#individual

The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time. ↗

— John Stuart Mill

#creativity #individuality #courage

We have many cases of men committing suicide rather than face their own individuality. I know of no case of a woman who committed suicide because she was gay. ↗

— George Weinberg

#case #cases #committed #committing #face

When the facilities of the government of the United States are drawn on an individual, it can be terrifying. ↗

— Lee J. Cobb

#facilities #government #individual #states #terrifying

Sleep my little baby-oh Sleep until you waken When you wake you'll see the world If I'm not mistaken... Kiss a lover Dance a measure, Find your name And buried treasure... Face your life Its pain, Its pleasure, Leave no path untaken. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#choice #dance #identity #individuality #life

There's a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities. ↗

— Ursula K. Le Guin

#human-nature #individuality #age

At our present bad moment, we need above all to recover our sense of literary individuality and of poetic autonomy. ↗

— Harold Bloom

#individuality #age

The world population is nearing seven billion. John Travolta and Farrah Fawcett didn’t procreate and produce all seven thousand million of us. Audrey Hepburn and Burt Lancaster didn’t personally populate the world. Almost every child that was ever born is the byproduct of two everyday people who found each other attractive enough to go jump in the sack together. Almost every child that was ever born came about because two everyday people thought the other was attractive enough to warrant a second glance. If you want proof that attraction belongs to the individual, go sit on a bench at the mall and look at all the different couples walking by. You will believe that there literally is someone for everyone. ↗

— Dan Pearce

#beautiful #beauty #couples #individuals #looksiful

It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best right, but without being OBLIGED to do so, proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring beyond measure. He enters into a labyrinth, he multiplies a thousandfold the dangers which life in itself already brings with it; not the least of which is that no one can see how and where he loses his way, becomes isolated, and is torn piecemeal by some minotaur of conscience. Supposing such a one comes to grief, it is so far from the comprehension of men that they neither feel it, nor sympathize with it. And he cannot any longer go back! He cannot even go back again to the sympathy of men! ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#independent #individual #business

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. ↗

— Rudyard Kipling

#business

Everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures. ↗

— Leon Trotsky

#democracy #freedom #history #hope #individualism