Rugged Individualism Quotes

We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.

In a lot of places in the United States and certainly even more places around the world, the image of the cowboy has become, for some people, a negative one. The word 'cowboy' implies a strong, stubborn individual whose individualism depends on pulling down other people's individualism.

I was born the son of a lawless man, always spoke my mind with a gun in my hand.

Go to work and be a Hollywood stud, drive your four wheel drive right into the mud.

I respect and value the ideals of rugged individualism and self-reliance. But rugged individualism didn't defeat the British, it didn't get us to the moon, build our nation's highways, or map the human genome. We did that together. This is the high call of patriotism.

I'm a guy's guy. I don't comb my hair unless I have to, and I don't use lotions or fancy shampoos.

Traditional westerns typify some of the hardships men face: you have to be rugged, silent, stoic. It's a man against nature, against the world.

Now, in Texas, we believe in the rugged individual. Texas may be the one place where people actually still have bootstraps, and we expect folks to pull themselves up by them. But we also recognize there are some things we can't do alone. We have to come together and invest in opportunity today for prosperity tomorrow.

But our trip was different. It was a classic affirmation of everything right and true and decent in the national character. It was a gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country-but only for those with true grit. And we were chock full of that.

Sorry for the tune up between time, but what the hell, cowboys are the only ones who stay in tune, anyway.

Libertarianism, the political philosophy of rugged individualism, ought to hold a natural appeal to tolerant, anti-statist, free-trade conservatives who deplore the turn taken by the party of Abraham Lincoln toward racial prejudice, authoritarianism, and mercantilism.

America was built on rugged individualism, and today that has evolved into a culture of narcissism. But God didn't create you to live for you. If you want to follow Jesus, you have to put aside your selfish ambition.

I think the American Western laid down a kind of subject matter that's about following your instinct or following your gut and having a sort of removed quality from your humanity. And I think Clint Eastwood helped to establish that.

I'm the kind of person who, if I were living in another time, if I had to pick any time, I would probably be a pioneer. I just love the simplicity of what it means to work hard with your hands - to eat and survive.

The distinctive principle of Western social philosophy is individualism.

To be productive and focused, the rugged individuals in our economy need health security so that our country can remain competitive and agile in the changing economy.

When America's early pioneers first turned their eyes toward the West, they did not demand that somebody take care of them if they got ill or got old. They did not demand maximum pay for minimum work, and even pay for no work at all.

While I can make no claim for having introduced the term "rugged individualism," I should be proud to have invented it. It has been used by American leaders for over a half-century in eulogy of those God-fearing men and women of honesty whose stamina and character and fearless assertion of rights led them to make their own way in life.

I don't believe you know anything about a man like me or a country like this. It takes rough men, Miss Fair, to tame a rough country; rough men, but good men. Your father is in that class. As for you, I don't think you'd measure up, and you'll do well to leave it. You're a hothouse flower, very soft, very appealing and very useless...In the world you are going to, men want pretty useless women. They want toys for their lighte moments, and we have those women out here, too, only we have another name for them. We want women who can make a home, and if need be, handle a rifle.

A stoic of the woods,--a man without a tear.

For all the huffing and blowing we get about rugged individualism, the American spirit and the American experiment always have had at their heart the notion that the government is all of us and that, therefore, the government may keep things in trust for all of us.

I'm a tomboy from Nova Scotia.

I'm more of a rodeo type guy.

I'm best when I'm feral, when I don't wash or shave or change my trousers for a couple of weeks.

If a western is a good western, it gives you a sense of that world and some of the qualities those men had - their comradeship, loyalty, and physical courage.