Non Conformity Quotes

• 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.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Life, Bullying, Being Yourself

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• 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.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Success, Music, Forgiveness

  Walden ch. 18 (1854). Frequently quoted as "marches to the tune of a different drummer."

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• 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

  Wisdom, Silly, Reading

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

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• 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.

  Bill Vaughan

  Funny, Hater, Witty

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• All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. All change is the result of a change in the contemporary state of mind.

  Adlai E. Stevenson

  Success, Clever, Work

  "The Educated Citizen". Address at Princeton University, March 22, 1954.

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• When I am told I am too old to do something, I try to do it right away.

  Pablo Picasso

  Trying, Conformity

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• Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Inspiration, Science, Artist

  Vincent van Gogh, Mark Roskill (1997). “The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh”, p.173, Simon and Schuster

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• People would rather be wrong than be different.

  Henry Jacobsen

  Inspiration, People, Being Different

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• No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Being Yourself, Lonely, Loneliness

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• I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine.

  Frederick Salomon Perls

  Life, Motivational, Positivity

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• Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

  Albert Einstein

  Love, Life, God

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.423, Princeton University Press

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• 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.

  Toller Cranston

  Color, Territory, Conformity

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• 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.

  Lee Krasner

  Moving, Swings, Conformity

  Robert Carleton Hobbs, Lee Krasner (1993). “Lee Krasner”, Abbeville Press

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• Whenever I'm asked to identify my best work, or my favorite, my answer has always been the same - 'My next one!'

  Ken Danby

  Answers, Next, Conformity

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• From now on, I'll connect the dots my own way.

  Bill Watterson

  Way, Dots, Conformity

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• Becoming is superior to being.

  Paul Klee

  Becoming, Conformity, Superiors

  Paul Klee, Will Grohmann (1985). “Paul Klee”, Harry N. Abrams

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• 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.

  Raoul Dufy

  Law, Conformity, Hours

  Raoul Dufy, Alfred Werner (1970). “Raoul Dufy”, Harry N Abrams Inc

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• One must never forbid oneself anything. One must also be able to go back, one must always be able to change.

  Hans Hartung

  Able, Conformity, Oneself

  Hans Hartung, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) (1975). “Hans Hartung: Paintings, 1971-1975 : [exhibition], October 16, 1975-January 4, 1976 : [catalogue].”, p.25, Metropolitan Museum of Art

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• As an artist, it is central to be unsatisfied.

  Lawrence Calcagno

  Artist, Conformity, Unsatisfied

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• The individual has always to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Being Yourself, Lonely, Loneliness

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• 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.

  Lydia M. Child

  Fashion, Flower, Being Different

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• A writer or painter cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of nonconformity alive.

  Luis Bunuel

  Essentials, Alive, World

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• There's a lot of mediocrity being celebrated, and a lot of wonderful stuff being ignored or discouraged.

  Sean Penn

  Inspiration, Being Ignored, Individuality

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• With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists the small trumpet of your defiance.

  Norman Mailer

  Wall, Pride, Artist

  Norman Mailer (2013). “The Deer Park: A Novel”, p.368, Random House

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• Be what you are. This is the first step toward becoming better than you are.

  Julius Charles Hare

  Inspiring, Being Yourself, Inspiration

  Julius Charles Hare, Augustus William Hare (1861). “Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers: From the Fifth London Ed”, p.486

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