Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving to the citizen as much freedom of action and of being, as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner.
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American Novelist
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured and far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
This above all—to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of man’s proper stature—and the rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and give life its meaning—and it is those few that I have always sought to address. The rest are no concern of mine; it is not me or “The Fountainhead” that they will betray: it is their own souls.
—Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher
The great challenge which faces us is to assure that, in our society of big-ness, we do not strangle the voice of creativity, that the rules of the game do not come to overshadow its purpose, that the grand orchestration of society leaves ample room for the man who marches to the music of another drummer.
—Hubert Humphrey (1911–78) American Head of State, Politician
America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists of all of us.
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American Head of State
The nail that sticks up will be hammered down.
—Japanese Proverb
As you become more clear about who you really are, you will be better able to decide what is best for you, the first time round.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
I came to live in a country I love; some people label me a defector. I have loved men and women in my life; I’ve been labeled “the bisexual defector” in print. Want to know another secret? I’m even ambidextrous. I don’t like labels. Just call me Martina.
—Martina Navratilova (b.1956) Czech-born American Sportsperson
That life only is truly free which rules and suffices for itself.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
A gesture cannot be regarded as the expression of an individual, as his creation (because no individual is capable of creating a fully original gesture, belonging to nobody else), nor can it even be regarded as that person’s instrument; on the contrary, it is gestures that use us as their instruments, as their bearers and incarnations.
—Milan Kundera (b.1929) Czech Novelist
Each man must have his “I”; it is more necessary to him than bread; and if he does not find scope for it within the existing institutions he will be likely to make trouble.
—Charles Cooley (1864–1929) American Sociologist
Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren’t any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn’t be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life’s challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person.
—Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American Inventor, Philosopher
It was perhaps ordained by Providence, to hinder us from tyrannizing over one another, that no individual should be of so much importance as to cause, by his retirement or death, any chasm in the world.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
No one can transcend their own individuality.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
Nature made us individuals, as she did the flowers and the pebbles; but we are afraid to be peculiar, and so our society resembles a bag of marbles, or a string of mold candles. Why should we all dress after the same fashion? The frost never paints my windows twice alike.
—Lydia Maria Child (1802–80) American Abolitionist, Writer
Individuality is freedom lived.
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970) American Novelist, Artist
Never follow the crowd.
—Bernard M. Baruch (1870–1965) American Financier, Economic Consultant
The mass of men lead quiet lives of desperation.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only by the man who is as well organized in his individuality as the mass itself.
—Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) Swiss Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Philosopher
What we’re all striving for is authenticity, a spirit-to-spirit connection.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
It is said that if Noah’s ark had had to be built by a company, they would not have laid the keel yet; and it may be so.—What is many men’s business is nobody’s business.—The greatest things are accomplished by individual men.
—Charles Spurgeon (1834–92) English Baptist Preacher
The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I’m against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Each man must grant himself the emotions that he needs and the morality that suits him.
—Remy de Gourmont (1858–1915) French Critic, Novelist
In every aspect of our lives, we are always asking ourselves, How am I of value? What is my worth? Yet I believe that worthiness is our birthright.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
Our psychological reality, which lies below the surface, frightens us because it endlessly surprises us and drives us in a direction which society’s rules and organizations define as wrong or dangerous.
—Anais Nin (1903–77) French-American Essayist
We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glowworm.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
Every individual nature has its own beauty.—In every company, at every fireside, one is struck with the riches of nature, when he hears so many tones, all musical, sees in each person original manners which have a proper and peculiar charm, and reads new expressions of face.—He perceives that nature has laid for each the foundations of a divine building if the soul will build thereon.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Each makes this cosmos and its construction the pivot of his emotional life, in order to find in this way peace and security which he can not find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Those who talk about individuality the most are the ones who most object to deviation, and in a few years it may be the other way around. Some day everybody will just think what they want to think, and then everybody will probably be thinking alike; that
—Andy Warhol (1928–87) American Painter, Printmaker, Film Personality