The greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself.
quote by Saul Alinsky
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Freedom is our most precious commodity and if we are not eternally vigilant, government will take it all away. Individual freedom demands individual responsibility.
quote by Lyn Nofziger
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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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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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I am doing my best to glorify the scamp or vagabond. I hope I shall succeed. For things are not so simple as they sometimes seem. In this present age of threats to democracy and individual liberty, probably only the scamp and the spirit of the scamp alone will save us from being lost in serially numbered units in the masses of disciplined, obedient, regimented and uniformed coolies. The scamp will be the last and most formidable enemy of dictatorships. He will be the champion of human dignity and individual freedom, and will be the last to be conquered. All modern civilization depends entirely upon him.
quote by Lin Yutang
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For the division of labor demands from the individual an ever more one-sided accomplishment, and the greatest advance in a one-sided pursuit only too frequently means dearth to the personality of the individual.
quote by Georg Simmel
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
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There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.
As a confirmed individualist I certainly do not wish to underrate the influence of the individual, for the masses do not lead the individual; rather, in the individual is vested the capacity to lead the masses.
quote by Gustav Stresemann
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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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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All initiation of force is a violation of someone else's rights, whether initiated by an individual or the state, for the benefit of an individual or group of individuals, even if it's supposed to be for the benefit of another individual or group of individuals.
Stranded In A Limousine
paul simon.
he was a mean individual,
he had a heart like a bone,
he was a naturally crazy man,
and better off left alone,
he stopped one nite, at a traffic lite,
and when that lite turned green,
he was a mean individual, stranded in a limousine.
hey, hey, hey,hey,
all the children on the street,
come running out their front doors,
running out their back doors,
flying on their feet,
they said mama oh, papa oh,
see what i have seen,
theres a mean individual,
stranded in a limousine.
then everybody come running,
everybody said, lordy lord,
everybody was gunning,
gonna divvy up the re-ward,
then wah wah wah wah wah wah wah,
a siren,
a flashing lite,
but the mean individual, had vanished in the black of nite.
hey hey hey
they wondered where to begin,
cos he left that neighborhood,
just like a rattlesnake, sheds its skin,
then they searched the roofs, and checked out the groups,
and they photographed the scene,
of the mean individual,
stranded in a limousine.
song performed by by Paul Simon
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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No individual has a vested right to a job when that individual fails to perform adequately.
quote by James E. Rogers
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For the Absolute, as we now know, all life is individual, but is individual as expressing a meaning.
quote by Josiah Royce
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I think a lot of people have lost respect for the individual, you know, the individual, the person who doesn't conform.
quote by Erykah Badu
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
I just think that it's maybe fashionable today to try to take individual actions and individual failures and take the broadest possible brush and try to paint a company.
If you could say of any one individual that the court as an institution is the length and shadow of that individual, surely it would be John Marshall.
quote by William Rehnquist
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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There is no force like success, and that is why the individual makes all effort to surround himself throughout life with the evidence of it; as of the individual, so should it be of the nation.
quote by Marcus Garvey
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I am concerned about the attitude of a candidate or his sponsors with respect to the rights of American citizens to assemble peaceably and to express publicly their views and opinions on important social and economic issues. There can be no constitutional democracy in any community which denies to the individual his freedom to speak and worship as he wishes. The American people will not be deceived by anyone who attempts to suppress individual liberty under the pretense of patriotism.
quote by Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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