Paul Auster Quotes

Under what circumstances is it moral for a group to do that which is not moral for a member of that group to do alone?

Has it been found that bodies of men act with more rectitude or greater disinterestedness than individuals? The contrary of this has been inferred by all accurate observers of the conduct of mankind; and the inference is founded upon obvious reasons. Regard to reputation has a less active influence, when the infamy of a bad action is to be divided among a number than when it is to fall singly upon one.

The individual is not a killer, but the group is, and by identifying with it the individual is transformed into a killer.

I love getting to be in 'The Avengers.' You just breathe a little bit. It's not all about you. It's so nice to have other people bearing the burden of responsibility.

If one synchronised swimmer drowns, do all the rest have to drown too?

Great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do.

Mankind have always wandered or settled, agreed, or quarreled in troops and companies.

People tend to take more risks in groups than alone. For these reasons, the law has always treated conspiracy harshly.

I honestly don't judge myself personally. I judge everything based off of my team, what my team is doing.

If a whole team doesn't perform, you cannot pick one player especially and say, 'He doesn't do this or do that.'

I like being in a band where everybody's equal.

The interests of the team must always outweigh the interests of any individual, including me.

I can make the best fart noises. I can make, like, 10 different sounds at different levels.

It might be a lot easier to take risks if you're part of a group who will look out for one another.

Any musician in any band - for a really good band - you know your part in the band.

There's no such thing as a lead singer in our band.

In all communities you find groups that behave badly. But you must understand them too.

Anybody who wants to rule a group will find that if this group is quarreling among themselves they leave you alone.

Maybe it was me," Grandma said."Sometimes they sneak out.Did I fart?

Inference is founded upon obvious reasons. Regard to reputation has a less active influence, when the infamy of a bad action is to be divided upon a number, than when it is to fall singly upon one. A spirit of faction . . . will often hurry the persons of whom they were composed into improprieties and excesses for which they would blush in a private capacity.

We change who we are to fit the exogenous of our time, and not just strategically or to our own advantage, sometimes sympathetically without our even knowing it for the betterment of the whole group.

Society is not a mere sum of individuals. Rather, the system formed by their association represents a specific reality which has its own characteristics... The group thinks, feels, and acts quite differently from the way in which its members would were they isolated. If, then, we begin with the individual, we shall be able to understand nothing of what takes place in the group.

Children were pack animals; let any one of them act different from the group, and the rest would bring him down.

The basic of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to individual.

There are all kinds of people, and in the attempt to build up a solidarity among them, defects of each one affect all the others.