courage

“… That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

“Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.”

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

Source: Einstein on Politics: His Private Thoughts and Public Stands on Nationalism, Zionism, War, Peace and the Bomb

“The greatest products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society; rather the offspring of a nation's effort, than the inspired flash of a man of genius…”

Victor Hugo book The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Source: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Effort

“Any altruistic system is inherently unstable, because it is open to abuse by selfish individuals, ready to exploit it.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene

Selfishness

“Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.”

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

Freedom

“Why do we electrocute men for murdering an individual and then pin a purple heart on them for mass slaughter of someone arbitrarily labeled “enemy?”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Men , Heart

“God enters by a private door into every individual.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

God

“The world is full of people who are grabbing and self-seeking. So the rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage.”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

Source: How to Win Friends & Influence People

People , World

“I believe that it is impossible for two individuals not committed to their own and each other’s well being to sustain a healthy and enduring relationship.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Source: Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life

“I freely admit I'm confused. I'm a confused and troubled individual but at the same time… Its Free!”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

Time

“Agad bowed to the Fairy Queen. 'You are most wise, your majesty. Some imagine the difference between heaven and hell to be a matter of geography. Not so. The difference is much more evident in the individuals who dwell there.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Keys to the Demon Prison

Imagination , Hell

“Greatness is best measured by how well an individual responds to the happenings in life that appear to be totally unfair, unreasonable, and undeserved.”

Marvin J. Ashton (1915–1994) Apostle of the LDS Church

Life , Appearance

“She had lost all our memories for ever, and it was as though by dying she had robbed me of part of myself. I was losing my individuality. It was the first stage of my own death, the memories dropping off like gangrened limbs.”

Graham Greene (1904–1991) English writer, playwright and literary critic

Death , Memory , Parting

“That all men are equal is a proposition which at ordinary times no sane individual has ever given his assent.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

"The Idea of Equality"
Source: Proper Studies (1927)

Men , Time

“The spoken word converts individual knowledge into mutual knowledge, and there is no way back once you've gone over that cliff. Saying nothing was more amendable, and over time I'd come to see that it was usually your best course of action.”

Karen Joy Fowler book We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Source: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Way , Knowledge , Time

“Selfishness and greed, individual or national, cause most of our troubles.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Selfishness

“If you teach a boy, you educate an individual; but if you teach a girl, you educate a community.”

Greg Mortenson (1957) American mountaineer and humanitarian

Source: Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Education , Girl , Boy , Communication

“Silence is the demon's trap, and the more one is silenced, the more terrible the demon; but silence is also the divinity's mutual understanding with the single individual.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Understanding , Silence

“To give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

“The aim of poetry and the poet is finally to be of service, to ply the effort of the individual into the larger work of the community as a whole.”

Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer

Communication , Effort

“Deal with yourself as a individual, worthy of respect and make everyone else deal with you the same way.”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

Way

“Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society — nay, even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms. Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community.
The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion.”

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

"Einstein's Reply to Criticisms" (1949), The World As I See It (1949)
Context: A man's value to the community depends primarily on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows. We call him good or bad according to how he stands in this matter. It looks at first sight as if our estimate of a man depended entirely on his social qualities.
And yet such an attitude would be wrong. It is clear that all the valuable things, material, spiritual, and moral, which we receive from society can be traced back through countless generations to certain creative individuals. The use of fire, the cultivation of edible plants, the steam engine — each was discovered by one man.
Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society — nay, even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms. Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community.
The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion.

Life , Health , Communication , Thinking

“Stories--individual stories, family stories, national stories--are what stitch together the disparate elements of human existence into a coherent whole. We are story animals.”

Yann Martel book Beatrice and Virgil

Source: Beatrice and Virgil

Family , Animals

“Many things that come into the world are not looked into. The individual says 'My crowd doesn't run that way.' I say, don't run with crowds.”

Robert Henri book The Art Spirit

Source: The Art Spirit

World , Way

“The level of shyness has gone up dramatically in the last decade. I think shyness is an index of social pathology rather than a pathology of the individual.”

Philip G. Zimbardo (1933) American social psychologist, author of Stanford Prison Experiment

Thinking

“Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“The individual is the product of power.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Source: Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia

“We cling to the idea that success is a simple function of individual merit and that the world in which we all grow up and the rules we choose to write as a society don't matter at all.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

World , Idea , Success

“Experience has taught us that we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional discovery and emotional acceptance of the truth in the individual and unique history of our childhood.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Source: The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

Truth , History , Childhood

“History does not care about the suffering of the individual. Only the outcome of their struggles.”

Alison Goodman (1966) Australian science-fiction writer

Source: Eona: The Last Dragoneye

History , Suffering

“The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1820s, Letter to A. Coray (1823)
Source: Letters of Thomas Jefferson
Context: The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government. Modern times have the signal advantage, too, of having discovered the only device by which these rights can be secured, to wit: government by the people, acting not in person, but by representatives chosen by themselves, that is to say; by every man of ripe years and sane mind, who either contributes by his purse or person to the support of his country.

Happiness