Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Every man has a right to his own opinion. Every race has a right to its own action; therefore let no man persuade you against your will, let no other race influence you against your own.

The right of such control is already admitted by the State Socialists, though they maintain that, as a matter of fact, the individual would be allowed a much larger liberty than he now enjoys.

A lot of people will call me nuts or crazy, but I've always been pretty stable. By some people's standards, I might be crazy. But I realize that I'm not going to harm anyone, and the only place that I live is within my own universe, really - so it's O.K.

Democracy—the essential thing as distinguished from this or that democratic government—was primarily an attitude of mind, a spiritual testament, and not an economic structure or a political machine. The testament involved certain basic beliefs—that the personality was sacrosanct, which was the meaning of liberty; that policy should be settled by free discussion; that normally a minority should be ready to yield to a majority, which in turn should respect a minority’s sacred things.

The individual is greater than the state.

Liberty is a right which every individual must be ready to vindicate for himself, and which he who pretends to bestow as a favor, has by that very act in reality denied. Even political establishments, though they appear to be independent of the will and arbitration of men, cannot be relied on for the preservation of freedom; they may nourish, but should not supersede that firm and resolute spirit, with which the liberal mind is always prepared to resist indignities, and to refer its safety to itself.

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.

Where after all do universal human rights begin? In small places, closes to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: The neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

Some countries elevate and value community. Some serve the state to the detriment of individual people, and some, like the United States, celebrate individuality to a fault.

… not to destroy individualism but to protect it

I've never had a problem with people expressing themselves. It's one thing great about our country.

I'm not a big fan of people telling each other what to do, I'll say that.

I think that people should absolutely be allowed to do whatever they want with their bodies and to live the life they want to lead.

We live in a world where we often get told what we should and shouldn't do. I don't think we should worry so much.

I'm not gonna tell any man what he should do in life.

America is about choices, including those to live certain lifestyles.

Everyone has their own opinions, and they're entitled to them.

I fight for the right to be an individual. I have to be meself.

Individuality, family, and community are, by definition, expressions of singular organization, never of "one-right-way" thinking on the grand scale. Children and families need some relief from government surveillance and intimidation if original expressions belonging to THEM are to develop. Without these freedom has no meaning.

Human groupings have one main purpose: to assert everyone’s right to be different, to be special, to think, feel and live in his or her own way. People join together in order to win or defend this right. But this is where a terrible, fateful error is born: the belief that these groupings in the name of a race, a God, a party or a State are the very purpose of life and not simply a means to an end. No! The only true and lasting meaning of the struggle for life lies in the individual, in his modest peculiarities and in his right to these peculiarities.

In duty the individual acquires his substantive freedom

I got the idea [for Anthem's theme] in my school days, in Soviet Russia, when I heard all the vicious attacks on individualism, and asked myself what the world would be like if men lost the word 'I.'

I have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself.

We are equal inhabitants of a paradise of individuals in which everybody has the right to be understood.

Temperament, like liberty, is important despite how many crimes are committed in its name.