INDIVIDUALITY
|
“Where
all think alike there is little danger of innovation.”
-- Edward
Abbey |
|
“It
is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain
a thought without accepting it.”
-- Aristotle
(384-322 BC) |
|
To
be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect
the right to be different is maybe even greater.
-- Bono
|
|
“The
worst curse to befall anyone is stagnation, a banal
existence, the quiet desperation that comes out
of a need for conformity. ”
-- Deepak
Chopra
|
“I
think everybody's weird. We should all celebrate
our individuality and not be embarrassed or ashamed
of it.”
-- Johnny
Depp
|
|
|
When
I was four years old they tried to test my IQ, they
showed me this picture of three oranges and a pear.
They asked me which one is different and does not
belong; they taught me different was wrong.
-- Ani
DiFranco |
“It is often by a trivial, even an anecdotal decision,
that we direct our activities into a certain channel,
and thus determine which of the potential expressions
of our individuality become manifest. Usually we
know nothing of the ultimate orientation or of the
outlet toward which we travel, and the stream sweeps
us to a formula of life from which there is no returning.
Every decision is like a murder, and our march forward
is over the stillborn bodies of all our possible
selves that will never be.”
~ René
Dubos
|
|
*
"Human
diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue; it
makes it a requirement for survival."
~ René
Dubos
|
|
|
The individual is the central, rarest, most precious
capital resource of our society.
-- Peter
F. Drucker
|
“The
really valuable thing in the pageant of human life
seems to me not the political state, but the creative,
sentient individual, the personality; in alone creates
the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such
remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.”
-- Albert
Einstein
Great
spirits have always encountered violent opposition
from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable
of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly
to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to
express his opinions courageously and honestly.
-- Albert
Einstein
|
|
Great
spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities.
The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly
submit to hereditary.
-- Albert
Einstein
The
minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools
and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb.
This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the
masses, and make its tool of them.
-- Albert
Einstein
He
who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already
earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by
mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice.
-- Albert
Einstein
Few
is the number who think with their own minds and feel
with their own hearts.
-- Albert
Einstein
Any
power must be an enemy of mankind which enslaves the individual
by terror and force, whether it arises under the Fascist
or the Communist flag. All that is valuable in human society
depends upon the opportunity for development accorded
to the individual.
-- Albert
Einstein
|
Here
in America we are descended in spirit from revolutionists
and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from
accepted doctrine.
-- Dwight
D. Eisenhower
|
All
my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere
I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted
their answers too, though they were often in contradiction
and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking
for myself and asking everyone except myself questions
which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time
and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve
a realization everyone else appears to have been born
with: that I am nobody but myself. –Ralph Ellison
|
"To
be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to
make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
~ Ralph
Waldo Emerson
It
is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion;
it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but
the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd
keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of
solitude.
~ Ralph
Waldo Emerson
Whoso
would be a man must also be a non-conformist.
~ Ralph
Waldo Emerson
Do
not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead,
where there is no path and leave a trail.
~ Ralph
Waldo Emerson
|
And
truly it demands something godlike in him who cast off
the common motives of humanity and ventured to trust himself
for a taskmaster.
~ Ralph
Waldo Emerson
Envy
is ignorance. Imitation is suicide.
~ Ralph
Waldo Emerson
“Every
revolution was first a thought in one man's mind, and
when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the
key to that era.”
~ Ralph
Waldo Emerson
What
I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people
think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual
life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness
and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always
find those who think they know what is your duty better
than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after
the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after
our own; but the great person is one who in the midst
of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence
of solitude.
~ Ralph
Waldo Emerson
Masses
are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and
influence, and need not to be flattered, but to be schooled.
I wish not to concede anything to them, but to tame, drill,
divide, and break them up, and draw individuals out of
them.
~ Ralph
Waldo Emerson
It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man
is willing to be what he is.
-- Desiderius
Erasmus
|
|
|
Education
either functions as an instrument which is used
to facilitate integration of the younger generation
into the logic of the present system and bring about
conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom,
the means by which men and women deal critically
and creatively with reality and discover how to
participate in the transformation of their world.
-- Paulo
Freire
|
It is easier to live through someone else than
to become complete yourself.
-- Betty
Friedan
|
|
“Taking
into account the public's regrettable lack of taste,
it is incumbent upon you not to fit in.”
-- Janeane
Garofalo
|
|
We
are at the very point in time when a 400-year old age
is dying and another is struggling to be born - a shifting
of culture, science, society, and institutions enormously
greater than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, the
possibility of the regeneration of individuality, liberty,
community and ethics such as the world has never know,
and a harmony with nature, with one another, and with
the divine intelligence such as the world has never dreamed.
-- Dee Ward Hock, founder of Visa.
Most
of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that
our fathers have done them or that our neighbors do them,
and the same is true of a larger part than we suspect
of what we think.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
|
Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life.
The only completely consistent people are the dead.
~ Aldous
Huxley |
Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who
has given up his intellectual freedom is the living
coffin of his dead soul.
