Individuals Matter Quotes & Sayings

Today there is a deep longing in our culture to reconnect to this spiritual world, for we are not whole without it. But our longing cannot be satisfied by embracing religious belief alone, no matter how emotional the embrace, for our longing is at root a hunger and thirst for the experience of interior realities. If, however, we are to forge a new relationship to the invisible world of spirit based on experience, what will distinguish it from the past is the modern necessity that it be based on our own autonomy as free individuals, able to think, decide, and act for ourselves. — Jeremy Nadler

Imprisonment itself, entailing loss of liberty, loss of citizenship, separation from family and loved ones, is punishment enough for most individuals, no matter how favorable the circumstances under which the time is passed. — Mary B. Harris

Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter. — Thomas Paine

Everybody deserves a shot at playing sports. It shouldn't matter in the least if that person is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Building community through healthy and inclusive activities should be one of the main focuses behind athletics, and that isn't possible if you exclude LGBT individuals, especially our youth. — Mardy Fish

Our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be failure but of succeeding at things that don't really matter. — Francis Chan

Individuals of one species are the same in essence or substance. Two human beings differ from one another in matter, but are the same in essence, as being both rational animals. The essential human quality which distinguishes the species Man from all other species is identical in both. — Aldous Huxley

Our civilization is locked in the grip of an ideology - corporatism. An ideology that denies and undermines the legitimacy of individuals as the citizen in a democracy. The particular imbalance of this ideology leads to a worship of self-interest and a denial of the public good. The practical effects on the individual are passivity and conformism in the areas that matter, and non-conformism in the areas that don't — John Ralston Saul

This book is about entanglements. To be entangled is not simply to be intertwined with another, as in the joining of separate entities, but to lack an independent, self-contained existence. Existence is not an individual affair. Individuals do not preexist their interactions; rather, individuals emerge through and as pare of their entangled intra-relating . Which is not to say that emergence happens once and for all, as an event or as a process that takes place according to some external measure of space and of time, but rather that time and space, like matter and meaning, come into existence, are iteratively recon figured through each intra-action, there by making it impossible to differentiate in any absolute sense between creation and renewal, beginning and returning, continuity and discontinuity, here and there, past and future. — Karen Barad

We need to move beyond Darwinian Theory, which stresses the importance of individuals, to one that stresses the importance of the community. British scientist Timothy Lenton provides evidence that evolution is more dependent on the interaction among species than it is on the interaction of individuals within a species. Evolution becomes a matter of the survival of the fittest groups rather than the survival of the fittest individuals. In a 1998 article in Nature, Lenton wrote that rather than focusing on individuals and their role in evolution "we must consider the totality of organisms and their material environment to fully understand which traits come to persist and dominate." (Lenton — Bruce H. Lipton

It offended his sense of proportion and economy to throw away a ninety-percent serviceable string of lights. It offended his sense of himself, because he was an individual from an age of individuals, and a string of lights was, like him, an individual thing. No matter how little the thing had cost, to throw it away was to deny its value and, by extension, the value of individuals generally: to willfully designate as trash an object that you knew wasn't trash. — Jonathan Franzen

The numbers matter: underreporting of Lyme disease obscures the true burden of the illnesses, on individuals as well as on health-care systems. It also makes it harder to convince Congress to fund research. — Michael Specter

There's a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause. — P. J. O'Rourke

No matter how you care to define it, I do not identify with the local group. Planet, species, race, nation, state, religion, party, union, club, association, neighborhood improvement committee; I have no interest in any of it. I love and treasure individuals as I meet them, I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to. — George Carlin

The one joy that has kept me going through life has been the fact that stories unite us. To see you as you listen to me now, as you have always listened to me, is to know this: what I can believe, you can believe. And the way we all see our story-not just as Irish people but as flesh and blood individuals and not the way people tell us to see it-that's what we own, no matter who we are and where we come from. — Frank Delaney

Because Christmas did something to the world at large and to individuals in particular. It crystallized all your hopes and fears. It made you yearn and wish and dream. And no matter how hard you tried - it made you realize all the things you were missing in life. — Sharon Kendrick

