Individual Autonomy Quotes

#1. In an era that exalts individual autonomy above all other values, the state as a practical matter has long since forfeited its authority to command citizens to defend the nation.

Andrew J. Bacevich

#2. The idea that men are created free and equal is both true and misleading: men are created different; they lose their social freedom and their individual autonomy in seeking to become like each other.

David Riesman

#3. The double role of living systems as parts and wholes requires the interplay of two opposite tendencies: an integrative tendency to function as part of a larger whole, and a self-assertive, or self-organizing tendency to preserve individual autonomy (see Chapter 7).

Fritjof Capra

#4. The political objective of universal capitalism is maximum individual autonomy, the separation of political power wielded by the holders of public office from economic power held by citizens, and the broad diffusion of privately owned economic power.

Louis O. Kelso

#5. Yolandi, the central character in the book "All My Puny Sorrows" says that "the core of the argument for it [assisted suicide] is maximizing individual autonomy and minimizing human suffering" (p. 222).

Miriam Toews

#6. The good news is that women's roles have changed so dramatically over the past three decades that women now expect to have careers, balance work and family, express their individual autonomy.

Michael Kimmel

#7. Regulated" rights are not rights. They are niceties and platitudes intended to keep the populace thinking their individual autonomy is respected by their government.

A.E. Samaan

#8. One minute I'm exactly what Churchill described me the most powerful man in history. Now the Order's given, hell; I'm just audience front row center to the shoe. But a Corporal on Juno, a Private on Utah there the ones who will affect the outcome not me. It's up to them now.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

#9. The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life.

Georg Simmel

#10. Autonomy and dependency are like light and shade, caught in the pull of each other's gravity, until, after considerable trial and error, each individual can find his or her own place in the world.

Haruki Murakami

#11. I wait. Now the night flows back, the mighty stillness embraces and includes me; I can see the stars again and the world of starlight. I am twenty miles or more from the nearest fellow human, but instead of loneliness I feel loveliness. Loveliness and a quiet exultation.

Edward Abbey

#12. I am certainly not arguing for the de facto autonomy of the individual work, even though there is much to be said for making the attempt to see it in that light as one facet of the reception process.

Brian Ferneyhough

#13. Fortunately the Lord is patient and understanding, and does write straight with our crooked lines.

Thomas H. Green

#14. A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.

Beverly Sills

#15. T'sain shrugged. "I have lived little, and I am not wise. Yet I know that everyone is entitled to life.

Jack Vance

#16. The world does not yield to changing. By its very nature it is painful and transient. See it as it is and divest yourself of all desire and fear. When the world does not hold and bind you, it becomes an abode of joy and beauty. You can be happy in the world only when you are free of it.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

#17. Were not the autonomy of the individual the secret longing of many people it would scarcely be able to survive the collective suppression either morally or spiritually.

C. G. Jung

#18. We-skepticism displaces the performative component of the second-person plural as it treats collectivity with suspicion and p1ivileges a fantasy of individual singularity and autonomy. I write "we" hoping to enhance a partisan sense of collectivity.

Anonymous

#19. Legalize the right to choose wrong.
Legalize individual liberty.

A.E. Samaan

#20. Sometimes we don't understand right away why things happen. Sometimes we never understand. But that doesn't mean those things are mistakes." ~ Jake Samuels

Mary Manners

#21. Self-determination, the autonomy of the individual, asserts itself in the right to race his automobile, to handle his power tools, to buy a gun, to communicate to mass audiences his opinion, no matter how ignorant, how aggressive, it may be.

Herbert Marcuse

#22. Children really brighten up a household. They never turn the lights off.

Ralph Wycherley

#23. Back in the '70s - I remember the '70s: we were told there was global cooling. And everyone was told global cooling was a really big problem. And then that faded.

Ted Cruz

#24. As convenient as that would be to make it easier to communicate with more prolific musicians, I don't want to think of music like a math equation.

Blake Judd

#25. While rationalism at the individual level is a plea for more personal autonomy from cultural norms, at the social level it is often a claim- or arrogation- of power to stifle the autonomy of others.

Thomas Sowell

#26. I'm for absolute autonomy of the individual, and an adult, competent woman has absolute autonomy. It's her choice.

Jack Kevorkian

#27. The spontaneous reproduction of superimposed needs by the individual does not establish autonomy; it only testifies to the efficacy of the control.

Herbert Marcuse

#28. American Progressives have declared war on the sanctity and autonomy of the individual.

A.E. Samaan

#29. The faithful witness, like ... Socrates, Voltaire, and Swift and Christ himself, is at his best when he is questioning and clarifying and avoiding the specialists obsession with solution. He betrays society when he is silent ... He is true to himself and to people when his clarity causes disquiet.

John Ralston Saul

#30. If by the people you understand the multitude, the hoi polloi, 'tis no matter what they think; they are sometimes in the right, sometimes in the wrong; their judgment is a mere lottery.

John Dryden

#31. There's a line in the picture where he (Johnny - The Wild One) snarls, 'Nobody tells me what to do.' That's exactly how I've felt all my life.

Marlon Brando

#32. I like to make colored xeroxes of things. I clip out pictures of Liza Minelli and her husband from magazines and I fax them to people anonymously.

Zooey Deschanel

#33. The key to freedom is accepting my own autonomy as an individual, and respecting the autonomy of other individuals, with all of what that means - whatever that means.

Benjamin Ward Richardson