Georg Simmel Quotes

In the age of the individual's liquidation, the question of individuality must be raised anew.

I don't want to live up to how people expect me to be.

I'm always trying to slip out of those labels everyone tries to put round your neck. We all have multiple selves.

Life is a difficult game. You can win it only by retaining your birthright to be a person. And to retain this right, you will have to be willing to take the social or external risks involved in ignoring pressures to do things the way others say they should be done

The idea that men are created free and equal is both true and misleading: men are created different; they lose their social freedom and their individual autonomy in seeking to be like each other.

Self-determination, the autonomy of the individual, asserts itself in the right to race his automobile, to handle his power tools, to buy a gun, to communicate to mass audiences his opinion, no matter how ignorant, how aggressive, it may be.

You can't live your life for other people. You've got to do what's right for you, even if it hurts some people you love.

You don't have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success. You don't have to explain what your plan to do with your life. You don't have to justify your education by demonstrating its financial rewards. You don't have to maintain an impeccable credit score. Anyone who expects you to do any of those things has no sense of history of economics or science or the arts.

Forbid a man to think for himself or to act for himself and you may add the joy of piracy and the zest of smuggling to his life.

Belonging to oneself--the whole essence of life lies in that.

I have an intense dislike for artificial society. In France, one could lead a free life - to do what one wanted to do without interference or criticism from one's neighbors.

All my life I been doin' what people tell me to do. Now, I'm telling them.

I think I have a right to live my life the way I like.

I was kind of raised with the suggestion that I had a duty to do; that life was real, life was earnest. And I hated that, actually. I needed to be liberated, to be told that I could live the life that I wanted to live; that I didn't need a job, or to be shouted at; that I could be myself; that I could be happy.

My happiness is not dependent on others; it comes from within. Spiritual growth in a person is never encouraged, but it is important. I don't know why people want to judge others instead of doing their own thing. I firmly feel that I don't need to follow or live according to other people's rules. I like living life the way I want to.

I don't need a man in my life.

I'm going to be true to what I want to do, because if I care what people think about me, I'm a puppet. Which I have been in my life. And you can't live life that way, man!

I can't always live my life for everybody else.

My life is not to be somebody else's impact - you know what I mean?

I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance.

Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences.

In America, it is difficult to be your own man.

I'm just living my life, and I'm not gonna live my life for other people.

I've learned not to let people judge me in how I want to live my life. Every single woman is an individual, and there's no one path. You just have to take the path that you think is right for you.

I know that many people kill off their real personality just to fit into this society, but why do we have to compromise? I never understood that. I decided to try to be myself and to live by my own values rather than those of others.