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“Individualism” in the United States refers to privatized ownership, consumption and recreation. You are individualist in that you are expected to get what you can for yourself and not be too troubled by the problems faced by others. This attitude, considered inhuman in some societies, is labeled approvingly as “ambition” in our own and is treated as a quality of great social value.

— Michael Parenti Democracy for the Few (2010)

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More quotes by Michael Parenti

The slums are not the problem, they are the solution; they are the way capitalism deals with the surplus people of a market economy.

Democracy for the Few (2010)

How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained.

Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism (1997)

Through all this, one seldom actually hears from the “politically correct” people who supposedly dominate the universe of discourse.

Contrary Notions (2007)

For all their faults and shortcomings, the people are all we have.

Contrary Notions (2007)

The dirty truth is that many people find fascism to be not particularly horrible.

Dirty truths (1996)

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

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All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
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One country, one constitution, one destiny.

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Since, in the long run, every planetary society will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring — not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive.

Carl Sagan Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Michael Parenti (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.