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.
Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.
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 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.
People would rather be wrong than be different.
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.
Nature made us individuals, as she did the flowers and the pebbles; but we are afraid to be peculiar, and so our society resembles a bag of marbles, or a string of mold candles. Why should we all dress after the same fashion? The frost never paints my windows twice alike.
No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
A writer or painter cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of nonconformity alive.
The individual has always to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
There's a lot of mediocrity being celebrated, and a lot of wonderful stuff being ignored or discouraged.
With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists the small trumpet of your defiance.
As an artist, it is central to be unsatisfied.
One must never forbid oneself anything. One must also be able to go back, one must always be able to change.
I don't follow any system. All the laws you can lay down are only so many props to be cast aside when the hour of creation arrives.
Becoming is superior to being.
When I am told I am too old to do something, I try to do it right away.
All my work keeps going like a pendulum; it seems to swing back to something I was involved with earlier, or it moves between horizontality and verticality, circularlity, or a composite of them. For me, I suppose, that change is the only constant.
Whenever I'm asked to identify my best work, or my favorite, my answer has always been the same - 'My next one!'
To be a genuine individualist requires a great deal of strength and courage. It is never easy to chart new territory, to cross new frontiers, or to introduce subtle shadings to an established color.
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