These individualism quotes will inspire you. Individualism, a doctrine that the interests of the individual are or ought to be ethically paramount or the habit or principle of being independent and self-reliant.
A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging individualism quotes, individualism sayings, and individualism proverbs.
Best Individualism Quotes
- “Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.” ~ Oscar Wilde
- “Individualism regards man-every man-as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being.” ~ Ayn Rand
- “The function of the society is to cultivate the individual. It is not the function of the individual to support society.” ~ Joseph Campbell
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“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
- “Good and just society is neither the thesis of capitalism nor the antithesis of communism, but a socially conscious democracy which reconciles the truths of individualism and collectivism.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. , Individualism quotes vs collectivism
- “If a man is not faithful to his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything.” ~ Claude McKay
- “For too long in this society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over common community.” ~ Joe Biden
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“The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I’m against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.” ~ Robert Frost
- “No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
- “More and more, when faced with the world of men, the only reaction is one of individualism. Man alone is an end unto himself. Everything one tries to do for the common good ends in failure.” ~ Albert Camus
- “Individualism, the love of enterprise, and the pride in personal freedom, have been deemed by Americans not only as their choicest, but their peculiar and exclusive possessions.” ~ James Bryce
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“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority.” ~ Ayn Rand
- “In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.” ~ Karl Marx
- “Do not make the mistake of the ignorant who think that an individualist is a man who says: “I’ll do as I please at everybody else’s expense.” An individualist is a man who recognizes the inalienable individual rights of man—his own and those of others.” ~ Ayn Rand
- “Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving to the citizen as much freedom of action and of being as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner.” ~ James F. Cooper
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“In a society that tries to standardize thinking, individuality is not highly prized.” ~ Alex Grey
- “We are not on the way to greater individualism, but are becoming an increasingly manipulated mass civilization.” ~ Erich Fromm
- “The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life.” ~ Georg Simmel
- “Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only by the man who is as well organized in his individuality as the mass itself.” ~ Carl Jung
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“In the age of the individual’s liquidation, the question of individuality must be raised anew.” ~ Theodor Adorno
- “The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even – if you will – eccentricity. That is, something that can’t be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn’t be happy with.” ~ Joseph Brodsky
- “Individualism regards man – every man – as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful co-existence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights – and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members.” ~ Ayn Rand
- “We are in a period of such individualism that one no longer speaks of disciples; one speaks of thieves.” ~ Jean Cocteau
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“The four cornerstones of character on which the structure of this nation was built are: Initiative, Imagination, Individuality and Independence.” ~ Eddie Rickenbacker
- “Non-conformism is the major, perhaps the only, sin of our time.” ~ Robert M. Lindner
- “Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.” ~ John Stuart Mill
- “Freedom, individualism and being yourself so long as you don’t hurt another’s physical person or property: The true artist is a man who believes absolutely in himself, because he is absolutely himself.” ~ Oscar Wilde
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“Individualism and mobility are at the core of American identity” ~ Deborah Tall
- “The enemies of intellectual liberty always try to present their case as a plea for discipline versus individualism. The issue truth-versus-untruth is as far as possible kept in the background.” ~ George Orwell
- “Punk has always been about doing things your own way. What it represents for me is ultimate freedom and a sense of individuality.” ~ Billie Joe Armstrong
- “The distinctive principle of Western social philosophy is individualism.” ~ Ludwig von Mises
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“I’ve never taken vocal lessons. My early trumpet training and a fortunate talent for singing has always been enough for me. In the case of rock singing, I’ve always felt it was better to remain a bit untrained to maintain your individuality.” ~ Ronnie James Dio
- “Individualism is rather like innocence: There must be something unconscious about it.” ~ Louis Kronenberger
- “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
- “Individualism is at once an ethical-psychological concept and an ethical-political one. As an ethical-psychological concept, individualism holds that a human being should think and judge independently, respecting nothing more than the sovereignty of his or her mind; thus, it is intimately connected with the concept of autonomy. As an ethical-political concept, individualism upholds the supremacy of individual rights” ~ Nathaniel Branden
