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.
Nonconformity is the highest evolutionary attainment of social animals.
Every great historic change has been based on nonconformity, has been bought either with the blood or with the reputation of nonconformists.
If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
I wish to suggest that ample opportunity does exist for dissent, for protest, and for nonconformity. But I must also say that the right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. All change is the result of a change in the contemporary state of mind.
The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self?
All art is based on nonconformity ... Without nonconformity we would have had no Bill of Rights or Magna Carta, no public education system, no nation upon this continent, no continent, no science at all, no philosophy, and considerably fewer religions.
Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter.
Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.
Heresies are experiments in man's unsatisfied search for truth.
The worst curse to befall anyone is stagnation, a banal existence, the quiet desperation that comes out of a need for conformity.
Nonconformity is an empty goal, and rebellion against prevailing opinion merely because it is prevailing should no more be praised than acquiescence to it. Indeed, it is often a mask for cowardice, and few are more pathetic than those who flaunt outer differences to expiate their inner surrender.
I shall assume that your silence gives consent.
Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind; and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.
You know, Qhuinn's an interesting character." Saxton reached out with an elegant hand and picked up his port. "He's one of my favorite cousins, actually. His nonconformity is admirable and he's survived things that would crush a lesser male. Don't know that being in love with him would be easy, however." Blay didn't go near that one. "So do you come here often?" Saxton laughed, his pale eyes glinting, "Not for discussion, huh.
If someone does something we disapprove of, we regard him as bad if we believe we can deter him from persisting in his conduct, but we regard him as mad if we believe we cannot. In either case, the crucial issue is our control of the other: the more we lose control over him, and the more he assumes control over himself, the more, in case of conflict, we are likely to consider him mad rather than just bad.
And truly it demands something godlike in him who cast off the common motives of humanity and ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster.
Individuality realized is the supreme attainment of the human soul, the master-master's work of art. Individuality is sacred.
People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.
God gives some more than others because some accept more than others.
We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.
A sin is anything you do which goes against yourself
A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.
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