A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual.
quote by Vladimir Nabokov
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
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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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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Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.
quote by Vince Lombardi
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To be important, …
Importance is not goodness.
It is a quality entailing
Attention or recognition.
It’s important to respect;
It’s important to serve;
It’s important not to hurt.
Anyone who is not important
By breed, wealth or rank
Can become important thus.
30.08.2010
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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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Low Society
A judge a dentist or physician
In this low society
Trade ambition for position
In this low society
Have you heard its in the stars
Next july we collide with mars
Have you heard it in the bars
In this low society
No more pay and lots of leisure
In this low society
Low society
Im just doing what I can
In this low society
But Im an incidental man
In this low society
I give away what others sell
The secrets yours so never tell
cos if you do youll go to hell
Low society
Side by side and always tired
All for one and no-one hired
All thats left is love inspired
Low society
And when the party is complete
And youre still standing on your feet
The taste of victory is sweet
Low society
And darling dont forget
In this low society
To turn off your t.v. set
In this low society
The most important thing at all
In this low society
Is not to stand too tall
In this low society
In this world that never learns
I can see rome as it burns
All the passion and the power
Turns to ash within an hour
No more play and no more pleasure
In this low society
song performed by by Heaven 17
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The most important element of a free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence.
I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement.
quote by Angela Davis
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.
quote by C.S. Lewis
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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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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(Humility Poem) A Nobody
I am nobody.
I keep telling you this.
Why won't you just listen?
I have no importance.
I have made no great discoveries.
Just trust me.
Let someone else make a stand and lead.
Captain please get me my steed.
A horse of a mighty fine breed indeed.
Fast as she can go we're off to to save the world to be.
I am nobody.
I keep telling you this.
Why won't you just listen?
I have no importance.
I have made no great discoveries.
Sir great knight, you have made so many of such wise decisions.
In the past and present.
Why won't you let us follow you to all of our deaths?
I don't desire to be your mistake.
A choice of whose blood to spill.
It will be only my own, I must do this all alone.
I am nobody.
I keep telling you this.
Why won't you just listen?
I have no importance.
I have made no great discoveries.
Let me teach from afar.
Let me never be your fallen star.
A disgraceful man who's got so little to show for all his hard work.
Please don't ask me If you can plaster me all over your tea shirts.
Idol not a single a human being.
Because no one as a individual is that great.
I am nobody.
I keep telling you this.
Why won't you just listen?
I have no importance.
I have made no great discoveries.
Mistakes will be made by both the cowardly and brave.
How far will you go to get entangled in the web we make.
To say I was part of this mans life.
Even if it was lies in which you created.
A once upon a time he was celebrated.
Now he has become just so jaded.
I am nobody.
I keep telling you this.
Why won't you just listen?
I have no importance.
I have made no great discoveries.
poem by Ace Of Black Hearts
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.
C.S. Lewis in The Grand Miracle
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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What Do You Value?
questions of interest
but not importance?
“What was the name
of the river (place)
you were baptized in,
where exactly
were you baptized,
not awfully important? ”
each spot on earth
is a good spot
an important spot,
if a clean spot
we give individually
the importance
to different places,
we agree collectively
on meanings definitions
or not where is truth?
What is baptism?
What is eternal life?
What do you value?
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.
quote by Michel Foucault
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The important thing for the survival of the Thai society is that the majority of those who work, both in the government and the private sector, still strive to work in the same direction; this is why the Thai nation still stands.
quote by Bhumibol Adulyadej
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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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 individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an important point to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasingly important thing to people.
quote by Donald N. Smith
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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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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As corollaries to the right of every individual to life and to full participation in society, the Declaration incorporated in the list of human rights the right to work and a certain number of economic, social, and cultural rights.
quote by Rene Cassin
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If You Feel You Are Important
We are no more important,
Than the importance to us given.
If that is the reason,
You are basing your self worth.
And those opinions of others,
You and others may overrate as valued.
However,
If you feel you are important.
And this is the significance of your identity,
Why should you care what impression you make,
On those not paying you any attention.
Why is it a concern an attention to you be given?
If,
You feel you are important.
This is not a reflection of someone's ego.
This is acceptance with acknowledgement.
Who one 'is' is a gift of known identity.
And not an imitation of an interpretation.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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