The great hope of society is in individual character.
quote by William Ellery Channing
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not exist and develop without the cumulative social efforts of countless generations. Thus the individual, his freedom and reason, are the products of society, and not vice versa: society is not the product of individuals comprising it; and the higher, the more fully the individual is developed, the greater his freedom — and the more he is the product of society, the more does he receive from society and the greater his debt to it.
quote by Mikhail Bakunin
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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There Is No Such Thing As An Individual
She looked at me
and asked.
'What is your answer? '
I was startled
and caught up short.
Simple question.
But I did not know
what the answer was.
'Who am I'?
I blurted out
vying for time;
I gave her my name
narrowing it to the millions
of Jim Jones in the world.
But am I my name?
She said
What else.?
'I am Hedi's Father
and Lisa's husband'
but before this response rolled away
into silence
I knew it wasn't enough.
So who else?
'I like hockey' I said
and knew even this
fell short.
How do I single out
the Me among millions?
What could I say
without out offering
fingerprints or DNA?
What would you say?
Maybe I should have given her
an address.
Only I live there.
But my address
is not my essence.
So who
in fact
is the I-
the me,
that I see-
as individual
and precious?
I really didn't
at that point
have an answer.
What about achievements?
.
How many individuals have
my job
and my name?
Fewer still.
This at least narrows it.
But then
the thought came;
I am not an individual.
I am the Me that
has a family and a history
a genealogy;
only me
has that.
I am not an individual
but a person
who can be identified
in the web of relationships
which surround me;
have surrounded me;
which in the end
have defined me.
I am not an individual.
I am all the people who
have influenced me-
nurtured me been kind to me or hurtful.
So there is then
this myth of the individual
which is not so.
But if this is not true
is it not so that much
of society and indeed Democracy itself
is premised
on the creating the conditions
for individual expression;
individual growth?
Is this premise correct
and the individual lives;
or is it that more real
is society and social relationships.?
So which is which?
But then again, one cannot touch society.
Confusing no?
poem by Lonnie Hicks
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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If we must all agree, all work together, we're no better than a machine. If an individual can't work in solidarity with his fellows, it's his duty to work alone. His duty and his right. We have been denying people that right. We've been saying, more and more often, you must work with the others, you must accept the rule of the majority. But any rule is tyranny. The duty of the individual is to accept no rule, to be the initiator of his own acts, to be responsible. Only if he does so will the society live, and change, and adapt, and survive. We are not subjects of a State founded upon law, but members of a society founded upon revolution. Revolution is our obligation: our hope of evolution.
quote by Ursula K. Le Guin
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The need to speak the truth and even to seek it for oneself is only conceivable in so far as the individual thinks and acts as one of a society, and not of any society … but of a society founded on reciprocity and mutual respect, and therefore on cooperation.
quote by Jean Piaget
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is essential to any depth of meditation or of character and solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur, is the cradle of thought and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society could ill do without.
quote by John Stuart Mill
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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An individual step in character training is to put responsibility on the individual.
quote by Robert Baden-Powell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I just sort of take it from a character perspective, and I don't know if he was necessarily spiritual, but I do think he had hope. He was a character that was comfortable having hope in his life, and hope is faith.
quote by Ryan Gosling
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Our Nation is in great need of young men and women of character to lead in every arena of our society.
quote by Michael Burgess
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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It is incumbent upon each of us to improve spending and savings practices to ensure our own individual financial security and preserve the collective economic well-being of our great society.
Any power must be an enemy of mankind which enslaves the individual by terror and force, whether it arises under the Fascist or the Communist flag. All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded to the individual.
quote by Albert Einstein
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful to society, had that society been well organized.
quote by Mary Wollstonecraft
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful in society, had that society been well organized.
quote by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Reduced to its lowest terms, the great struggle which now rocks the whole earth more and more takes on the character of a struggle of the individual versus the state.
quote by J. Reuben Clark
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Mask, A White Lie
My customized protection
An initial accidental intent
Now, a practice with ease
A white lying
To anchor my mark of sanity
See the total spin off from my heart's harmony
What a touch of irony
As I hope another would see
This misrepresentation is not my character referencing
My deliberate array of communication
Blame on society an unfeeling pillar
Sometimes on own for self-inflicted torment
Regardless, its dramatic advantages brings my actions to a compulsion
And that,
This misrepresentation is not my character reference...
poem by Low Li Ling Jasmine
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I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capil
quote by William James
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Laws, wisely administered, will secure men in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, whether of mind or body, at a comparatively small personal sacrifice; but no laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of individual action, economy, and self-denial; by better habits, rather than by greater rights. The Government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflex of the individuals composing it. The Government that is ahead of the people will inevitably be dragged down to their level, as the Government that is behind them will in the long run be dragged up. In the order of nature, the collective character of a nation will as surely find its befitting results in its law and government, as water finds its own level. The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly. Indeed all experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a State depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its men. For the nation is only an aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of the personal improvement of the men, women, and children of whom society is composed.
quote by Samuel Smiles
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The point I am making is that in the more primitive forms of society the individual is merely a unit; in more developed forms of society he is an independent personality.
quote by Herbert Read
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Morning Thoughts
a true education
reveals the sameness
in the human condition.
a free society
allows the individual
to be individual.
a real community
is as responsible
for the least as for
the most...
the concept of freedom
becomes a reality
when based in mutual respect.
equality demands
equal effort!
how hard is this
for us to understand?
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Common Man I Am
Like any common man I grope
And struggle to survive and be
Bold with Dignity and Hope
For life is hard and not so easy.
But this I say has made me braver
My hardships laid the lessons learned
Gave Wisdom, insight, character
My joy complete, sincerely earned.
'And we rejoice in our suffering,
because suffering produces Perseverance;
Perseverance, Character; and Character, Hope.'
Roman 5: 3-4
poem by Cynthia Buhain-Baello
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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We have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.
quote by Lyndon B. Johnson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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