To sum up what is most crucial in Japanese political culture: the Japanese have never been encouraged to think that the force of an idea could measure up to the physical forces of a government. The key to understanding Japanese power relations is that they are unregulated by transcendental concepts. The public has no intellectual means to a consistent judgement of the political aspects of life. The weaker, ideologically inspired political groups or individuals have no leverage of any kind over the status quo other than the little material pressure they are sometimes able to muster. In short, Japanese political practice is a matter of 'might is right' disguised by assurances and tokens of 'benevolence'. — Karel Van Wolferen

No matter how high are one's estimates of human stupidity, one is repeatedly and recurrently startled by the fact that:
a) people whom one had once judged rational and intelligent turn out to be unashamedly stupid.
b) day after day, with unceasing monotony, one is harassed in one's activities by stupid individuals who appear suddenly and unexpectedly in the most inconvenient places and at the most improbable moments. — Carlo M. Cipolla

Election has nothing to do with the eternal salvation of individuals but refers instead to God's way of saving nations. It was a major mistake of the Reformation to have decided to follow Augustine in this matter, taking election to refer to grace and salvation. It manages to make bad news out of good news. It casts a deep shadow over the character of God. At it worst, it can lead to awful consequences in terms of pride, arrogance, superiority, and intolerance as the ideology of election takes hold. It causes the church to become, not a sign of the unity of humanity in the love of God, but the sign of favorites in the midst of the enemies of God. — Clark H. Pinnock

I believe that we are not determined either to heaven or to hell, through our actions here on Earth. On the contrary, I believe that we come either from heaven or from hell, prior to this life, and we carry our prior origins inside of us, at all times. People just go back to where they originally came from. And they live in this life as a result of where they once were. Of course, we have the capacities to develop and to build and to create more, while we are here, and perhaps even to change the course of our destinies, but I believe that the soul matter of individuals, are varied and are not of all the same origins. — C. JoyBell C.

In his lecture on Jesus, Brown meditated on the unlikely paradox that any institution could represent this man because institutions, by their very nature, have to follow particular laws if they are to survive and prosper; and the main law of institutional survival is that the many take precedence over the few. If institutions are to endure they have to place a higher value on their own endurance than on loyalty to individuals, no matter how attractive or charismatic they may be. — Richard Holloway

Individuals had never much cared what had happened in the past, or would happen in the future, or how much others of their kind suffered or lacked. They did not care how many others died providing they lived. And government, to those who did not govern, had been largely a matter of indifference unless it happened to have a detrimental effect on the lives of individuals. Then, maybe, if the individuals had felt strongly enough, they had held protests, gone on strike, or started revolutions. — Louise Lawrence

No matter how important we all think we are as individuals, when it comes down to it, we're not that important. At times we better recognize that. That life goes on, thank goodness. That we better recognize our role in society. — Henry Kaufman

Unless individuals have the power to defy commoditization and define their own lives, their potential is vulnerable to the crushing forces of objectification. — Tom Hayes

Frankly speaking, I hate comparisons. Two individuals are doing two different films, playing two different characters: how can you compare them? It is not fair to get into ratings. It really doesn't matter what I think about other actresses; what matters is what the directors think of them when they are casting them in a project, because I think it's the director who's behind a successful piece of cinema. — Katrina Kaif

Most people are shaped to the form of their culture because of the enormous malleability of their original endowment. They are plastic to the moulding force of the society into which they are born. It does not matter whether, with the Northwest Coast, it requires delusions of self-reference, or with our own civilization the amassing of possessions. In any case the great mass of individuals take quite readily the form that is presented to them. — Ruth Benedict

The great blessing of private property, then, is that people can benefit from their own industry and insulate themselves from the negative effects of others' actions. It is like a set of invisible mirrors that surround individuals, households or firms, reflecting back on them the consequences of their acts. The industrious will reap the benefits of their industry; the frugal the consequences of their frugality; the improvident and the profligate likewise. They receive their due, which is to say they experience justice as a matter of routine. — Tom Bethell

Technical progress and more comfortable living permit the systematic inclusion of libidinal components into the realm of commodity production and exchange. But no matter how controlled the mobilization of instinctual energy may be (it sometimes amounts to a scientific management of libido), no matter how much it may serve as a prop for the status quo it is also gratifying to the managed individuals, just as racing the outboard motor, pushing the power lawn mower, and speeding the automobile are fun. — Herbert Marcuse

