Conformity Quotes - Page 11

• My surface is myself. Under which to witness, youth is buried. Roots? Everybody has roots.

  William Carlos Williams

  Roots, Youth, Buried

  William Carlos Williams (1995). “Paterson”, p.31, New Directions Publishing

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• The pressure for conformity is enormous. I have experienced it in editors’ rejection of submitted papers, based on venomous criticism of anonymous referees. The replacement of impartial reviewing by censorship will be the death of science.

  Julian Schwinger

  Editors, Rejection, Criticism

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• I now know, by an almost fatalistic conformity with the facts, that my destiny is to travel.

  Che Guevara

  Travel, Destiny, Facts

  Che Guevara (2013). “The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey”, Ocean Press

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• So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.

  Christopher McCandless

  Men, Reality, Adventurous Life

  Letter to Russell Fritz (as known as Ron Franz), April 1992.

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• My God, the suburbs! They encircled the city's boundaries like enemy territory and we thought of them as a loss of privacy, a cesspool of conformity and a life of indescribable dreariness in some split-level village where the place name appeared in the New York Times only when some bored housewife blew off her head with a shotgun.

  John Cheever

  New York, Loss, Cities

  John Cheever, Blake Bailey (2009). “John Cheever: Collected Stories and Other Writings”

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• I am neither for conformity nor non-conformity. I am for individuality. If one's individuality is in effect non-conformity, then so be it. But basically, one's individuality consists of conformity--to one's self.

  Paul Krassner

  Self, Individuality, Effects

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• Perhaps I am just a hopeless rationalist, but isn't fascination as comforting as solace? Isn't nature immeasurably more interesting for its complexities and its lack of conformity to our hopes? Isn't curiosity as wondrously and fundamentally human as compassion?

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Nature, Compassion, Interesting

  "Eight Little Piggies". Book by Stephen Jay Gould, "Tires to sandals", 1993.

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• Religion is the rules, regulations, ceremonies and rituals developed by man to create conformity and uniformity in the approach to God. Spirituality is God's call in your soul.

  Iyanla Vanzant

  Men, Soul, Regulation

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• The neccessity for making a living keeps our minds so bound down to the details of professional success that we sometimes forget there is anything except professional success to live for. The necessity of conforming our habits and standards to the habits and standards of those about us, in order that we may do efficient work, makes us forget that there is a point where conformity ceases to be a virtue.

  Arthur Twining Hadley

  Inspirational, Order, Mind

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• In a Society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law. When human beings are governed by "thou shalt not", the individual can practise a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by "love" or "reason", he is under continuous pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same way as everyone else.

  George Orwell

  Thinking, Animal, Law

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.305, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• To deny one's self, to take up the cross, denotes something immeasurably grander than self-imposed penance or rigid conformity to a Divine statute. It is the surrender of self to an ennobling work, an absolute subordination of personal advantages and of personal pleasures for the sake of truth and the welfare of others, and a willing acceptance of every disability which their interests may entail.

  George C. Lorimer

  Acceptance, Self, May

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 169), 1895.

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• Civilization after civilization, it is the same. The world falls to tyranny with a whisper. The frightened are ever keen to bow to a perceived necessity, in the belief that necessity forces conformity, and conformity a certain stability. In a world shaped into conformity, dissidents stand out, are easily branded and dealt with. There is no multitude of perspectives, no dialogue. The victim assumes the face of the tyrant, self-righteous and intransigent, and wars breed like vermin. And people die.

  Steven Erikson

  War, Fall, Self

  "Midnight Tides". Book by Steven Erikson, 2004.

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• We have to go from what is essentially an industrial model of education, a manufacturing model, which is based on linearity and conformity and batching people. We have to move to a model that is based more on principles of agriculture. We have to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process; it's an organic process. And you cannot predict the outcome of human development. All you can do, like a farmer, is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.

  Ken Robinson

  Moving, Agriculture, People

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• True faith always produces real conformity to Christ.

  R. C. Sproul

  Faith, Christian, Jesus

  Twitter post from Feb 01, 2017

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• Belonging to a group can provide the child with a variety of resources that an individual friendship often cannot--a sense of collective participation, experience with organizational roles, and group support in the enterprise of growing up. Groups also pose for the child some of the most acute problems of social life--of inclusion and exclusion, conformity and independence.

  Zick Rubin

  Children, Growing Up, Support

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• Everything in life that deviates from the straight and, so to speak, normal line, makes people first curious and then indignant.

  Stefan Zweig

  People, Lines, Firsts

  "Beware of Pity". Book by Stefan Zweig, 1939.

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• Ah, the truth, what a thing it is! I sacrifice so much for it, with people: I forego, for truth's sake, discretion, loyalty, diplomacy, tact, polite manners, elegance, grace, poise, balance, good taste, conformity, image-role, fashionableness, polish, confidences, promises, ambition, consistency, identity, clarity, comprehensibleness, good will, hypocrisy, and lots of other things--amass sacrifice, at truth's altar. God! is truth worth it? I hope it is. It better be, in fact.

  Marvin L. Cohen

  Loyalty, Truth, Ambition

  "Fables at Life's Expense". Book by Marvin Cohen, 1975.

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• ... the self respect of individuals ought to make them demand of their leaders conformity with an agreed-upon code of ethics and moral conduct.

  Mary Barnett Gilson

  Leadership, Respect, Self

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• Christian holiness is not a matter of painstaking conformity to the individual precepts of an external law code; it is rather a question of the Holy Spirit's producing His fruit in the life, reproducing those graces which were seen in perfection in the life of Christ.

  F. F. Bruce

  Christian, Law, Perfection

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• Yes I know my enemies. They're the teachers who taught me to fight me, compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission, ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite, all of which are American dreams.

  Zack de la Rocha

  Dream, Teacher, Ignorance

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• The essence of a free life is being able to choose the style of living you prefer free from exclusion and without the compulsion of conformity or law.

  Eleanor Holmes Norton

  Law, Essence, Style

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• It ought to be considered a great misfortune, not only for individuals, but also for Houses and Congregations, to have everything in conformity with their wishes; to go on quietly, and to suffer nothing for the love of God. Yes, consider it certain that a person or a Congregation that does not suffer and is applauded by all the world is near a fall.

  St. Vincent

  Fall, House, Suffering

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• Justice requires that to lawfully constituted Authority there be given that respect and obedience which is its due; that the laws which are made shall be in wise conformity with the common good; and that, as a matter of conscience all men shall render obedience to these laws.

  Pope Pius XI

  Wise, Men, Law

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• The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Democracy, Degrees, Rewards

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Epigrams by Ambrose Bierce”, p.10, e-artnow

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• When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest. A society which gives unlimited freedom to the individual, more often than not attains a disconcerting sameness.

  Eric Hoffer

  People, Giving, Originality

  'Passionate State of Mind' (1955) p. 21

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