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“There’s been a boiling down of real emotion into a set pattern instead of individualism.” ~ Skeet Ulrich
- “Except in a few well-publicized instances (enough to lend credence to the iconography painted on the walls of the media), the rigorous practice of rugged individualism usually leads to poverty, ostracism and disgrace. The rugged individualist is too often mistaken for the misfit, the maverick, the spoilsport, the sore thumb.” ~ Lewis H. Lapham
- “I want every fan of Rand to hear [Polaha] say the classic Galt phrase: “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” ~ John Galt
- “I have visited sweatshops, factories, and crowded slums. If I could not see it, I could smell it. The foundation of society is laid upon a basis of . . . individualism, conquest and exploitation . . . A social order such as this, built upon such wrong and basic principles, is bound to retard the development of all. The output of a cotton mill or a coal mine is considered of greater importance than the production of healthy, happy-hearted and free human beings. We, the people, are not free. Our democracy is but a name.” ~ Helen Keller
- “Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).” ~ Ayn Rand
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“Standardization of our educational systems [which includes testing]is apt to stamp out individualism and defeat the very ends of education by leveling the product down rather than up.” ~ Harvey Cushing
- “What’s natural and right is to go with the energy of how it all has to work together. What’s natural and right is interconnectedness, not individualism. What is natural and right is respect for the system, not killing the system. What’s natural and right is love.” ~ Susan Powter
- “The reason most people don’t express their individuality and actually deny it, is not fear of what prime ministers think of us or the head of the federal reserve, It’s what their families and their friends down at the bar are going to think of them.” ~ David Icke
- “I pattern my actions and life after what I want. No two people are alike. You might admire attributes in others, but use these only as a guide in improving yourself in your own unique way. I don’t go for carbon copies. Individualism is sacred!” ~ Richard Chamberlain
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“Imitation is the highest form of flattery, but clones kind of get it wrong because we are promoting individuality and being proud of being yourself.” ~ Brian Molko
- “Individuality is founded in feeling; and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.” ~ William James
- “I believe that if the silent majority were to protest against those who believe in irrational blind faith – who want to go backwards instead of forward, who are for tradition not innovation, who oppose individualism and plurality of thought – then the world would become a truly civilized world in which to live.” ~ Taslima Nasrin
- “It is those who concentrates on but one thing at a time who advance in this world. The great man or woman is the one who never steps outside his or her specialty or foolishly dissipates his or her individuality.” ~ Og Mandino
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“Those nations of artists, finding their own individualism, and kind of standing against the world: to me that’s the ultimate nightmare. I want to get lost and diffused in the world.” ~ Robert Wyatt
- “In terms of an identity, an identity reflects an individuality, by definition. And, if there is a quality present, it is recognizable and it can be named. If you can’t name it, it means you don’t recognize it.” ~ Robert Fripp
- “The policy of seeking values from human beings by means of force, when practiced by an individual, is called crime. When practiced by a government, it is called statism.” ~ Nathaniel Branden
- “The higher mental development of woman, the less possible it is for her to meet a congenial male who will see in her, not only sex, but also the human being, the friend, the comrade and strong individuality, who cannot and ought not lose a single trait of her character.” ~ Emma Goldman
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“The artist makes things concrete and gives them individuality.” ~ Paul Cezanne
- “In Italy, the Milanese are well organized but follow bourgeois taste. They adhere to certain codes of elegance, but not to individualism.” ~ Christian Lacroix
- “Progress in thought is the assertion of individualism against authority.” ~ Oscar Wilde
- “But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal Impulses and preferences.” ~ John Stuart Mill , Individualism quotes vs collectivism
- “The intellectually sophisticated person is indifferent to all genuine individuality, because relationships and reactions result from it which cannot be exhausted with logical operations.” ~ Georg Simmel
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“Eternal life and the invisible world are only to be sought in God. Only within Him do all spirits dwell. He is an abyss of individuality, the only infinite plenitude.” ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
- “Graphic design is the paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, abnormality, hobbies and humors.” ~ George Santayana
- “All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity.” ~ James F. Cooper
- “I really like individualism based on truth. That’s something I try to think about. What do I actually think about that, what do I actually feel right now? As opposed what should I feel.” ~ Tyler Blackburn
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“There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “”Freedom, individualism, authenticity and being yourself so long as you don’t hurt another’s physical person or property: The creative process is the emergence in action of a novel relational product, growing out of the uniqueness of the individual.”” ~ Carl Rogers
- “I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” ~ Ayn Rand
- “At the heart of excessive individualism is a broken heart” ~ Robert Holden