I've been sitting here and thinking about God. I don't think I believe in God any more. It is not only me, I think of all the millions who must have lived like this in the war. The Anne Franks. And back through history. What I feel I know now is that God doesn't intervene. He lets us suffer. If you pray for liberty then you may get relief just because you pray, or because things happen anyhow which bring you liberty. But God can't hear. There's nothing human like hearing or seeing or pitying or helping about him. I mean perhaps God has created the world and the fundamental laws of matter and evolution. But he can't care about the individuals. He's planned it so some individuals are happy, some sad, some lucky, some not. Who is sad, who is not, he doesn't know, and he doesn't care. So he doesn't exist, really. — John Fowles

Liberals and conservatives disagree over what are the most important sins. For conservatives, the sins that matter are personal irresponsibility, the flight from family life, sexual permissiveness, the failure of individuals to work hard. For liberals, the gravest sins are intolerance, a lack of generosity toward the needy, narrow-mindedness toward social and racial minorities. — E. J. Dionne

Beware of destructive individuals whose spirits breathe every day the worst toxic oxygen of the soul, "SALIGIA" Superbia, Avaritia, Luxuria, Invidia, Gula, Ira, Acedia.
No matter how much goodness, patience, understanding, assistance, forgiveness and letting go you have given them, they will resurface again and again at the doors of your home to impede your happiness.
Let truth and goodness always prevail but never be again a doormat of their abusive, evil ways. — Angelica Hopes

Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a matter of solemn duty, in the performance of acts which all self-respecting individuals refrain from as a matter of common decency. — H.L. Mencken

We have talked about revoking French citizenship for some individuals. Therefore, I have decided to apply for citizenship, which in a way points out the contradictions of this bill that states the forfeiture of French citizenship exclusively to individuals holding dual nationalities. Through this application, I put myself in the midst of the French political debate and discredit everything that might be said against me about this matter. — Tariq Ramadan

No matter how liberal I am, I'm still outraged by crimes of violence. Regardless of whether I can sympathize with the causes that lead these individuals to do these crimes, the effects are outrageous. — Sonia Sotomayor

A minimum required standard to obtain a massage license is quite a different matter from a voluntary certification evidencing higher-level skills. Licensing standards should be set at a level sufficient to assure safe practice, but low enough to avoid screening out those individuals who choose to perform basic work — Bob Benson

Economics is more than just a way to see patterns or to unravel puzzling anomalies. Its fundamental concern is with the material standard of living of society as a whole and how that is affected by particular decisions made by individuals and institutions. One of the ways of doing this is to look at economic policies and economic systems in terms of the incentives they create, rather than simply the goals they pursue. This means that consequences matter more than intentions - and not just the immediate consequences, but also the longer run repercussions of decisions, policies, and institutions. — Thomas Sowell

Civilization is complex. It involves the existence of human communities characterized by political and social organization; dominating and utilizing natural forces; adapting themselves to this new man-made environment; possessing true knowledge (empirical science), a natural sense of refinement, of the arts, and sciences; and most importantly, composed of individuals capable of sustaining this elaborate complex and of handing it on to a capable and similarly complex posterity. Moreover, this last consideration is, in fact, the heart of the whole matter. — Frank L. DeSilva

Perception of the miraculous requires no faith or assumptions. It is simply a matter of paying full and close attention to the givens of life, i.e., to what is so ever-present that it is usually taken for granted. The true wonder of the world is available everywhere, in the minutest parts of our bodies, in the vast expanses of the cosmos, and in the intimate interconnectedness of these and all things ... We are part of a finely balanced ecosystem in which interdependency goes hand-in-hand with individuation. We are all individuals, but we are also parts of a greater whole, united in something vast and beautiful beyond description. — M. Scott Peck

When we know why we're here as individuals and leaders, when our people know why they're here, a sense of purpose carries us forward, and we can do what needs to be done. People want to work on big ideas that matter to them and make a difference. When they do, they find gold. — Howard Behar

