# Quotes about conformity - Quotes: 161 - Authors: 102 - Broader topic: [Quotes about society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md) - Topic page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity - JSON version (same data): https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.json ## Quotes > "It boils down to this. If a man, any man, claims to have had an experience which is outside all normal experience, it will be inferred, will it not, that he is in some way not quite a normal man? A small cloud, a mere wrack, of doubt and risk begins to gather above him. It is tenuous, too insubstantial for him to disperse, yet it casts a faint, persistent shadow. > > There is, I imagine, no such thing as a normal human being, but there is a widespread feeling that there ought to be. Any organisation has a conception of 'the type of man we want here' which is regarded as the normal for its purposes. So every man there attempts more or less to accord to it - organisational man, in fact - and anyone who diverges more than slightly from the type in either his public, or in his private life does so to the peril of his career." [John Wyndham](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham.md) · [Consider Her Ways](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham/consider-her-ways.md) · p. 139 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham/consider-her-ways/it-boils-down.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Always in life an idea starts small, it is only a sapling idea, but the vines will come and they will try to choke your idea so it cannot grow, and it will die and you will never know you had a big idea, an idea so big it could have grown thirty meters through the dark canopy of leaves and touched the face of the sky. The vines are people who are afraid of originality, of new thinking. Most people you encounter will be vines; when you are a young plant they are very dangerous. Always listen to yourself, Peekay. It is better to be wrong than simply to follow convention. If you are wrong, no matter, you have learned something and you grow stronger. If you are right, you have taken another step toward a fulfilling life. [Bryce Courtenay](https://www.leafyquotes.com/bryce-courtenay.md) · [The Power of One](https://www.leafyquotes.com/bryce-courtenay/the-power-of-one.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/bryce-courtenay/the-power-of-one/always-in-life.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [ideas](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ideas.md) > Always listen to yourself... It is better to be wrong than simply to follow convention. [Bryce Courtenay](https://www.leafyquotes.com/bryce-courtenay.md) · [The Power of One](https://www.leafyquotes.com/bryce-courtenay/the-power-of-one.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/bryce-courtenay/the-power-of-one/always-listen-to-yourself.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [independence](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/independence.md) > You can’t be a nonconformist if you don’t wear the proper uniform. [Jack L. Chalker](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-l-chalker.md) · [Midnight at the Well of Souls](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-l-chalker/midnight-at-the-well-of-souls.md) · p. 7 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-l-chalker/midnight-at-the-well-of-souls/you-cant-be-a-nonconformist.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > She was secretive, like me - not wanting anyone to know her every thought in case he used it against her. I imagined she'd discovered, as I had, that what people want from you is confirmation that you're toeing the line, living by the same rules they are, and that you're not going off on your own or awarding yourself any special privileges. [Steve Toltz](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-toltz.md) · [A Fraction Of The Whole](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-toltz/a-fraction-of-the-whole.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-toltz/a-fraction-of-the-whole/she-was-secretive.md) Topics: [secrets](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/secrets.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > The pull of fashion has always been that of the stampeding herd. [William Tenn](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-tenn.md) · [The Wooden Star](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-tenn/the-wooden-star.md) · p. 224 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-tenn/the-wooden-star/the-pull-of-fashion.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [fashion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fashion.md) > From Ushikawa’s perspective, they were irretrievably shallow. To him, their minds were dull, their vision narrow and devoid of imagination, and all they cared about was what other people thought. More than anything, they were completely lacking in the sort of healthy skepticism needed to attain any degree of wisdom. [Haruki Murakami](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami.md) · [1Q84](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/1q84.md) · p. 912 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/1q84/from-ushikawas-perspective.md) Topics: [wisdom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/wisdom.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [doubt](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/doubt.md) > “Fukada was supposedly looking for a utopia in the Takashima system,” the Professor said with a frown. “But utopias don’t exist, of course, anywhere in any world. Like alchemy or perpetual motion. What Takashima is doing, if you ask me, is making mindless robots. They take the circuits out of people’s brains that make it possible for them to think for themselves. Their world is like the one that George Orwell depicted in his novel. I’m sure you realize that there are plenty of people who are looking for exactly that kind of brain death. It makes life a lot easier. You don’t have to think about difficult things, just shut up and do what your superiors tell you to do. You never have to starve. To people who are searching for that kind of environment, the Takashima Academy may well be utopia.” [Haruki Murakami](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami.md) · [1Q84](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/1q84.md) · p. 153 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/1q84/fukada-was-supposedly.md) Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [utopia](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/utopia.md) > “Everybody knows that.” > > “Assume for a moment that everybody is wrong.” [Steve Perry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-perry.md) · [The Ramal Extraction](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-perry/the-ramal-extraction.