Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [21-40] of 97 Collectivist quotesCollectivist QuotesCollectivist Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.~ Calvin Coolidge Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.~ Alan Corenk We consistently have adhered to the principle that the will of the people is the paramount consideration. Our goal today…[is] to reach the result that reflects the will of the voters…. The laws are intended to facilitate and safeguard the right of each voter to express his or her will in the context of our representative democracy. Technical statutory requirements must not be exalted over the substance of this right.~ Florida Supreme Court A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.~ Bertrand de Jouvenel True, it is evil that a single man should crush the herd, but see not there the worse form of slavery, which is when the herd crushes out the man.~ Antoine De Saint-Exupery In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.~ Charles-Louis de Secondat Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.~ Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.~ Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.~ Alexis de Tocqueville I am far from denying that newspapers in democratic countries lead citizens to do very ill-considered things in common; but without newspapers there would be hardly any common action at all. So they mend many more ills than they cause.~ Alexis de Tocqueville Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations...In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others.~ Alexis de Tocqueville Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where everyone is interdependent.~ John Dewey The most may err as grossly as the few.~ John Dryden If a blending of individualism and of cooperative participation is a prerequisite to a democratic solution of the problems of a society of free men, it must also be noted that an atmosphere of freedom is required if these problems are to be met constructively and as they arise.~ Marshall Field The member of a primitive clan might express his identity in the formula “I am we”; he cannot yet conceive of himself as an “individual,” existing apart from his group.~ Erich Fromm To be a socialist is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole.~ Joseph Paul Goebbels You can't make socialists out of individualists. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where everyone is interdependent.~ Rosalie M. Gordon Even more significant of the inherent weakness of the collectivist theories is the extraordinary paradox that from the assertion that society is in some sense more than merely the aggregate of all individuals their adherents regularly pass by a sort of intellectual somersault to the thesis that in order that the coherence of this larger entity be safeguarded it must be subjected to conscious control, that is, to the control of what in the last resort must be an individual mind. It thus comes about that in practice it is regularly the theoretical collectivist who extols individual reason and demands that all forces of society be made subject to the direction of a single mastermind, while it is the individualist who recognizes the limitations of the powers of individual reason and consequently advocates freedom as a means for the fullest development of the powers of the interindividual process.~ Friedrich August von Hayek And what sort of philosophical doctrine is this -- that numbers confer unlimited rights, that they take from some persons all rights over themselves, and vest these rights in others. ... How, then, can the rights of three men exceed the rights of two men? In what possible way can the rights of three men absorb the rights of two men, and make them as if they had never existed. ... It is not possible to suppose, without absurdity, that a man should have no rights over his own body and mind, and yet have a 1/10,000,000th share in unlimited rights over all other bodies and minds?~ Auberon Herbert How should it happen that the individual should be without rights, but the combination of individuals should possess unlimited rights?~ Auberon Herbert Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print