In a world where positive expressions of sexual longing connect us we will all be free to choose those sexual practices which affirm and nurture our growth. Those practices may range from choosing promiscuity or celibacy, from embracing one specific sexual identity and preference or choosing a roaming uncharted desire that is kindled only by interaction and engagement with specific individuals with whom we feel the spark of erotic recognition no matter their sex, race, class, or even their sexual preference. Radical feminist dialogues about sexuality must surface so that the movement towards sexual freedom can begin again. — Bell Hooks

As to the rout that is made about people who are ruined by extravagance, it is no matter to the nation that some individuals suffer. When so much general productive exertion is the consequence of luxury, the nation does not care though there are debtors; nay, they would not care though their creditors were there too. — Samuel Johnson

The physical surroundings of most individuals, left to their own choice, vary little wherever they happen to live. No doubt that was the explanation. I was in the presence of one of those triumphs of mind over matter, like the photographer's power of imposing his own personal visual demands on the subject photographed. — Anthony Powell

The court's recent understanding of religion as a private matter for individuals has plainly become malnourished and impoverished. — Stephen V Monsma

... I came to understand that while many of us might default to measuring our lives by summary statistics, such as number of people presided over, number of awards, or dollars accumulated in a bank, and so on, the only metrics that will truly matter to my life are the individuals whom I have been able to help, one by one, to become better people. — Clayton M Christensen

I see no reason to believe that a creator of protoplasm or primeval matter, if such there be, has any reason to be interested in our insignificant race in a tiny corner of the universe, and still less in us, as still more insignificant individuals. Again, I see no reason why the belief that we are insignificant or fortuitous should lessen our faith. — Rosalind Franklin

I have spent my entire life helping millions of children across the world. I would never harm a child. It is unfortunate that some individuals have seen fit to come forward and make a complaint that is completely false. Years ago, I settled with certain individuals because I was concerned about my family and the media scrutiny that would have ensued if I fought the matter in court. These people wanted to exploit my concern for children by threatening to destroy what I believe in and what I do. I have been a vulnerable target for those who want money. — Michael Jackson

If there is a hard, high wall and an egg that breaks against it, no matter how right the wall or how wrong the egg, I will stand on the side of the egg. Why? Because each of us is an egg, a unique soul enclosed in a fragile egg. Each of us is confronting a high wall. The high wall is the system which forces us to do the things we would not ordinarily see fit to do as individuals ... We are all human beings, individuals, fragile eggs. We have no hope against the wall: it's too high, too dark, too cold. To fight the wall, we must join our souls together for warmth, strength. We must not let the system control us
create who we are. It is we who created the system. (Jerusalem Prize acceptance speech, JERUSALEM POST, Feb. 15, 2009) — Haruki Murakami

Fuzzy and ideological definitions of terrorism just make it easier to kill people. When you know your actions will kill innocent noncombatants, that's terrorism. And it must be clearly named as unacceptable - no matter who does it (individuals, groups, or states), whatever the weapons, the expressed intentions, or political justifications. — Jim Wallis

The antidote, in so far as it is a matter of individual psychology, is to be found in history, biology, astronomy, and all those studies which, without destroying self-respect, enable the individual to see himself in his proper perspective. What is needed is not this or that specific piece of information, but such knowledge as inspires a conception of the ends of human life as a whole: art and history, acquaintance with the lives of heroic individuals, and some understanding of the strangely accidental and ephemeral position of man in the cosmos - all this touched with an emotion of pride in what is distinctively human, the power to see and to know, to feel magnanimously and to think with understanding. It is from large perceptions combined with impersonal emotion that wisdom most readily springs. — Bertrand Russell

Our culture is so celebrity-obsessed that for individuals to show they matter, they need to display their intimacy to fame. — Susan Isaacs

Physical science enjoys the distinction of being the most fundamental of the experimental sciences, and its laws are obeyed universally, so far as is known, not merely by inanimate things, but also by living organisms, in their minutest parts, as single individuals, and also as whole communities. It results from this that, however complicated a series of phenomena may be and however many other sciences may enter into its complete presentation, the purely physical aspect, or the application of the known laws of matter and energy, can always be legitimately separated from the other aspects. — Frederick Soddy

