Quotes about Individuality

Some of the most wonderful people are the ones who don't fit into boxes.

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.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

Until we consciously set out to separate what is typical and what is individual in ourselves, we are constantly mixing up the two in inappropriate ways: trying to solve individual problems in collective terms and to deal with nonpersonal collective impulses as if they were individual reactions.

It is better to fail in originality that to succeed in imitation.

This is the quote I've lived by for 2 1/2 years.

I am too many flavors for one f***ing spoon.

I want to erase the lines so I can be me.

If we do not speak, who will?

The light that the sun casts on the planets is the same for all, but each planet reflects it according to its own color, and the radiation that it returns is determined by its constitution.  In this inevitable diversity of color there is no treachery or false transmission, but it does explain why no teacher, however great, can all himself the sole possessor of the Truth.  He can only teach according to the type and “color” of his own soul, and to his capacity for faithful representation.  Beyond this limit he would be exceeding or misdirecting his mission, and adding a heavy responsibility to his burden of karma.

"...when a nation encourages the individual pursuit of happiness,  there is no guarantee that everyone is going to like what everyone else  is doing. That is part of freedom—tolerance of diversity."

Individuality is a real power inherent in all and the development and consequent expression of this power enables one to assume the responsibility of directing his own footsteps rather than stampeding after some self-assertive bell-wether.

”We're all afloat in a boundless sea, and the way we cope is by massing together in groups and pretending in unison that the situation is other than it is.  We reinforce the illusion for each other.  That's what a society really is, a little band of humanity huddled together against the specter of a pitch black sea.  Everyone is treading water to keep their heads above the surface even though they have no reason to believe that the life they're preserving is better than the alternative they're avoiding.  It's just that one is known and one is not.  Fear of the unknown is what keeps everyone busily treading water.  All fear is fear of the unknown.  If someone in such a group of water-treaders betrays the group lie by speaking the truth of their situation, that person is called a heretic, and society reserves its most awful punishments for heretics.  If someone decides to stop struggling and just sink or float away, every possible effort is made to stop him, not for the benefit of the individual, but for the benefit of the group.  To deny at all costs the truth of the situation.”

--Jed McKenna

"Our individuality is all, all, that we have. There are those who barter it for security, those who repress it for what they believe is the betterment of the whole society, but blessed in the twinkle of the morning star is the one who nurtures and rides it, in grace and love and wit, from peculiar station to peculiar station along life's bittersweet route."

A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.

As an individual, with your death there will be an end of you. But your individuality is not your true and final being, indeed it is rather the mere expression of it; it is not the thing-in-itself but only the phenomenon presented in the form of time, and accordingly has both a beginning and an end. Your being in itself, on the contrary, knows neither time, nor beginning, nor end, nor the limits of a given individuality; hence no individuality can be without it, but it is there in each and all. So that, in the first sense, after death you become nothing; in the second, you are and remain everything. That is why I said that after death you would be all and nothing.

Then, without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that a quiet conscience makes one strong.

The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.

Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you give it to others.

Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.

Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible ~ the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family.

We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light.

Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.

When I was four years old they tried to test my IQ, they showed me this picture of three oranges and a pear.  They asked me which one is different and does not belong, they taught me different was wrong.

If you keep doing things like you've always done them, what you'll get is what you've already got.

One who walks in another's tracks leaves no footprints.

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me.  The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.

You've only got 12 notes. How you mix them up is your thing.

When it comes to environments in which people live, work, and learn try thinking of creating not a ‘culture' but a
‘biosphere.'   By definition, the biosphere is the part of the earth's crust that supports life.   The concept of a ‘biosphere' has to do with subscribing to an ethic that goes beyond ‘culture.'   It promotes individuality, creativity, imagination, inspiration, respect, understanding, awareness, and above all - peace.

There are many who are living far below their possibilities because they are continually handing over their individualities to others.  Do you want to be a power in the world?  Then be yourself.  Be true to to the highest within your soul and then allow yourself to be governed by no customs or conventionalities or arbitrary man-made rules that are not founded on principle.

There are 1,198,500,000 people alive now in China. To get a feel for what that means, simply take yourself - in all your singularity, importance, complexity, and love - and multiply by 1,198,500,000. See? Nothing to it.

It is the greatest good for an individual to discuss virtue (aka areté) every day...for the unexamined life is not worth living.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.