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-perry/the-ramal-extraction/everybody-knows-that.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [skepticism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/skepticism.md) > Gandhi carried the concept of the powerful committed minority into the twentieth century, first gaining recognition of the rights of Indians living in South Africa and then achieving India's independence from British domination. "It is a superstitious and ungodly thing to believe that an act of a majority binds a minority," he said. "It is not numbers that count but quality.... I do not regard the force of numbers as necessary in a just cause." [Marilyn Ferguson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson.md) · [The Aquarian Conspiracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson/the-aquarian-conspiracy.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson/the-aquarian-conspiracy/gandhi-carried-the.md) Topics: [justice](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/justice.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > There may be only a thousand or so people here, but it’s easy enough to make the pressure of conformity irresistible. Hell, sometimes we only need one other person to make us fall into line. [Emma Newman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emma-newman.md) · [Planetfall](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emma-newman/planetfall.md) · p. 174 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emma-newman/planetfall/there-may-be-only.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > I think “majority” is one of my least favorite words. It’s so often used to justify bad decisions. [Emma Newman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emma-newman.md) · [Planetfall](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emma-newman/planetfall.md) · p. 18 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emma-newman/planetfall/i-think-majority.md) Topics: [choices](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/choices.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > To follow foolish precedents, and wink with both eyes, is easier than to think. [John Allen Paulos](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos.md) · [Innumeracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos/innumeracy.md) · p. 67 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos/innumeracy/to-follow-foolish.md) Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > If only the people around us could be convinced. But most of them believe they get nothing good out of themselves except by constraint; they’re only pleased with themselves when they’re under duress. If there’s one thing each of them claims not to resemble it’s … himself. Instead he sets up a model, then imitates it; he doesn’t even choose the model—he accepts it ready-made. [André Gide](https://www.leafyquotes.com/andre-gide.md) · [The Immoralist](https://www.leafyquotes.com/andre-gide/the-immoralist.md) · p. 104 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/andre-gide/the-immoralist/if-only-the.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > No group is able, and few are willing, to stand up to the potent homogenizing forces of advanced industrial society. All Americans, from African Americans to Greek Americans, buy the same goods, look at the same movies and television, pursue the same activities and have—more or less—the same desires for success. [Russell Jacoby](https://www.leafyquotes.com/russell-jacoby.md) · [The End Of Utopia](https://www.leafyquotes.com/russell-jacoby/the-end-of-utopia.md) · p. 48 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/russell-jacoby/the-end-of-utopia/no-group-is-able.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [consumerism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consumerism.md) > I thought it was normal, that’s the thing. When you’re little you think everything is normal. If your mother had a pointed head and green ears you’d think it’s normal. Only when you grow up do you realise that not everybody is like that. Gradually you can even come to learn that the time you are living in is strange too, that it hasn’t always been like this. The more you feel uncomfortable and unconfident and want to find a way to be like everyone else and fit in, the more normality runs away from you because there isn’t any such thing. Or if there is, you have to find someone else who’ll agree with you what it is. Which I seem singularly unable to do. [Jane Rogers](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-rogers.md) · [The Testament of Jessie Lamb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-rogers/the-testament-of-jessie-lamb.md) · p. 6 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-rogers/the-testament-of-jessie-lamb/i-thought-it-was.