One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.

The marriage of reason and nightmare that dominated the 20th century has given birth to an ever more ambiguous world. Across the communications landscape move the spectres of sinister technologies and the dreams that money...

Remember, the opposite of bravery is not cowardice, but conformity.

However, because they have no actual interests of their own (or if they do, they squelch them in order to fit in) and merely pursue those that they think will look best on their college...

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

It is not only the hostility of others that may prevent us from questioning the status quo. Our will to doubt can be just as powerfully sapped by an internal sense that societal conventions must...

So you’re a little weird? Work it! A little different? OWN it! Better to be a nerd than one of the herd!

To hear how much of a great human being you were — even if you really weren’t — open your ears at your funeral.

Popularity gives you power only over people who care about being popular. Ostracism gives you power only over those who fear being ostracized.

[E]ach of our voices has something unique to say. Not only should I not mold my life to the demands of external conformity; I can’t even find the model by which to live outside myself....

Convention (is) so often a mask for injustice.

I think one of the problems [with raising intelligent children] is compulsory schooling…and that children are sitting there and they are taught and told what to believe. They are passive from the very beginning, and...

I found it hateful, yet I wanted to be part of it.

The problem with this generation is they are so quick to define who they are in the process of searching. It is their need for immediate acceptance that keeps them from exploring further.

The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge...

But human beings are not machines, and however powerful the pressure to conform, they sometimes are so moved by what they see as injustice that they dare to declare their independence. In that historical possibility...

One lesson we learn early, that in spite of seeming difference, men are all of one pattern. We readily assume this with our mates, and are disappointed and angry if we find that we are...

Being yourself in a world which wants you to be someone else is the highest possible attainment.

Any fool can do something cool and look cool, but it takes skill to make something uncool cool again.

There is a time in a boy’s life when the sweetness is pounded out of him; and tenderness, and the ability to show what he feels, is gone.

If unconventional ideas = sperm, then public opinion = abortion.

Insecurity of the spirit demands completeness elsewhere.

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.