"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you’ll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."

Rudyard Kipling Literature See all quotes by Rudyard Kipling →

React to this quote

More by Rudyard Kipling

“An' I learned about women from 'er.”

“A rose-red city, half as old as Time.”

“There are only two divisions in the world to-day — human beings and Germans. And the German knows it. Human beings have long ago sickened of him and everything connected with him,of all he does, says, thinks and believes.”

“But he couldn't lie if you paid him and he'd starve before he stole.”

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”

“Being kissed by a man who didn't wax his moustache was like eating an egg without salt.”

Resonant Thoughts

"It felt like being a child again, though it was not. Being a child is like nothing. It's only being. Later, when we think about it, we make it into youth."

— China Miéville

Literature1972

#philosophy

"Inexplicable: I recently won in court to stop my book "America by Heart" from being leaked,but US Govt can't stop Wikileaks' treasonous act?"

— Sarah Palin

Politics1964

#philosophy

"He felt a crude ecstasy. He could not have given the reason, but the mountain tormented him, beckoned him, held an answer to something he wanted. It was so pure, so austere."

— Norman Mailer

Literature1923–2007

#philosophy

"The most simple picture one can form about the creation of an empirical science is along the lines of an inductive method. Individual facts are selected and grouped together such that their lawful con…"

— Albert Einstein

Science1879–1955

#Philosophy