Bill Veeck Quotes

I'm a big fan of community, and I think independence is over-rated.

Only in baseball can a team player be a pure individualist first and a team player second, within the rules and spirit of the game.

In an over-organized society, the individual is altogether crushed out of existence. He gains the whole wealth of social thought around him and loses his own soul.

We talk about "rugged individualism" and "personal liberty." My dear friends, both of those disappeared from the earth the day the first colony of cave men held a conference around a community fire.

I'm interested in the ongoing war between the individual and community. That inner dissent against whatever group is surrounding you. No one wants to cede their selfhood to a group, right? And yet no one can exactly live outside the group, either. Even the most obstinate survivalist probably lives in some telepathic communion with all the other obstinate survivalists out there in the woods.

In the wake of the Cultural Revolution and now of the recession I observe a mounting pressure to co-operate and to promote "teamwork." For its anti-individualistic streak, such a drive is of course highly suspect; some people may not be so sensitive to it, but having seen the Hitlerjugend in action suffices for the rest of your life to be very wary of "team spirit." Very.

I've always been opposed to groups. I can't believe the doctrine of group is going to work for every single person within the group.

American individualism, much celebrated and cherished, has developed without its essential corrective, which is belonging.

Individualism is bad for business - though absolutely necessary for freedom, progressive knowledge, and any possible interface with the transcendent.

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.

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.

I don't believe in an 'all-about-me' culture. It's about the group.

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!

Individuality or Unity? I say there's room for both.

The farther a society progresses, the more clearly the individual becomes the antithesis of the group.

I've figured out that life in general is a team effort; it's a team game.

Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.

Far too many people, especially within evangelicalism, think that the individual is all that matters, and that the corporate dimension is a distraction or diversion. Of course Christianity is deeply personal for every single Christian; nobody gets lost in the kingdom of God. But you can't play that off against the corporate dimension.

Freedom has been used throughout history to mean different things…. In the Civil War the North fought for individual freedom while the South fought for community freedom.

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.

Here in America, we don't let our differences tear us apart. Not here. Because we know that our greatness comes from when we appreciate each other's strengths, when we learn from each other, when we lean on each other, because in this country, it's never been each person for themselves. No, we're all in this together. We always have been.

Teams are a collective expression.

No rebellious heart is ever at ease with paths established by others.

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.'

We are now enjoying the liberation that comes with not having to be organization men and women, and that's fabulous. But there are new social consequences here of which we need to be aware, and the sale of the self and what that entails for the rest of our lives is quite sobering.