No matter how exotic human civilization becomes, no matter the developments of life and society nor the complexity of the machine/ human interface, there always come interludes of lonely power when the course of humankind, the very future of humankind, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single individuals. - FROM THE TLEILAXU GODBUK — Frank Herbert

Working with students and families from diverse class backgrounds, I am constantly amazed at how difficult it is to cross boundaries in this white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal society. And it is obviously most difficult for individuals who lack material privilege or higher levels of education to make the elaborate shifts in location, thought, and life experience cultural critics talk and write about as though it is only a matter of individual will. — Bell Hooks

He who thinks he can have flesh and bones without being subject to any external influence, or any accidents of matter, unconsciously wishes to reconcile two opposites, viz., to be at the same time subject and not subject to change. If man were never subject to change there could be no generation; there would be one single being, but no individuals forming a species. — Maimonides

Wherever something is wrong, something is too big. If the stars in the sky or the atoms of uranium disintegrate in spontaneous explosion, it is not because their substance has lost its balance. It is because matter has attempted to expand beyond the impassable barriers set to every accumulation. Their mass has become too big. If the human body becomes diseased, it is, as in cancer, because a cell, or a group of cells, has begun to outgrow its allotted narrow limits. And if the body of a people becomes diseased with the fever of aggression, brutzdity, collectivism, or massive idiocy, it is not because it has fallen victim to bad leadership or mental derangement. It is because huma beings, so charming as individuals or in small aggregations, have been welded into overconcentrated social units such as mobs, unions, cartels, or great powers. — Leopold Kohr

The ability to master certain tasks in a state of distraction proves that their solution has become a matter of habit. Distraction as provided by art presents a covert control of the extent to which new tasks have become soluble by apperception. Since, moreover, individuals are tempted to avoid such tasks, art will tackle the most difficult and most important ones where it is able to mobilize the masses. Today it does so in the film. Reception in a state of distraction, which is increasing noticeably in all fields of art and is symptomatic of profound changes in apperception, finds in the film its true means of exercise. The film with its shock effect meets this mode of reception halfway. The film makes the cult value recede into the background not only by putting the public in the position of the critic, but also by the fact that at the movies this position requires no attention. The public is an examiner, but an absent-minded one. — Walter Benjamin

The victims I've worked with taught me that individuals want to believe they are entitled to justice. My community taught me that when the choice is clear-cut enough, so do entire counties.

We have become profoundly discouraged about whether we have such choices. My own experience is that we do, if we are willing to pay the price. We need better data to make decisions based on performance, but getting that data is a matter of passing the right laws requiring crunchable statistics and mandatory public reports. The rest is on us. If Tip O'Neil was right, if all politics is local, then our local district attorneys are the place to start. Crime is local. What we do about it is as close as the nearest voting booth. — Alice Vachss

So you want to be famous? You want to inspire large groups of people? You want to be recognized and appreciated by thousands or even millions? Stop trying to do it by speaking to the masses. Do it by speaking to individuals. If what you have is truly amazing and unique and worth sharing, individuals will share it. It is always about the individual, no matter how big you get. Remember that. — Dan Pearce

The Kingdom of God is not a matter of getting individuals to heaven, but of transforming the life on earth into the harmony of heaven. — Walter Rauschenbusch

I tend not to work with a specific person in mind. Art is a matter of statistics. It's not about individuals. It's about people. — Maurizio Cattelan

(P162) The great blessing of private property, then, is that people can benefit from their own industry and insulate themselves from the negative effects of others' actions. It is like a set of invisible mirrors that surround individuals, households or firms, reflecting back on them the consequences of their acts. The industrious will reap the benefits of their industry, the frugal the consequences of their frugality; the improvidant and the profligate likewise. They receive their due, which is to say they experience justice as a matter of routine. Private property institutionalises justice. This is its great virtue, perhaps dwarfing all others. We may say with the economists that private property "internalizes the externalities," or with the philosophers that it gives rise to "social justice. — Tom Bethell

Commoditization is the enemy of meaning. In ages dominated by the forces of commoditization, individuals pay the price with devalued lives. by contrast, unique skills requiring mastery and expertise, like the skills of a brain surgeon, are safe from the threat of commoditization. — Tom Hayes

The fact of the matter is that readers and audiences are never blank slates: individuals see in a work whatever they need to see at that moment. — Christopher Bram

