Explore the wonderful quotes under this tag
The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them.
Sep 25, 2025
Our expenses are all for conformity.
The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful is the cause of half their errors.
Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than what we suspect of what we think.
The eager and often inconsiderate appeals of reformers and revolutionists are indispensable to counterbalance the inertia and fossilism marking so large a part of human institutions.
All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.
We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles.
Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.
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.
Instead of celebrating what makes each child unique, most parents push their children to "fit in" so that they don't "stick out." This unwittingly stomps out individuality and encourages conformity, despite these parents' good intentions
Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!
When I was four years old they tried to test my IQ, they showed me this picture of three oranges and a pear. They asked me which one is different and does not belong; they taught me different was wrong.
They taught me different was wrong.
The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.
Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul.
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.
Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you but yourself.
Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication, and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us --- and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.
Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity, and fashion will drive them to acquire any custom.
I think everybody's weird. We should all celebrate our individuality and not be embarrassed or ashamed of it.
In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.
One of the saddest things about conformity is the ghastly sort of non-conformity it breeds; the noisy protesting, the aggressive rebelliousness, the rigid counter-fetishism.
Do not follow where the path may lead.
Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter.
No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
People say that you're going the wrong way when it's simply a way of your own.
The individual has always to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.
Taking into account the public's regrettable lack of taste, it is incumbent upon you not to fit in.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds!
Those who can’t change their minds can’t change anything.
Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
All progress depends on the unreasonable man.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.