Nonconformity Quotes

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

  Jack Kerouac

  Inspirational, Life, Beautiful

  88 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."

  195 Copy quote

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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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• Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.

  Cecil Beaton

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  53 Copy quote

• 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
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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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• For nonconformity the world will whip you with its displeasure.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  World, Whips, Displeasure

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• People would rather be wrong than be different.

  Henry Jacobsen

  Inspiration, People, Being Different

  9 Copy quote

• 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

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

  George Bernard Shaw

  Change, Life Changing, People Changing

  208 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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  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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• 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

  1668 Copy quote

• 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

• When all think alike, then no one is thinking

  Walter Lippmann

  Success, Funny Inspirational, Creativity

  48 Copy quote

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

  Antonio Porchia

  Creativity, Criticism, Conformity

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

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Life, Motivational, Jobs

  35 Copy quote

• The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Peace, Lying, Commitment

  Martin Luther King, Jr. (2012). “A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings”, p.17, Beacon Press

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• 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.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Education, Children, Growing Up

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.63, Penguin

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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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• None but ourselves can free our minds.

  Bob Marley

  Inspirational, Life, Music

  "Redemption Song" (song) (1980)

  199 Copy quote

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