I am not a member of a racial minority, and I am well aware of the reality that far too many individuals of color are harassed by officers for no good reason, so it is easier for me to give the above advice than for others who have been subject to such harassment. After all, I have never been stopped by a police officer who thought I was riding a bike that looked like it might be too expensive for somebody of my race. And I cannot imagine how frustrating such prejudicial suspicion must be. But you cannot make your situation any better by refusing to cooperate with the officer, no matter how unreasonable you may think the police officer is being, or by refusing to disclose two simple things: (1) your name, and (2) whether you have some lawful reason for your curious presence or conduct at that moment at some place where the officer already knows you are, because he or she is standing right there with you. Those — James Duane

All systems are capitalist. It's just a matter of who owns and controls the capital
ancient king, dictator, or private individual. We should properly be looking at the contrast between a free market system where individuals have the right to live like kings if they have the ability to earn that right and government control of the market system such as we find today in socialist nations. — Ronald Reagan

With this understanding of love's meaning it is clear that more often than not slavery made it all but impossible for black people to love one another. When emotional ties were established between individuals, when children were born to enslaved mothers and fathers, these attachments were often severed. No matter the tenderness of connection, it was often overshadowed by the trauma of abandonment and loss. — Bell Hooks

Why are we in this mess, now facing the prospect of economic armageddon? It's because the prevailing characteristic has been greed, and it doesn't matter whether it's individuals living beyond their means or governments living beyond their means or people seeking to get rich quick. — Jeremy Paxton

Russell commented that the development of such gifted individuals (referring to polymaths) required a childhood period in which there was little or no pressure for conformity, a time in which the child could develop and pursue his or her own interests no matter how unusual or bizarre. — Carl Sagan

Alas," said Zee, "this predominance of the few over the many is the surest and most fatal sign of a race incorrigibly savage. See you not that the primary condition of mortal happiness consists in the extinction of that strife and competition between individuals, which, no matter what forms of government they adopt, render the many subordinate to the few, destroy real liberty to the individual, whatever may be the nominal liberty of the state, and annul that calm of existence, without which, felicity, mental or bodily, cannot be attained? — Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Nothing in Chomsky's account acknowledges the difference between intending to kill a child, because of the effect you hope to produce on its parents (we call this "terrorism"), and inadvertently killing a child in an attempt to capture or kill an avowed child murderer (we call this "collateral damage"). In both cases a child has died, and in both cases it is a tragedy. But the ethical status of the perpetrators, be they individuals or states, could not be more distinct ... For Chomsky, intentions do not seem to matter. Body count is all. — Sam Harris

No matter how much individuals do through their own efforts, they cannot actively purify themselves enough to be disposed in the least degree for the divine union of the perfection of love. God must take over and purge them in that fire that is dark for them, as we will explain. — San Juan De La Cruz

The protection of human rights to promote the dignity of the individual is too important a matter for symbolic gestures alone. It is only through the pursuit of practical and effective efforts to promote human rights that we show our real commitment to the welfare of individuals and society. — Alexander Downer

They knew each other as much as they knew themselves, and their intimacy, rather like too many suitcases, was a matter of perpetual concern; together they moved slowly, clumsily, effecting lugubrious compromises, attending to delicate shifts of mood, repairing breaches. As individuals they didn't easily take offense; but together they managed to offend each other in surprising, unexpected ways; then the offender - it had happened twice since their arrival - became irritated by the cloying susceptibilities of the other, and they would continue to explore the twisting alleyways and sudden squares in silence, and with each step the city would recede as they locked tighter into each other's presence. — Ian McEwan

When individuals approach one another with deep purposes on both sides they seldom come at once to the matter which they have most at heart. They dread the electric shock of a too sudden contact with it. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

The new millennium won't be about sexual labels; it'll be about sexual expression. It won't matter if you're sleeping with men or women. It'll be about sleeping with individuals. Soon everyone will be pansexual. It won't matter if you're gay or straight. — Kim Cattrall

One of the plainest truths about both towns and individuals is that they usually don't turn into what we tell them to be, but what they are told they are. — Fredrik Backman

