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Quotations about Conformity
Every society honors its live conformists, and its dead troublemakers. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1963
For one's mind is safely lulled to sleep by all that is apparently conventional and orthodox. ~Ms. A. C. H., "Baiting the Public," in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, 1918
All the mischiefs in the world may be put down to the general, indiscriminate veneration of old laws, old customs, and old religion. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), translated by Norman Alliston, 1908
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. ~Christopher Morley
I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail. ~Muriel Strode (1875–1964), "Wind-Wafted Wild Flowers," in The Open Court, August 1903
Acceptance, that's a big thing. To be loved, to be honored, to be invited in — it's in our nature to seek an embrace from the group. But there'll be moments — too many of them — when that membership costs, and the dues are enormous: self-respect, self-belief, paid out in agonizing currency so that we can achieve comfort and security. That comes from the desperation of acceptance. ~Rod Serling, commencement address, Ithaca College, New York, 1972
Nine men out of ten obsequiously follow the tenth man. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Sparks from the Philosopher's Stone, 1882
I would not be the ship that plies a wonted main, but I would be the tramp-boat and sail the port of the world. I would not be the beaten path, but I would be the by-ways, the undiscovered country.... I would not be of the ninety and nine, but I would be the one, and through the wilderness I would mark a new trail. ~Muriel Strode (1875–1964), My Little Book of Prayer, 1904
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, on the controversy surrounding Bertrand Russell's appointment to the faculty of the City University of New York, quoted in The New York Times, 1940 March 19th
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause & reflect). ~Mark Twain, 1905
Men think in herds, not because herds are right, but because they offer security, mutual respect, and a needed sense of certainty. ~Dr. Idel Dreimer, lumpenbangenpiano.com
You go against the grain, you're bound to get splinters, but that's the price of not conforming. The risk of originality is humiliation which is another way of saying failure. ~Ernest Hemingway, as quoted in A. E. Hotchner, The Good Life According To Hemingway, 2008
He was rather a contradictor than a favourer of ordinary opinions... ~Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873), Pelham; or, The Adventures of a Gentleman, 1828
It may be that most men do not care how they look, so long as they do not look ridiculous, and their conception of looking ridiculous is that they should look different from anybody else... In regard to shaving, the view of the conventionalist is that it does not much matter whether we shave or grow beards provided we all shave or grow beards at the same time, and ninety-nine men out of a hundred are conventionalists. ~Robert Lynd, "Beaver," 1922
Sooner or later, you will need the courage to be disliked. ~Dr. SunWolf, @wordwhispers, tweet, 2016, professorsunwolf.com
People are not dragged kicking and screaming into hell. Nor do they go quietly. They go in ranks, singing to the tune of a marching band. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
If the populace marched in file, 'twere my signal to break from the ranks.
If a thousand generations did thus and so, 'twere my cue to do otherwise.
~Muriel Strode (1875–1964), "Wind-Wafted Wild Flowers," in The Open Court, August 1903
Life presents you with but two avenues — you can either run with the mob or from it. ~Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
Of all Excuses this is most forbid:
"I did the Thing because the Others did."
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Explanations," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924
But it is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man cannot be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. ~Herman Melville, "Hawthorne and His Mosses," The Literary World, 1850 [quoteinvestigator.com]
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. ~Rudyard Kipling, interview with Arthur Gordon, June 1935, in The Reader's Digest, “Interview With an Immortal,” 1959
In the beginning, I was one person, knowing nothing but my own experience.
Then I was told things, and I became two people... there were two of I. One I always doing something that the other disapproved of. Or other I said what I disapproved of. All this argument in me so much.
In the beginning was I, and I was good.
Then came in other I. Outside authority. This was confusing. And then other I became very confused because there were so many different outside authorities. ~Barry Stevens, "Curtain Raiser," Person to Person, 1967
Blind conformity wears shackles of fear; originality grows wings of confidence. ~William Arthur Ward, Thoughts of a Christian Optimist, 1968
Rub R. Stamp has one virtue: he can repeat whatever is told him. ~John E. Rosser, 1923
In the moment of our creation we receive the stamp of our individuality; and much of life is spent in rubbing off or defacing the impression. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
Keep your minds open, but not so open that your brains fall out. ~Walter Kotschnig, c.1940 [quoteinvestigator.com]
Communal error is usually preferred to independent truth. ~Dr. Idel Dreimer, lumpenbangenpiano.com
Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like — then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping. ~Jean Cocteau
We all have an inner sheep. Possibly an inner lemming. ~Dr. Idel Dreimer, lumpenbangenpiano.com
The longer I live, the more I am satisfied of two things: first, that the truest lives are those that are cut rose-diamond-fashion, with many facets answering to the many-planed aspects of the world about them; secondly, that society is always trying in some way or other to grind us down to a single flat surface. It is hard work to resist this grinding-down action. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Professor at the Breakfast-Table, 1859
Consult your conscience, rather than popular opinion. ~Publilius Syrus, 1st century BCE, from the Latin by D. Lyman, 1856
Now what do we call this? How do we annotate that moment when you either sell out — or pick up your ball and go home? God knows the myriad of forms this moment takes... [G]ood men, courageous men, commuted and caring men throughout the ages have stopped at that line and said to the critics of their time: "No, ladies and gentlemen, you are more than I, you are louder than I, you are stronger than I, but I am more right than you, or so I believe." ~Rod Serling, commencement address, Ithaca College, New York, 1972
When everyone agrees with you, it's time to recheck your facts. ~Arnold H. Glasow (1905–1999)
A lawyer's brief will be brief, before a freethinker thinks freely. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
[B]andwagons have no brakes. ~Walter
The Dean: "Do you mean to tell me that you're thinking seriously of building that way, when and if you are an architect?"
Howard Roark: "Yes."
The Dean: "My dear fellow, who will let you?"
Howard Roark: "That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?"
The Dean: "...Do you realize what a passing fancy that whole so-called modern movement is? You must learn to understand... that everything beautiful in architecture has been done already. There is a treasure mine in every style of the past. We can only choose from the great masters. Who are we to improve upon them? We can only attempt, respectfully, to repeat."
~Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
Men — tribal and conformist in nature — prefer to bleat with the herd; in this manner, insanity becomes epidemic, triumphant, and normalized. ~Dr. Idel Dreimer, lumpenbangenpiano.com
Conservatism should guide; it usually paralyzes. ~Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
Minorities are the stars of the firmament; majorities, the darkness in which they float. ~Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
I don't want to give up anymore. I want to be strong and stand for what I think even in the face of those most spiteful. ~Daniel, @blindedpoet, tweet, 2011
The plague of mankind is the fear and rejection of diversity: monotheism, monarchy, monogamy — and, in our age, monomedicine. The belief that there is only one right way to live — only one right way to regulate religious, political, sexual, medical affairs — is the root cause of the greatest threat to man: members of his own species bent on a quest for salvation, security, or sanity ~Thomas Szasz
Of what use to get what you want if you must become someone else to get it. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Custom is, to think a handsome thing in private but tame it down in the utterance. ~Mark Twain, letter to Harriet E. Whitmore, 1907 February 7th
We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles. ~Mark Twain, Following the Equator
Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world—and never will. ~Mark Twain, "Consistency"
They will say that you are on the wrong road, if it is your own. ~Antonio Porchia (1886–1968), Voces, 1943–1966, translated from the Spanish by W.S. Merwin (1927–2019), c.1968
Traditions are group efforts to keep the unexpected from happening. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1963
If you do not agree with the prevalent point of view, be ready to explain why. ~Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
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