Conformity Quotes - Page 8

• What did you learn in school that you still use today? Go ahead teachers, tell me. What? Fear, conformity, don't question authority.

  Doug Stanhope

  Teacher, School, Use

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• True conformity to the dictates of nature requires reverence for the past and solicitude for the future. 'Nature' is not simply the sensation of the passing moment; it is eternal, though we evanescent men experience only a fragment of it. We have no right to imperil the happiness of posterity by impudently tinkering with the heritage of humanity.

  Russell Kirk

  Past, Men, Humanity

  Russell Kirk (2001). “The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot”, p.57, Regnery Publishing

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• Wherever a man separates from the multitude, and goes his own way in this mood, there indeed is a fork in the road, though ordinary travelers may see only a gap in the paling. His solitary path across lots will turn out the higher way of the two.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Two, Independence

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.419, Penguin

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• The decision for complete religious freedom and for separation of church and state in the eyes of the rest of the world was perhaps the most important decision reached in the New World. Everywhere in the western world of the 18th century, church and state were one; and everywhere the state maintained an established church and tried to force conformity to its dogma.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Religious, Eye, Decision

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• The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a nobler race of men.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Father, Men, Race

  Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.9, Courier Corporation

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• There is a deadening conformity in the culture of cyberspace in which we don't intend to participate.

  Michael Kinsley

  Culture, Cyberspace

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• Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking.

  Christopher Morley

  Book, Reading, Thinking

  Christopher Morley (2013). “The Haunted Bookshop”, p.294, Melville House

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• Many Christians have what we might call a 'cultural holiness.' They adapt to the character and behavior pattern of Christians around them...But God has not called us to be like those around us. He has called us to be like Himself. Holiness is nothing less than conformity to the character of God.

  Jerry Bridges

  Christian, Character, Holiness

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• There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

  George Eliot

  Country, Spiritual, Taken

  'Daniel Deronda' (1876) bk. 3, ch. 24

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• True consistency, that of the prudent and the wise, is to act in conformity with circumstances, and not to act always the same way under a change of circumstances.

  John C. Calhoun

  Wise, Consistency, Way

  John C. Calhoun “The Works of John C. Calhoun Volume 4”, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Man..must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being..And, consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his Maker's will.

  William Blackstone

  Men, Law, Makers

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• Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards are universal, but what constitutes courtesy, modesty, good manners, and definite ethical standards is not universal. It is instructive to know that standards differ in the most unexpected ways.

  Franz Boas

  Ethical Standards, Good Man, Way

  Foreword to "Coming of Age in Samoa" by Margaret Mead, 1928.

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• If you do not speak up when it matters, when would it matter that you speak? The opposite of courage is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.

  Rickson Gracie

  Opposites, Mma

  "A celebration of agitation". Arizona Daily Star, July 26, 2002.

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• We are not going to move this world by criticism of it nor conformity to it, but by the combustion within it of lives ignited by the Spirit of God.

  Vance Havner

  Christian, Moving, Criticism

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• As one might expect, authoritarianism will at times cause children and students to adopt rebellious positions, defiant of any limit, discipline, or authority. But it will also lead to apathy, excessive obedience, uncritical conformity, lack of resistance against authoritarian discourse, self-abnegation, and fear of freedom.

  Paulo Freire

  Children, Self, Discipline

  Paulo Freire (2005). “Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those who Dare Teach”

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• The American ideal is, after all, that everyone should be as much alike as possible.

  James A. Baldwin

  Should, Ideals, Conform

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• It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millenia.

  Eric Hoffer

  Dream, Past, Civilization

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• Instincts under pressure crush the carbon of conformity and create diamonds. Each new season of life offers to train us for the next season if we pay attention and adapt.

  T. D. Jakes

  Inspirational, Crush, Pay

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• Ideation is not a synonym for innovation, conformity is not its simple antonym, and innovation is not the automatic consequence of "creative thinking.".

  Theodore Levitt

  Simple, Thinking, Creative

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• Adjustment, that synonym for conformity that comes more easily to the modern tongue, is the theme of our swan song, the piper's tune to which we dance on the brink of the abyss, the siren's melody that destroys our senses and paralyzes our wills.

  Robert M. Lindner

  Song, Swans, Tongue

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• We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like.

  Richard J. Foster

  Reality, People, Sick

  "Richard Foster's treasury of Christian discipline".

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• Happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves.... The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement.

  Aristotle

  Happy Life, Long, Effort

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• The best assurance any one can have of his interest in God, is doubtless the conformity of his soul to Him. When our heart is once turned into a conformity with the mind of God. when we feel our will conformed to His will, we shall then presently perceive a spirit of adoption within ourselves, teaching us to say, "Abba, Father.

  Ralph Cudworth

  Father, Teaching, Heart

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• We arrange our lives-even the best and boldest men and women that exist, just as much as the most limited-with reference to what society conventionally rules and makes right.

  Walt Whitman

  Men, Men And Women, Our Lives

  Walt Whitman (2014). “Specimen Days & Collect”, p.402, Melville House

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• Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity.

  Maya Angelou

  Adults, Teens, Pressure

  Maya Angelou (2012). “The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou”, p.208, Modern Library

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