#duality

There were those who loved liberty, who cried out to live their own lives, to strive, to rise above, to achieve, and those bent on the mindless equality of stagnation brought about through the enforcement of an artificial, arbitrary, gray uniformity--those who wanted to transcend through their own effort, and those who wanted others to think for them and were willing to pay the ultimate price. ↗

— Terry Goodkind

#freedom #individuality #liberty #society #uniformity

We don't need more museums that try to construct the historical narratives of a society, community, team, nation, state, tribe, company, or species. We all know that the ordinary, everyday stories of individuals are riches, more humane, and much more joyful. ↗

— Orhan Pamuk

#art #individuality #life #museums #art

Typography fostered the modern idea of individuality, but it destroyed the medieval sense of community and integration ↗

— Neil Postman

#individuality #typography #age

But these few are the salt of the earth; without them, human life would become a stagnant pool. Not only is it they who introduce good things which did not before exist, it is they who keep the life in those which already existed. ↗

— John Stuart Mill

#life

...it’s just another one of those things I don’t understand: everyone impresses upon you how unique you are, encouraging you to cultivate your individuality while at the same time trying to squish you and everyone else into the same ridiculous mould. It’s an artist’s right to rebel against the world’s stupidity. ↗

— E.A. Bucchianeri

#artists #be-yourself #creative-process #encouragement #funny

That all opposites—such as mass and energy, subject and object, life and death—are so much each other that they are perfectly inseparable, still strikes most of us as hard to believe. But this is only because we accept as real the boundary line between the opposites. It is, recall, the boundaries themselves which create the seeming existence of separate opposites. To put it plainly, to say that "ultimate reality is a unity of opposites" is actually to say that in ultimate reality there are no boundaries. Anywhere. ↗

— Ken Wilber

#nonduality #opposites #polarities #spirituality #unity

Emphasizing the crowd means de-emphasizing individual humans in the design of society, and when you ask people not to be people, they revert to bad, mob-like behaviors. ↗

— Jaron Lanier

#crowd #individuality #internet #mob #technology

We are sun and moon, dear friend; we are sea and land. It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is: each the other's opposite and complement. ↗

— Hermann Hesse

#individuality #opposites #uniqueness #honor

We are against ignorance. We feel that you have to educate yourself, no matter what the situation is. People who refuse to educate themselves - people who refuse to find out what something is about, that they're frightened of - find comfort in being ignorant.” --Zeena Schreck Interview for KJTV-1990 ↗

— Zeena Schreck

#fear #fear-of-unknown #ignorance #independent-thinking #individuality

I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit. ↗

— Theodore Roosevelt

#equality #freedom #independence #individuality #liberty