Nonconformity Quotes

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

  Jack Kerouac

  Inspirational, Life, Beautiful

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

  John F. Kennedy

  Inspirational, Being Yourself, Freedom

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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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)

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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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• People would rather be wrong than be different.

  Henry Jacobsen

  Inspiration, People, Being Different

  9 Copy quote

• 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

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  It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.

  Herman Melville

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Herman Melville, Harrison Hayford, G. Thomas Tanselle (1987). “Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860: Volume Nine, Scholarly Edition”, p.247, Northwestern University Press

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• We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles.

  Mark Twain

  Individuality, Principles, Protection

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.375, Courier Corporation

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• 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".

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

  George Bernard Shaw

  Change, Life Changing, People Changing

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

  Antonio Porchia

  Creativity, Criticism, Conformity

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• 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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  You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.

  Winston Churchill

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

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• All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. All change is the result of a change in the contemporary state of mind.

  Adlai E. Stevenson

  Success, Clever, Work

  "The Educated Citizen". Address at Princeton University, March 22, 1954.

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

  Bernard Baruch

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

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• 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

• Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Motivational, Change

  Mark Twain (2016). “The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain”, p.97, Chartwell

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• None but ourselves can free our minds.

  Bob Marley

  Inspirational, Life, Music

  "Redemption Song" (song) (1980)

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• 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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• 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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