Individuality Quotes

The cheapest form of pride however is national pride. For it reveals in the one thus afflicted the lack of individual qualities of which he could be proud, while he would not otherwise reach for what he shares with so many millions. He who possesses significant personal merits will rather recognize the defects of his own nation, as he has them constantly before his eyes, most clearly. But that poor blighter who has nothing in the world of which he can be proud, latches onto the last means of being proud, the nation to which he belongs to. Thus he recovers and is now in gratitude ready to defend with hands and feet all errors and follies which are its own.

By not caring too much about what people think, I'm able to think for myself and propagate ideas which are very often unpopular. And I succeed.

None of us see the world as it is but as we are, as our frames of reference, or maps, define the territory.

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

The enemy of individuality is groupthink.

Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob. It is through the voice of one crying in the wilderness that the ways of the gods must be prepared.

To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great.

We assert then that nothing has been accomplished without interest on the part of the actors; and — if interest be called passion, inasmuch as the whole individuality, to the neglect of all other actual or possible interests and claims, is devoted to an object with every fibre of volition, concentrating all its desires and powers upon it — we may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the World has been accomplished without passion.

The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Be your self! All you are now doing, thinking, desiring, is not you yourself.

I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.

No man is more inferior than those who insist on being equal.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

Religion is simply an ideal. It is an ideal force that tends to free the human being from material bonds. I do not believe that matter and energy are interchangeable, any more than are the body and soul. There is just so much matter in the universe and it cannot be destroyed. As I see life on this planet, there is no individuality. It may sound ridiculous to say so, but I believe each person is but a wave passing through space, ever-changing from minute to minute as it travels along, finally, some day, just becoming dissolved.

Never follow somebody else's path; it doesn't work the same way twice for anyone... the path follows you and rolls up behind you as you walk, forcing the next person to find their own way.

Man's existence precedes his essence

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.

We're frightened of what makes us different.

If you see your path laid out in front of you - Step one, Step two, Step three - you only know one thing . . . it is not your path. Your path is created in the moment of action. If you can see it laid out in front of you, you can be sure it is someone else's path. That is why you see it so clearly.

Every true thinker for himself is so far like a monarch; he is absolute, and recognizes nobody above him. His judgments, like the decrees of a monarch, spring from his own sovereign power and proceed directly from himself. He takes as little notice of authority as a monarch does of a command; nothing is valid unless he has himself authorized it. On the other hand, those of vulgar minds, who are swayed by all kinds of current opinions, authorities, and prejudices, are like the people which in silence obey the law and commands.

If there were already a path, it would have to be someone else's; the whole point is to find your own way.

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.

The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future.