~ Robert
Green Ingersoll
It
is a blessed thing that in every age some one has
had the individuality enough and courage enough
to stand by his own convictions.
~ Robert
Green Ingersoll
|
|
Some people say you are going the wrong way, when
it’s simply a way of your own.
~ Angelina
Jolie
|
|
Conformity is that jailer of freedom and the enemy
of growth.
-- John
F. Kennedy
|
|
"The
hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined
nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace
and brotherhood."
--
Martin
Luther King, Jr
An
individual has not started living until he can rise
above the narrow confines of his individualistic
concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
-- Martin
Luther King, Jr
|
|
|
*
Peace
is not just the absence of war, it is the active
presence of a capacity for love and compassion,
and reciprocity. It is an awareness that our lives
are not to be lived simply for ourselves through
expressing our individuality, but we confirm the
purpose of our lives through the work of expressing
our shared sense of community in a purposeful and
practical way; to sustain our own lives we sustain
the lives of others - in family, in a community
of neighborhoods called a city, and in a community
of nations called the world.
-- Dennis
Kucinich
|
When
you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare
or compete, everybody will respect you.
–Lao Tzu
Care
about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.
- Lao Tzu
|
New
opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed,
without any other reason but because they are not
common.
-- John
Locke
|
|
*
“Emancipate
yourselves
from mental slavery.
None but ourselves
can free our minds.
Won't you help to sing
The songs of freedom?”
-- Bob
Marley
|
|
Always remember that you are absolutely unique.
Just like everyone else.
-- Margaret
Mead
|
|
The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking
about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is
the cause of half their errors.
-- John
Stuart Mill
That
so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief
danger of the time.
-- John
Stuart Mill
Whatever
crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever
name it may be called
-- John
Stuart Mill
|
|
Our
emotional symptoms are precious sources of life and
individuality.
Thomas
More |
|
All
national institutions of churches, whether Jewish,
Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than
human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind,
and monopolize power and profit.
-- Thomas
Paine |
“Its hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.”
--
Dolly
Parton
|
|
"It
is our task—our essential, central, crucial task—to
transform ourselves from mere social creatures into
community creatures." Although the act of nurturing
another's spiritual growth has the effect of nurturing
one's own, a major characteristic of genuine love
is that the distinction between oneself and the
other is always maintained and preserved.
-- M.
Scott Peck
|
|
“There’s a lot of mediocrity being celebrated, and
a lot of wonderful stuff being ignored or discouraged.”
-- Sean
Penn
|
|
Remember always that you not only have the right
to be an individual, you have an obligation to
be one.
-- Eleanor
Roosevelt
Do
what you feel in your heart to be right - for
you'll be criticized anyway.
-- Eleanor
Roosevelt
|
|
|
In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then
to hang a question mark on the things you have long
taken for granted.
-- Bertrand
Russell
|
|
Finding
the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean
of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence,
vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't
practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot
hope to solve the truly serious problems that face
us - and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up
for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.
-- Carl
Sagan
One
of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've
been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any
evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured
us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you
almost never get it back.
-- Carl
Sagan
|
Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity; and
fashion will drive them to acquire any custom.
-- George
Bernard Shaw
Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of
his tribe are the laws of nature.
-- George
Bernard Shaw
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt
the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends
on the unreasonable man.
-- George
Bernard Shaw
|
|
Progress
is impossible without change, and those who cannot change
their minds cannot change anything.
-- George
Bernard Shaw
All
lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants
to hear and disregards the rest.
-- Paul
Simon
|
|
|
All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular
positions.
-- Adlai
Stevenson
|
|
Be
yourself, no matter what they say.
-- Sting
|
|
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but
follows religiously the new.
-- Henry
David Thoreau
If
a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps
it is because he hears a different drummer. Let
him step to the music which he hears, however measured
or far away.
-- Henry
David Thoreau
|
Whenever
you find yourself on the side of the majority, it
is time to pause and reflect.
-- Mark
Twain
We
all live in the protection of certain cowardices
which we call our principles.
-- Mark
Twain
Loyalty
to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or
freed a human soul.
-- Mark
Twain
|
|
In
America, through pressure of conformity, there
is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.
-- Peter
Ustinov
|
|
|
Heresies
are experiments in man's unsatisfied search for
truth.
-- H.
G. Wells
|
|
The
eager and often inconsiderate appeals of reformers
and revolutionists are indispensable to counterbalance
the inertia and fossilism marking so large a part
of human institutions.
~ Walt
Whitman
|
|
“I've
come to believe that each of us has a personal calling
that's as unique as a fingerprint - and that the
best way to succeed is to discover what you love
and then find a way to offer it to others in the
form of service, working hard, and also allowing
the energy of the universe to lead you. ”
-- Oprah
Winfrey
|
Individuality realized is the supreme attainment
of the human soul, the master-master’s work of
art. Individuality is sacred.
-- Frank
Lloyd Wright
|
|
|
|
|
|
Read
The BETTER
WORLD BOOK
... join
the betterworld
movement...
FREE
online
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|