Nonconformity Quotes - Page 2

• Its hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.

  Dolly Parton

  Greatness, Academic Excellence, Individuality

  Song: Tennessee Homesick Blues, Album: The Essential Dolly Parton, Vol. 1

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• Do not follow where the path may lead.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Graduation, Travel, Adventure

  56 Copy quote

• It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Graduation, Philosophy

  'Essays' (1841) 'Self-Reliance'

  37 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Luis Bunuel

  Essentials, Alive, World

  19 Copy quote

• 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

  9 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Life, Motivational, Change

  Man and Superman "Maxims for Revolutionists" (1903) See Hawthorne 18

  412 Copy quote

  Show source

• The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful is the cause of half their errors.

  John Stuart Mill

  Thinking, Errors, Individuality

  On Liberty ch. 2 (1859)

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• None but ourselves can free our minds.

  Bob Marley

  Inspirational, Life, Music

  "Redemption Song" (song) (1980)

  244 Copy quote

  Show source

• Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Men, Soul, Intellectual

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.103, Library of Alexandria

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  59 Copy quote

  Show source

• A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Silly, Science, Political

  Essays "Self-Reliance" (1841)

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• The mark of our time is its revulsion against imposed patterns.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Patterns, Conformity, Revulsion

  Marshall McLuhan (1964). “Understanding media: the extensions of man”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The fastest way to succeed is to look as if you're playing by somebody else's rules, while quietly playing by your own.

  Michael Korda

  Success, Business, Creativity

  13 Copy quote

• Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?

  James Thurber

  Investing, Nonconformist, Non Conformist

  21 Copy quote

• Passive resistance is a sport for gentleman (and ladies)-just like the pursuit of war, a heroic enterprise for the ruling classes but a grievous burden on the rest.

  Kenneth Kaunda

  Sports, War, Class

  40 Copy quote

• It isn't fair that there's pressure exerted on those who choose to live on the edges of the bell-shaped curve of normal.

  Laurel Lea

  Curves, Bells, Pressure

  7 Copy quote

• Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.

  Voltaire

  Journey, Hiking, Thought Provoking

  Francois Voltaire (1977). “The Portable Voltaire”, p.109, Penguin

  67 Copy quote

  Show source

• All progress depends on the unreasonable man.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Change, Success, Creativity

  Man and Superman "Maxims for Revolutionists" (1903) See Hawthorne 18

  99 Copy quote

  Show source

• All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

  Paul Simon

  Honesty, Lying, Men

  "The Boxer," from Simon and Garfunkel's 1970 album Bridge over Troubled Water.

  30 Copy quote

  Show source

• You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone.

  Eric Hoffer

  Conformity, Clique, Nonconformist

  "Reflections on the Human Condition" by Eric Hoffer, (Section 50), 1973.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am not made like any of those I have seen. I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Believe, Being Different, Venture

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1996). “The Confessions”, p.3, Wordsworth Editions

  149 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  939 Copy quote

• When all think alike, then no one is thinking

  Walter Lippmann

  Success, Funny Inspirational, Creativity

  60 Copy quote

• Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Motivational, Change

  Mark Twain (2016). “The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain”, p.97, Chartwell

  543 Copy quote

  Show source

• The eager and often inconsiderate appeals of reformers and revolutionists are indispensable to counterbalance the inertia and fossilism marking so large a part of human institutions.

  Walt Whitman

  Individuality, Conformity, Institutions

  10 Copy quote