Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: ‘You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of...

I would rather be an artist than a leader. Ironically, a leader has to follow the rules.

A man’s shortcomings are taken from his epoch; his virtues and greatness belong to himself.

Conformity is a problem for many small groups. Members put a higher priority on cohesion than on coming up with a well-reasoned choice. They pressure dissenters, shield themselves from negative feedback, keep silent when they...

Any fool can make a ruleAnd any fool will mind it.

[People] ask themselves, what is suitable for my position? What is usually done by persons of my station and percuniary circumstances? Or (worse still) what is usually done by persons of a station and circumstances...

The essence of the Christian life is not attending meetings or even praying and fasting. The essence of the Christian life is looking intently for bits of God in everything and everyone, everyday, so that...

God never uses one approach to the get his job done in the world. Each soul has its own way of being reached. He has put inside of each of us an unique song, that...

I do not see the point in dressing and acting and speaking in a way that makes you feel more comfortable and me feel less comfortable.

make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances...

As much as I live I shall not imitate them or hate myself for being different to them

The virtue in most request is conformity.

The common person fears to think beyond the common.

He is marriageable. Although he was once imprisoned and branded as a criminal, he was in fact innocent of any crime.” The Master gave him his daughter in marriage.(Analects 5.1)

one-size-fits-all”!

Opinions of the masses kill the ‘extra’ in an ‘extraordinary’ idea.

Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it, and a lethargy steals over all the finer nerves and faculties of the soul. She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull,...

If you conform, you can never reform.

The urge to shout filthy words at the top of his voice was as strong as ever.

The greater part of the world has, properly speaking, no history, because the despotism of Custom is complete. This is the case over the whole East. Custom is there, in all things, the final appeal;...

Life is, if anything, the art of combination. Of discrimination. Of freely picking one’s own personal pattern out of a hundred choices. Not letting it be picked for you—either by the Establishment, or by the...

That is the true challenge–to work within a narrow confine. To accept what you cannot have; that from which you cannot deviate.

Think about the word mould for a moment. A mould is a device into which one crams and smashes something until it becomes the shape that they desire. Don’t spend your life letting other people...

I’d like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously...

By acquiescing in an act that causes such suffering to a living creature, who among us is not diminished?

Since the war, we’re the only intelligent species left in the universe, therefore we think everything in this universe has to conform to our paradigm of what makes sense. Do you have any idea how...

I expected, as I approached the corporate world, to enter a brisk, logical, nonsense-free zone, almost like the military – or a disciplined, up-to-date military anyway – in its focus on concrete results. How else...

Modern party-dance is simply writhing to suggestive music. It is ridiculous, silly to watch and excruciatingly embarrassing to perform. It is ridiculous, and yet absolutely everyone does it, so that it is the person who...

Freedom began on the day the first sheep wandered away from the herd.

Most people say that Shakespeare rocked merely because most people say that Shakespeare rocked.

I am neither for conformity nor non-conformity. I am for individuality. If one’s individuality is in effect non-conformity, then so be it. But basically, one’s individuality consists of conformity–to one’s self.

Wisdom to accept change creates life, but conformity creates stagnation and leads to death.

If a man does not keep pace with his companion, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever deviate even in a...

It takes money to make money, even begging. Humans are herd animals. If a stranger’s bleeding to death beside the road, most people won’t stop to offer a Band-Aid. But get the ball rolling with...

If New Orleans is not fully in the mainstream of culture, neither is it fully in the mainstream of time. Lacking a well-defined present, it lives somewhere between its past and its future, as if...

We all know that any emotional bias — irrespective of truth or falsity — can be implanted by suggestion in the emotions of the young, hence the inherited traditions of an orthodox community are absolutely...

I like weird. Conformity bores but is inescapable for the most part. We all follow something, even if it is following the goal of wanting to stand apart. We are a sea of ordinary people;...

We are usually on bended knee before laws or angrily reacting against them, both immature responses.

At the age of four, you were an artist. And at seven, you were a poet.

It’s true, though, others won’t understand me. I know that. I’m still an alien in the American Christian subculture.Each evening I retreat from it, and I go straight to the Gospels.It’s not out of duty...

National Review’s premise was that conformity was especially egregious among the intellectuals, that herd of independent minds.

Realism arises from the maturity of the minds, while Idealism arises from their conformity.

In every southerner, beneath the veneer of clichés lies a much deeper motherlode of cliché. But even cliché is overlaid with enormous power when a child is involved.

Who was I fooling, telling my heart to quiet its beautiful song so I could march in the parade of conformity? My biggest fool was me.

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.

What I’m starting to realize is that when you conform, people are not accepting you for who you are. They’re accepting you for who they think you are.

Life in society requires consensus as an indispensable condition. But consensus, to be productive, requires that each individual contribute independently out of of his experience and insight.

Die Wissenschaft ist ein Land, welches die Eigenschaft hat, um so mehr Menschen beherbergen zu können, je mehr Bewohner sich darin sammeln; sie ist ein Schatz, der um so grösser wird, je mehr man ihn...

Group conformity scares the pants off me because it’s so often a prelude to cruelty towards anyone who doesn’t want to — or can’t — join the Big Parade.