Nonconformity Quotes

• Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.

  Jack Kerouac

  Inspirational, Life, Beautiful

  85 Copy quote

• Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

  John F. Kennedy

  Inspirational, Being Yourself, Freedom

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  130 Copy quote

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• 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.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Life, Being Yourself

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.149, Princeton University Press

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• 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.

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Ocean, Dedication

  86 Copy quote

• 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.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Success, Music, Forgiveness

  Walden ch. 18 (1854). Frequently quoted as "marches to the tune of a different drummer."

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  Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds!

  Bob Marley

  Inspirational, Music, Song

  "Redemption Song" (song) (1980)

  252 Copy quote

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• A free society cherishes nonconformity.
  It knows from the non-conformist, from the eccentric,
  have come many of the great ideas.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Ideas, Eccentric, Cherish

  20 Copy quote

• 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.

  Albert Einstein

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  "Mein Weltbild (My World-view)". Essay by Albert Einstein, 1931.

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• If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity.

  Bill Vaughan

  Funny, Hater, Witty

  12 Copy quote

• People would rather be wrong than be different.

  Henry Jacobsen

  Inspiration, People, Being Different

  9 Copy quote

• They will say you are on the wrong road, if it is your own.

  Antonio Porchia

  Creativity, Criticism, Conformity

  12 Copy quote

• Where all think alike there is little danger of innovation.

  Edward Abbey

  Thinking, Thought Provoking, Innovation

  Edward Abbey (1988). “Desert Solitaire”, p.158, University of Arizona Press

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• Those who can’t change their minds can’t change anything.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Change, Life Changing, People Changing

  197 Copy quote

• At this time is freedom anything but the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.

  Epictetus

  Freedom, Philosophical, Wish

  "Epictetus: the Discourses as reported by Arrian, the Manual, and fragments".

  55 Copy quote

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• The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Life, Motivational, Jobs

  35 Copy quote

• Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity.

  Eric Hoffer

  Doe, Woe, Conformity

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

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• Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Men, Soul, Intellectual

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.103, Library of Alexandria

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  Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter.

  Bernard Baruch

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

  135 Copy quote

• It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.

  Albert Einstein

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  Albert Einstein (2010). “Ideas And Opinions”, p.33, Broadway Books

  89 Copy quote

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• Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!

  George Bernard Shaw

  Forgiveness, Believe, Law

  14 Copy quote

• A writer or painter cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of nonconformity alive.

  Luis Bunuel

  Essentials, Alive, World

  12 Copy quote

• New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

  John Locke

  Business, Philosophy, War

  An Essay Concerning Human Understanding "Dedicatory Epistle" (1690)

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• None but ourselves can free our minds.

  Bob Marley

  Inspirational, Life, Music

  "Redemption Song" (song) (1980)

  196 Copy quote

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• The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity.

  Robert Anthony

  Courage, Opposites, Bravery

  Robert Anthony (1986). “The Ultimate Secrets of Total Self-Confidence”, p.26, Penguin

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• 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.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Life, Bullying, Being Yourself

  868 Copy quote