May God forgive us for the times when we as individuals and as a Church failed to seek out and care for those little ones who were frightened, alone and in pain because someone was abusing them. That we did not always respond to your cries with the concern of the Good Shepherd is a matter of deep shame. — Sean Brady

I have a very genuine care for individuals; I have a very genuine sense of the power of individuals to make a difference, a very genuine belief that people matter, a very genuine belief of wanting the very best for individuals. — Gail Kelly

Well I've already made it clear that it's a matter for individuals in exercising their own judgement, their own consciences to speak freely on matters of policy. — Ron Davies

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests. — John Rawls

To the exponents of the Perennial Philosophy, the question whether Progress is inevitable or even real is not a matter of primary importance. For them, the important thing is that individual men and women should come to the unitive knowledge of the divine Ground, and what interests them in regard to the social environment is not its progressiveness or non-progressiveness (whatever those terms may mean), but the degree to which it helps or hinders individuals in the their advance towards man's final end. — Aldous Huxley

With kings, nations, and private individuals, the strongest assume to themselves rights over the weakest, and the same rule is followed by animals, by matter, by the elements, so that everything is performed in the universe by violence. And that order which we blame with some appearance of justice is the most universal, most absolute, most unchangeable, and most ancient law of nature. — Luc De Clapiers

Something else emerges from this discussion about us as human individuals: we're not fixed, stable intellects riding along peering at the world through the lenses of our eyes like the pilots of people-shaped spacecraft. We are affected constantly by what's going on around us. Whether our flexibility is based in neuroplasticity or in less dramatic aspects of the brain, we have to start acknowledging that we are mutable, persuadable and vulnerable to clever distortions, and that very often what we want to be is a matter of constant effort rather than attaining a given state and then forgetting about it. Being human isn't like hanging your hat on a hook and leaving it there, it's like walking in a high wind: you have to keep paying attention. You have to be engaged with the world. — Nick Harkaway

Everything is a matter of choice, and when we choose are we not gambling on the unknown and its being a wise choice?And isn't it free choice that makes individuals of us? We are eternally free to choose ourselves and our futures. I believe myself that life is quite comparable to a map like this a constant choice of direction and route. — Dorothy Gilman

To quote Maslow again regarding his self-actualizing individuals: "One does not complain about water because it is wet, nor about rocks because they are hard ... As the child looks out upon the world with wide, uncritical and innocent eyes, simply noting and observing what is the case, without either arguing the matter or demanding that it be otherwise, so does the self-actualizing person look upon human nature both in himself and in others." (4, p. 207) This acceptant attitude toward that which exists, I find developing in clients in therapy. — Carl R. Rogers

I deeply believe - and not just as a matter of politics, but even as a matter of morality - that matters about reproduction and intimacy and relationships and contraception are in the personal realm. They're moral decisions for individuals to make for themselves. And the last thing we need is government intruding into those personal decisions. — Tim Kaine

As soon as a person indicates that they are willing to absorb guilt, a manipulator will stick to that person like glue and feed on their energy. This dynamic can be avoided simply by refusing to take on feelings of guilt. You do not have to justify yourself to anyone and you do not owe anybody anything. If you are to blame for something then you can accept the punishment, as long as you do not get stuck in the position of the guilty party afterwards. You do not owe those close to you anything either; after all, you care about them because you love them not because you have been coerced into doing so. This is a completely different matter. If you have a tendency to justify yourself, start letting go of it; once manipulative individuals realize they no longer have a way of hooking into your energy they will leave you alone. Guilt goes — Vadim Zeland

Thought you were going to be in touch. Where were you?"
"Where? There aren't places anymore, duck," he responded. "No locations now, just individuals. You didn't hear? Everyone's their own nation, with their own blog. Because everybody has something important to say; everybody's putting out press releases on what they ate for breakfast. It's the era of self-importance. Everyone's their own world. Doesn't matter where people are. Or where I was."
"Nicely dodged. — Tom Rachman

In all the more advanced communities the great majority of things are worse done by the intervention of government than the individuals most interested in the matter would do them, or cause them to be done, if left to themselves. — John Stuart Mill

In some stages in life, some individuals decide only to chose every hard option to achieve. His/her life turns onto confluence of challenges influenced only by destiny ... in which only few decide to accept because it is a matter of existence to them. — Sameh Elsayed

