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*The community is a
fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are considered
as constituting as it were its members. The interest of the community
then is, what?---the sum of the interests of the several members who compose
it.
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-Jeremy Bentham
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals
and Legislation
Chapter I, "Of the Principle of Utility", 4
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*It is vain to talk of the
interest of the community, without understanding what is the interest of the
individual.
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-Jeremy Bentham
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals
and Legislation
Chapter I, "Of the Principle of Utility", 5
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Be yourself. The world worships the original.
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-Ingrid Bergman
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The idea of absolute freedom is fiction.
It's based on the idea of an independent self. But, in fact, there's no such
thing. There's no self without other people. There's no self without
sunlight. There's no self without dew. And water. And bees to pollinate
the food we eat....So the idea of behaving in a way that doesn't acknowledge
those reciprocal relationships is not really freedom, it's indulgence.
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-Peter Coyote
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I'm the one who has to die when it's time for
me to die, so let me live my life, the way I want to.
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-Jimi Hendrix
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The desire to belong is partly the desire to
lose oneself.
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-Eric Hoffer
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When we leave people on their own, we are
delivering them into the hands of a ruthless taskmaster from whose bondage
there is no escape. The individual who has to justify his existence by his
own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
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-Eric Hoffer
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There are many who find the burdens, the
anxiety, and the isolation of an individual existence unbearable. This is
particularly true when the opportunities for self-advancement are relatively
meager, and one's individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living
for. Such persons sooner or later turn their backs on an individual
existence and strive to acquire a sense of worth and a purpose by an
identification with a holy cause, a leader, or a movement. The faith and
pride they derive from such identification serve the as substitutes for the
unattainable self-confidence and self-respect.
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-Eric Hoffer
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I live in my world, and I am my own king in my
own world, whether it be a garbage dump or if it be in the desert or wherever
it be. I am my own human being. You may restrain my body and you may tear
my guts out, do anything you wish, but I am still me and you can't take
that.
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-Charles Manson
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*Mother can't you see I have
to live my life the way I feel is right for me?
Might not be right for you, but it's right for me.
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-Sarah McLachlan
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, 1997
"Elsewhere"
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*I believe this is heaven
to no one else but me.
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-Sarah McLachlan
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, 1997
"Elsewhere"
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*I believe that man will
always be an individualist, whether he knows it or not, and I want to make
it my duty to make him know it.
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-Ayn Rand
Private correspondence to H. L. Mencken, July 28, 1934
Letters of Ayn Rand, 1995
Chapter 1, "Arrival in America to We the Living (1926-1937)"
Michael S. Berliner, ed.
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*There is no hope for the
world unless and until we formulate, accept and state publicly a true moral
code of individualism, based on man's inalienable right to live for himself.
Neither to hurt nor to serve his brothers, but to be independent of them in
his function and in his motive. Neither to sacrifice them for himself
nor to sacrifice himself for them in selfless service---but to deal with them
in free exchange among equals, each with a legitimate right to his own
benefit, and not in the spirit of any kind of altruistic service of
anyone by anyone.
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-Ayn Rand
Private correspondence to Tom Girdler (founder of Republic Steel and Vultee
Aircraft), July 12, 1943
Letters of Ayn Rand, 1995
Chapter 2, "We The Living to The Fountainhead (1937-1943)"
Michael S. Berliner, ed.
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*What is my joy if all
hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the
fools can dictate to me. What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the
botched and the impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to
bow, to agree and to obey?
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-Equality 7-2521, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Anthem, 1937
Ch. XI
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*[O]ur brothers are silent,
for they dare not speak the thoughts of their minds. For all must agree with
all, and they cannot know if their thoughts are the thoughts of all, and so
they fear to speak.
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-Equality 7-2521, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Anthem, 1937
Ch. II
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*By what conceivable right
can anyone demand that a human being exist for anything but his own joy?
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-Gail Wynand, a hero in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Four, "Howard Roark", Ch. 5
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The smallest minority on earth is the
individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders
of minorities.
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-Ayn Rand
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From now on, I'll connect the dots my own
way.
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-Calvin, a character in Bill Watterston's
comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes
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If I try to be like him, who will be like me?
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-Yiddish proverb
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