Conformity Quotes - Page 18

• Public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law.

  George Orwell

  Animal, Law, Public Opinion

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.305, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In any culture, subculture, or family in which belief is valued above thought, and self-surrender is valued above self-expression, and conformity is valued above integrity, those who preserve their self-esteem are likely to be heroic exceptions.

  Nathaniel Branden

  Integrity, Self Esteem, Expression

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• With the spread of conformity and image-driven superficiality, the allure of an individuated woman in full possession of herself and her powers will prove irresistible. We were born for plenitude and inner fulfillment.

  Betsy Prioleau

  Strong Women, Independent, Driven

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• Our expense is almost all for conformity. It is for cake that we run in debt; 'tis not the intellect, not the heart, not beauty, not worship, that costs so much.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Running, Heart, Cake

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.562

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• Endeavor to be always patient of the faults and imperfections of others; for thou hast many faults and imperfections of thine own that require forbearance. If thou art not able to make thyself that which thou wishest, how canst thou expect to mold another in conformity to thy will?

  Thomas a Kempis

  Art, Imperfection, Mold

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• We show wisdom by a decent conformity to social etiquette; it is excess of neatness or display that creates dandyism in men, and coquetry in women.

  Robert Adam

  Men, Excess, Coquetry

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• You either go along with the system - conform to what is expected to be a hit - or you have very tough going

  Budd Schulberg

  Tough, Conform, Expected

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• Legalism insists on conformity to manmade religious rules and requirements, which are often unspoken but are nevertheless very real... There are far too many instances within Christendom where our traditions and rules are, in practice, more important than God's commands.

  Jerry Bridges

  Religious, Real, Practice

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• None can know their election but by their conformity to the image of Christ; for all that are chosen are chosen to sanctification.

  Matthew Henry

  Election, Christ, Chosen

  "Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: Volume VI-I - Acts - Romans".

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• All true obedience comes from the heart. It was heart work with Christ. And if we consent, He will so identify Himself with our thoughts and aims, so blend our hearts and minds into conformity to His will, that when obeying Him we shall be but carrying out our own impulses. The will, refined and sanctified, will find its highest delight in doing His service. When we know God as it is our privilege to know Him, our life will be a life of continual obedience. Through an appreciation of the character of Christ, through communion with God, sin will become hateful to us.

  Ellen G. White

  Appreciation, Heart, Character

  Ellen G. White (2015). “The Complete Conflict of the Ages”, p.2240, Simon and Schuster

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• Traditional American values: Genocide, aggression, conformity, emotional repression, hypocrisy, and the worship of comfort and consumer goods.

  George Carlin

  Emotional, Hypocrisy, Comfort

  George Carlin (1998). “Brain Droppings”, Hyperion

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• You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone.

  Eric Hoffer

  Clique, Nonconformist, True Believer

  "Reflections on the Human Condition" by Eric Hoffer, (Section 50), 1973.

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• When a village ceases to be a community, it becomes oppressive in its narrow conformity. So one becomes an individual and migrates to the city. There, finding others like-minded, one re-establishes a village community. Nowadays only New Yorkers are yokels.

  Paul Goodman

  Cities, Community, Village

  Paul Goodman (1966). “Five years”

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• After world war all we got was a lot of conformity, and conservatism and when I was in college at the university of Illinois the skirt lengths dropped instead of going up as they had during the roaring twenties and I knew that was a very bad sign, and it is symbolic and reflective of a very repressive time, and some of that was laid the feet of the cold war.

  Hugh Hefner

  War, College, Illinois

  "Interview With Hugh Hefner". nsarchive.gwu.edu.

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• I find nothing healthful or exalting in the smooth conventions of society. I do not like the close air of saloons. I begin to suspect myself to be a prisoner, though treated with all this courtesy and luxury. I pay a destructive tax in my conformity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Air, Luxury, Pay

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.280, Harvard University Press

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• If you stand up to the human race you lose something called their 'goodwill'; if you kowtow to them you gain ... their permission to continue kowtowing.

  Celia Green

  Race, Gains, Rebellion

  Celia Elizabeth Green (1976). “The decline and fall of science”, Hamish Hamilton

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• The pseudo-conscience ... demands not obedience to the inner law of our being, but conformity to super-imposed convention.

  Frances G. Wickes

  Law, Demand, Pseudo

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• Great teachers and schools expect and nurture quality work and quality performance. Great teachers inspire and demand quality, ever urging their students to higher levels of excellence. They shun mere conformity and expect their students to think and perform to their ever-increasing potential.

  Oliver DeMille

  Teacher, School, Thinking

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• The modern susceptibility to conformity and obedience to authority indicates that the truth endorsed by authority is likely to be accepted as such by a majority of people, who are innately obedient to authority. This obedience-truth will then become a consensus-truth accepted by many individuals unable to stand alone against the majority. In this way, the truth promulgated by the propaganda system - however irrational - stands a good chance of becoming the consensus, and may come to seem self-evident common sense.

  David Edward

  Self, Common Sense, People

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• I left college two months ago because it rewards conformity rather than independence, competition rather than collaboration, regurgitation rather than learning and theory rather than application. Our creativity, innovation and curiosity are schooled out of us.

  Dale J. Stephens

  Creativity, College, Two

  "College is a waste of time" by Dale Stephens, www.cnn.com. June 3, 2011.

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• What have I to do with plows? I cut another furrow than you see.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Cutting, Independence

  Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.356, Modern Library

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• It is but too easy to establish another durable and harmonious routine. Immediately all parts of nature consent to it. Only make something to take the place of something, and men will behave as if it was the very thing they wanted.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Routine, Easy

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.106, Delphi Classics

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• He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest obstacles. Most begin to veer and tack as soon as the wind changes from aft, and as within the tropics it does not blow from all points of the compass, there are some harbors which they can never reach.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Blow, Wind, Sailing

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.688, Simon and Schuster

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• The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Distance, Greatness, Average

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.266, Library of America

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• Religion, as distinguished from modern paganism, implies a life in conformity with nature. It may be observed that the natural life and the supernatural life have a conformity to each other which neither has with the mechanistic life...A wrong attitude towards nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude towards God...[We should] struggle to recover the sense of relation to nature and to God.

  T. S. Eliot

  Attitude, Struggle, May

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