CONFORMITY QUOTES II

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


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


Yield not one inch to all the forces which conspire to make you an echo.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Talks with Ralph Waldo Emerson


Sanity is not truth. Sanity is conformity to what is socially expected. Truth is sometimes in conformity, sometimes not.

ROBERT M. PIRSIG

Lila


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


Nonconformity is the highest evolutionary attainment of social animals.

ALDO LEOPOLD

"A Man's Leisure Time", Round River


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"


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


Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.

MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN

The Neurotic's Notebook


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


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


Just try on this straitjacket of conformity
While we force feed you propaganda on the state TV

LIVING COLOUR

"Operation: Mind Control"


Rebel children, I urge you, fight the turgid slick of conformity with which they seek to smother your glory.

RUSSELL BRAND

My Booky Wook


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"


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


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


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


Even though no one else discovers the nonconformity or enforces the rules against it, the individual who has committed the impropriety may himself act as the enforcer. He may brand himself as deviant because of what he has done and punish himself in one way or another for his behavior.

HOWARD S. BECKER

Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance