Conformity Quotes - Page 26

• Society demands conformity at the expense of individual liberty. Let us be for once a non conformist to be fully alive.

  Wayne Dyer

  Spiritual, Liberty, Alive

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• The more civilized a nation, the more conformed its population, until that civilization's last age arrives, when multiplicity wages war with conformity. The former grows ever wilder, ever more dysfunctional in its extremities; whilst the latter seeks to increase its measure of control, until such efforts acquire diabolical tyranny.' - Traveller

  Steven Erikson

  War, Civilization, Effort

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• I am myself. That is not enough.

  Sylvia Plath

  Chaos, Enough, Non Conformity

  Sylvia Plath (2015). “Collected Poems”, p.185, Faber & Faber

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• In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric.

  John Stuart Mill

  Order, Break Through, People

  John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.67, Cambridge University Press

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• Whence all this passion toward conformity anyway? – diversity is the word. Let man keep his many parts and you'll have no tyrant states . Why, if they follow this conformity business they'll end up by forcing me, an invisible man, to become white, which is not a color but the lack of one. Must I strive toward colorlessness? But seriously, and without snobbery, think of what the world would lose if that should happen. America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain.

  Ralph Ellison

  Passion, Men, Thinking

  "Invisible Man".

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• To be a hero you have to learn to be a deviant — because you're always going against the conformity of the group.

  Philip Zimbardo

  Hero, Groups, Deviants

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• I had it then. Soda fought for fun, Steve for hatred, Darry for pride, and Two-Bit for conformity. Why do I fight? I thought, and couldn't think of any real good reason. There isn't any real good reason for fighting except self-defense.

  S. E. Hinton

  Fun, Real, Pride

  S.E. Hinton (2016). “The Outsiders 50th Anniversary Edition”, p.110, Penguin

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• Happiness is something final and complete in itself, as being the aim and end of all practical activities whatever .... Happiness then we define as the active exercise of the mind in conformity with perfect goodness or virtue.

  Aristotle

  Happiness, Laughter, Exercise

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• Resisting conformity and developing some small eccentricities are among the steps to independence and self-confidence.

  Al MacInnis

  Education, Self Confidence, Independence

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• If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning.

  Carl Rogers

  Attitude, Learning, Self

  Carl Rogers (2012). “On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy”, p.292, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The hallmark of courage in our age of conformity is the capacity to stand on one's own convictions - not obstinately or defiantly

  Rollo May

  Courage, Hallmark, Conviction

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• To succeed, it is necessary to accept the world as it is and rise above it.

  Michael Korda

  Success, Failure, Acceptance

  "Success!". Book by Michael Korda, 1977.

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• Individualism is rather like innocence: There must be something unconscious about it.

  Louis Kronenberger

  Being Yourself, Being Single, Individuality

  "Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry into American Life". Book by Louis Kronenberger, 1954.

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• But only in their dreams can men be truly free. It was always thus and always thus will be.

  Robin Williams

  Inspirational, Funny, Dream

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• We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Sheep, Waiting

  Mark Twain, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (2009). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.338, Courier Corporation

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• 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.

  Dr. Seuss

  Life, Smile, Graduation

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• How far should one accept the rules of the society in which one lives? To put it another way: at what point does conformity become corruption? Only by answering such questions does the conscience truly define itself.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Integrity, Way, Doe

  Review of Le Misanthrope, by Molière, at the Piccadilly in 1962. "Tynan Right and Left: Plays, Films, People, Places and Events". Book by Kenneth Tynan, p. 117, 1967.

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• In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Christian, Country, Religious

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2015). “Democracy in America: Book One”, p.575, eKitap Projesi via PublishDrive

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• There are many well-meaning people today who work at placing an economic floor beneath all of us so that no one shall exist below a certain level or standard of living, and certainly we don't quarrel with this. But look more closely and you may find that all too often these well-meaning people are building a ceiling above which no one shall be permitted to climb and between the two are pressing us all into conformity, into a mold of standardized mediocrity.

  Ronald Reagan

  Two, People, Ceilings

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• Everything we did in the 1960s was designed to fission, to weaken faith in and conformity to the 1950s social order. Our precise surgical target was the Judeo-Christian power monolith, which has imposed a guilty, inhibited, grim, anti-body, anti-life repression on Western civilization.

  Timothy Leary

  Christian, Order, Civilization

  Timothy Leary (2001). “Your Brain Is God”, p.90, Ronin Publishing

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• Conformity is an imitation of grace.

  Simone Weil

  Grace, Imitation

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.167, Psychology Press

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• It takes far more courage to violate a custom than a law.

  Evan Esar

  Law, Customs

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• We are what we were at birth, and each trait has remained in conformity with earth's and with heaven's logic: Be the devil's tool, resort to black magic, None can diverge from the ends which Heaven foreordained.

  Marianne Moore

  Heaven, Black, Magic

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.260, Penguin

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• Rhetoric is useful because truth and justice are in their nature stronger than their opposites; so that if decisions be made, not in conformity to the rule of propriety, it must have been that they have been got the better of through fault of the advocates themselves: and this is deserving reprehension.

  Aristotle

  Opposites, Justice, Decision

  Aristotle (1890). “Aristotle's Treatise on Rhetoric, Literally Tr. with Hobbes' Analysis, Examination Questions and an Appendix Containing the Greek Definitions: Also, The Poetic of Aristotle, Literally Tr., with a Selection of Notes, an Analysis, and Questions”

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• One of the useful things about age is realizing conventional wisdom is often simply inertia with a candy coating of conformity.

  Anna Quindlen

  Age, Realizing, Useful Things

  Anna Quindlen (2012). “Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake: A Memoir of a Woman's Life”, p.42, Random House

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