Even despotism does not produce its worst effects, so long as individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.
We don't need more museums that try to construct the historical narratives of a society, community, team, nation, state, tribe, company, or species. We all know that the ordinary, everyday stories of individuals are riches, more humane, and much more joyful.
Gestalt PrayerI do my thing and you do yours.I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, And you are not in this world to live up to mine.You are you, and I am I,And if by chance we find each other, then it is beautiful.If not, it can't be helped.
It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millenia.
I claim the right to be who I want to be. Regardless of my choice, I will find those who agree and those who don't. I will gain support, and I will confront opposition, but I will stand firmly as me. It is my choice.It is the only real choice I have to make.
المثقف من حمل الحقيقة في وجه القوة ('cultured from carrying the truth in the face of power')
All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal. ... But with each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are, whether we read the books or not.
'Freedom.' He pauses a moment to reflect on the F-word. 'Sometimes I think it's an idea that enslaves us. We're never free from hungering for the notion that we can even have freedom. When perhaps it's the very idea of it that causes us to suffer.
The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can."[Keynote Address, University of the Arts, 134th Commencement (Philadelphia, PA, May 17, 2012)]
He was like a man who had served a term in prison or had been to Harvard College or had left for a long time with foreigners in South America. He was like a person who had been somewhere that other people are not likely to go or had done something that others are not apt to do.
Giving style” to one’s character - a great and rare art! It is exercised by those who see all the strengths and weaknesses of their own natures and then comprehend them in an artistic plan until everything appears as art and reason and even weakness delights the eye.
I would like to be remembered as someone who made people smile A few years ago I wrote my own epitaph: Here lies one who spared neither man nor God; Waste not your tears on him he was a sod; Writing nasty things he regarded as great fun; Thank the Lord he is dead this son of a gun
Unlike 'other' religious belief systems in competition with Christianity, we have not been called to become 'absorbed' into the deity but rather brought into communion with God through union with Christ thereby maintaining our unique individuality and personal identity
No original thought still exists. People are original, each one of them. The same ideas that others had before you are waiting for you to bring them back to life in a new way. The part of who you are that is left behind within these old ideas is what makes them original all over again.
What did I fear, and why? — I, to whom the night had beena more familiar facethan that of man —I, in whom that element of hereditary superstition from which none of us is altogether free had given to solitude and darkness and silence only a more alluring interest and charm!