Democracy doesn't mean much if people have to confront concentrated systems of economic power as isolated individuals. Democracy means something if people can organize to gain information, to have thoughts for that matter, to make plans, to enter into the political system in some active way, to put forth programs and so on. If organizations of that kind exist, then democracy can exist too. Otherwise it's a matter of pushing a lever every couple of years; it's like having the choice between Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola. — Noam Chomsky

Too many companies - and individuals - are befuddled by delusion when it comes to identifying their authentic strengths and projecting those strengths through their brand. It's as if they live in Opposite Land. If their service is wretched, they tell people that they are great at service. If they are selling a mediocre car, they expound on its hip sportiness. Claiming that you are what you are not will obscure the strengths you do have while destroying your credibility. It's a lose-lose proposition. In order to hunt down and accurately tag authenticity, we must first pop the balloon of self-delusion. — Tom Hayes

Some imagine the difference between heaven and hell to be a matter of geography. Not so. The difference is much more evident in the individuals who dwell there. — Brandon Mull

Power is not a matter of one dominant individual or institutions, but instead manifests in interconnected, contradictory sites where regimes of knowledge and practice circulate and take hold. This way of understanding the dispersion of power helps us realize that power is not simply about certain individuals being targeted for death or exclusion by a ruler, but instead about the creation of norms that distribute vulnerability and security. — Dean Spade

But responsibility likewise falls on the legislators who have promoted and approved abortion laws, and, to the extent that they have a say in the matter, on the administrators of the health-care centers where abortions are performed. In this sense abortion goes beyond the responsibility of individuals and beyond the harm done to them, and takes on a distinctly social dimension. It is a most serious wound inflicted on society and its culture by the very people who ought to be societys promoters and defenders. — Pope John Paul II

It offended his sense of himself, because he was an individual from an age of individuals, and a string of lights was, like him, an individual thing. No matter how little the thing had cost, to throw it away was to deny its value ... — Jonathan Franzen

The women of the Church are the hope of the world precisely because it is not possible to limit the influence of a woman of God who is filled with the pure love of Christ. For that matter, the same is true of men. It is not possible to limit the influence of a man of God who bears the holy priesthood and who is filled with the pure love of Christ.
Satan knows this, and he hates followers of Christ for it. We are among his greatest nightmares because he knows he cannot limit our influence unless he can neutralize our respective natures. So, if he can get us to break the law of chastity, or develop an addiction, or become consumed with or blinded by the world, he laughs. When he seduces a man or a woman of God, he not only neutralizes those individuals but is poised to infiltrate their families. — Sheri Dew

When I have my interview with my God, our conversation will focus on the individuals whose self-esteem I was able to strengthen, whose faith I was able to reinforce, and whose discomfort I was able to assuage - a doer of good, regardless of what assignment I had. These are the metrics of that matter in measuring my life. This realization, which occurred nearly fifteen years ago, guided me every day to seek opportunities to help people in ways tailored to their individual circumstances. My happiness and my sense of worth has been immeasurably improved as a result. — Clayton M Christensen

For all that we have done, as a civilization, as individuals, the universe is not stable, and nor is any single thing within it. Stars consume themselves, the universe itself rushes apart, and we ourselves are composed of matter in constant flux. Colonies of cells in temporary alliance, replicating and decaying and housed within, an incandescent cloud of electrical impulse and precariously stacked carbon code memory. This is reality, this is self knowledge, and the perception of it will, of course, make you dizzy. — Richard K. Morgan

Attaching the word marriage to the association of same-sex individuals mistakenly presumes that marriage is principally a matter of adult benefits and adult rights. In fact, marriage is principally about the nurturing and development of children. And the successful development of children is critical to the preservation and success of our nation. — Mitt Romney

Facilitative attitudes (and skills) can help a therapist gain entry into the group Freedom from a desire to control the outcome, and respect for the capacity of the group, and skills in releasing individual expression Openness to all attitudes no matter how extreme or unrealistic they may seem Acceptance of the problems experienced by the group where they are clearly defined as issues Allowance of the freedom of choices in direction, either for the group or individuals particularly in the near future — Carl Rogers