quotations about conformity
The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
JOHN STUART MILL
On Liberty and Other Essays
Yield not one inch to all the forces which conspire to make you an echo.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Talks with Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist ... must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Self-Reliance", Essays
Sanity is not truth. Sanity is conformity to what is socially expected. Truth is sometimes in conformity, sometimes not.
ROBERT M. PIRSIG
Lila
Nonconformity is the highest evolutionary attainment of social animals.
ALDO LEOPOLD
"A Man's Leisure Time", Round River
Obey authority
Live in conformity
I do for you what you do for me
KMFDM
"Skurk"
Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.
BIBLE
Exodus 23:2
Let's all be different same as me.
JOHN BRUNNER
The Shockwave Rider
Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.
IVAN TURGENEV
attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes
Voted of the island of normality
Voted off the island of conformity
Voted of the island of the drones
Damn proud of it too!
JELLO BIAFRA
"Voted of the Island"
Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.
MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN
The Neurotic's Notebook
We are not supposed to all be the same, feel the same, think the same, and believe the same. The key to continued expansion of our Universe lies in diversity, not in conformity and coercion. Conventionality is the death of creation.
ANTHON ST. MAARTEN
Divine Living
In order to be able to be an irreproachable member of the herd, one must, above all, be a sheep.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
"Aphorisms for Leo Baeck"
No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
One of the useful things about age is realizing conventional wisdom is often simply inertia with a candy coating of conformity.
ANNA QUINDLEN
Lots of Candles
Just try on this straitjacket of conformity
While we force feed you propaganda on the state TV
LIVING COLOUR
"Operation: Mind Control"
We are so placid that the smallest tremor of objection to anything at all is taken as a full-scale revolution. Should any soul speak up in favor of the obvious, it is taken as a symptom of the influence of the left, the right, the pink, the black, the dangerous.
CYNTHIA OZICK
Art & Ardor
Rebel children, I urge you, fight the turgid slick of conformity with which they seek to smother your glory.
RUSSELL BRAND
My Booky Wook
The conformist is filled with the need for approval. He can never get enough. He runs from one person to another seeking compliments and endorsements for his behavior and actions. As a child, he turned to parents and teachers; when he started to work, to his boss and fellow workers; in marriage, he turned to his mate. He must always have someone around to pat him on the head and tell him he is doing a good job. This bolsters up his poor self-esteem.
ROBERT ANTHONY
The Ultimate Secrets of Total Self-Confidence
Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of "crackpot" than the stigma of conformity.
THOMAS WATSON
The Greatest Quotations of All Time