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Individual Quotes

“The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept.”

Individual Social Imagination Accepting Creativity Creative Capable Capacity Pressure Caught Intuition Assumption Questioning Peer Pressure Social Pressure False Assumptions

Author:John W. Gardner

“The public, therefore, among a democratic people, has a singular power, which aristocratic nations cannot conceive; for it does not persuade others to its beliefs, but it imposes them and makes them permeate the thinking of everyone by a sort of enormous pressure of the mind of all upon the individual intelligence.”

People Thinking Mind Doe Individual Belief Nations Pressure Democratic Enormous Aristocratic

Book:Democracy in America

Source: Democracy in America

“On the one hand, society needs a common faith and vigorous institutions with the power to coerce; and on the other, the individual as a human soul or as the bearer of a new and possibly saving heresy, must be free. It is difficult enough to reconcile these two needs, but the problem holds another hazard: the need of action under the pressure of time.”

Needs Humans Two Soul Enough Problem Hands Action Individual Difficult Common Pressure Institutions Saving Human Soul Heresy Vigorous Reconcile Hazards Coerce

Author:Jacques Barzun

“Though it is disguised by the illusion that a bureaucracy accountable to a majority of voters, and susceptible to the pressure of organized minorities, is not exercising compulsion, it is evident that the more varied and comprehensive the regulation becomes, the more the state becomes a despotic power as against the individual. For the fragment of control over the government which he exercises through his vote is in no effective sense proportionate to the authority exercised over him by the government.”

“An intelligent couple can read their Darwin and know that the ultimate reason for their sexual urges is procreation. They know that the woman cannot conceive because she is on the pill. Yet they find that their sexual desire is in no way diminished by the knowledge. Sexual desire is sexual desire and its force, in an individual's psychology, is independent of the ultimate Darwinian pressure that drove it. It is a strong urge which exists independently of its ultimate rationale.”

Knows Way Reason Desire Individual Strong Force Psychology Couple Ultimate Pressure Intelligent Independent Urges Pills Procreation Rationale Sexual Desire

Book:The God Delusion

Source: The God Delusion

“All "if" statements about the past are as dubious as prophecies of the future are. It seems fairly plausible that if Alexander or Ghengis Khan had never been born, some other individual would have filled his place and executed the design of the Hellenic or Mongolic expansion; but the Alexanders of philosophy and religion, of science and art, seem less expendable; their impact seems less determined by economic challenges and social pressures; and they seem to have a much wider range of possibilities to influence the direction, shape and texture of civilizations.”

“In a Society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law. When human beings are governed by "thou shalt not", the individual can practise a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by "love" or "reason", he is under continuous pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same way as everyone else.”

Source: All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays

“For the fundamental fact of human psychology is that society, instead of remaining almost entirely inside the individual organism as in the case of animals prompted by their instincts, becomes crystallized almost entirely outside the individuals. In other words, social rules, as Durkheim has so powerfully shown, whether they be linguistic, moral, religious, or legal, etc., cannot be constituted, transmitted or preserved by means of an internal biological heredity, but only through the external pressure exercised by individuals upon each other.”

Humans Mean Facts Individual Social Religious Animal Moral Cases Psychology Pressure Fundamentals Instinct Etc Internals Organisms Heredity

Book:The Moral Judgement of the Child

Source: The Moral Judgement of the Child

“In addition to the social pressures from the scientific community there is also at work a very human trait of individual scientist. I call it the law of the instrument , and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding. It comes as no particular surprise to discover that a scientist formulates problems in a way which requires for their solution just those techniques in which he himself is especially skilled.”

Source: The Conduct of Inquiry: Methodology for Behavioural Science

“Existentialist philosophy recognizes the existence of the individual as the real purpose of human life. The recognition is basically atheistic and it encourages the individual to free himself from the impositions of custom, governmental authority, economic pressures, and cultural inhibitions.”

Humans Real Philosophy Purpose Individual Existence Atheism Economic Authority Pressure Positive Atheism Recognition Human Life Customs Atheistic Inhibitions Imposition Existentialist

Author:Goparaju Ramachandra Rao

“We already have so much pressure towards sameness through radio, film and comic outside the school, that we can't afford to do a thing inside that is not toward individual development.”

School Film Individual Education Development Pressure Radio Comic Sameness

Book:Teacher

Source: Teacher

“I always want to be a part of ensembles. Besides it feeling safer, I think it's a more fun environment to work in. To have a bunch of people collaborating on something, it takes the pressure off of each individual.”

People Thinking Want Feelings Individual Fun Environment Pressure Bunch Ensemble Collaborating

Author:Megan Fox

“Gingrich was a far more volatile and aggressive individual than Boehner, but the institutional norms of self-restraint, and perhaps even self-interest, have broken down under the pressure of an increasingly abnormal Republican Party.”

Self Individual Interest Party Broken Republican Pressure Aggressive Restraint Republican Party Norm Self Interest Abnormal Self Restraint Broken Down

Author:George Packer