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [growing up](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/growing-up.md) > We have a side to our character that we are generally unaware of—our social personality, the different person we become when we operate in groups of people. In the group setting, we unconsciously imitate what others are saying and doing. We think differently, more concerned with fitting in and believing what others believe. We feel different emotions, infected by the group mood. We are more prone to taking risks, to acting irrationally, because everyone else is. This social personality can come to dominate who we are. Listening so much to others and conforming our behavior to them, we slowly lose a sense of our uniqueness and the ability to think for ourselves. The only solution is to develop self-awareness and a superior understanding of the changes that occur in us in groups. With such intelligence, we can become superior social actors, able to outwardly fit in and cooperate with others on a high level, while retaining our independence and rationality. [Robert Greene](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-greene.md) · [The Laws of Human Nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-greene/the-laws-of-human-nature.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-greene/the-laws-of-human-nature/we-have-a-side.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [crowd](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/crowd.md) > In a society where the roles everyone plays are obvious, the refusal to conform to any standard will excite interest. Be both masculine and feminine, impudent and charming, subtle and outrageous. Let other people worry about being socially acceptable; those types are a dime a dozen, and you are after a power greater than they can imagine. [Robert Greene](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-greene.md) · [The Art of Seduction](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-greene/the-art-of-seduction.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-greene/the-art-of-seduction/in-a-society.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [rebellion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/rebellion.md) > At certain points in history it may be fashionable to be different and rebellious, but if a lot of people are playing that role, there is nothing different or rebellious about it. [Robert Greene](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-greene.md) · [The Art of Seduction](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-greene/the-art-of-seduction.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-greene/the-art-of-seduction/at-certain-points.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [rebellion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/rebellion.md) > Because of that corporate life, transfusing you, giving to you and taking from you - conditioning you as it does in countless oblique and unapparent ways - you are still compelled to react in to many suggestions which you are no longer able to respect: controlled, to the last moment of your bodily existence and perhaps afterwords, by habit, custom, the good old average way of misunderstanding the world. [Evelyn Underhill](https://www.leafyquotes.com/evelyn-underhill.md) · [Practical Mysticism: A Little Book for Normal People and Abba: Meditations Based on the Lord's Prayer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/evelyn-underhill/practical-mysticism-a-little-book-for-normal-people-and-abba-meditations-based-on-the-lords-prayer.md) · p. 175 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/evelyn-underhill/practical-mysticism-a-little-book-for-normal-people-and-abba-meditations-based-on-the-lords-prayer/because-of-that.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [habits](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/habits.md) > I’ve never understood why the faces, who have nothing to sell but an original personality, an original face, all try to look like somebody else. But I guess it makes sense. Why should they be different from everybody else in Hollywood, which has always been in love with sequels and imitations and remakes? [Connie Willis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/connie-willis.md) · [Remake](https://www.leafyquotes.com/connie-willis/remake.md) · p. 8 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/connie-willis/remake/ive-never-understood.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Therein lay the secret to all fads: the herd instinct. People wanted to look like everybody else. That was why they bought white bucks and pedal pushers and bikinis. But someone had to be the first one to wear platform shoes, to bob their hair, and that took the opposite of herd instinct. [Connie Willis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/connie-willis.md) · [Bellwether](https://www.leafyquotes.com/connie-willis/bellwether.md) · p. 63 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/connie-willis/bellwether/therein-lay-the.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [fashion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fashion.md) > The great defect, for Chamfort, consisted in the public’s reluctance to submit its thinking to the rigors of rational examination, and its tendency to rely instead on intuition, emotion, and custom. “One can be certain that every generally held idea, every received notion, will be an idiocy, because it has been able to appeal to a majority,” the Frenchman observed, adding that what is flatteringly called common sense is usually little more than common nonsense, suffering as it does from simplification and illogicality, prejudice and shallowness: “The most absurd customs and the most ridiculous ceremonies are everywhere excused by an appeal to the phrase, but that’s the tradition.” [Alain de Botton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alain-de-botton.md) · [Status Anxiety](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alain-de-botton/status-anxiety.md) · p. 116 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alain-de-botton/status-anxiety/the-great-defect.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [tradition](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/tradition.md) > “They follow the creed of the Bright: that which disturbs the order of society must be eliminated, regardless of whether it caused the disturbance.” She rolled her eyes. “You’d think they’d get tired of parroting Itempas and start thinking for themselves after two thousand years.” [N. K. Jemisin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/n-k-jemisin.md) · [The Broken Kingdoms](https://www.leafyquotes.com/n-k-jemisin/the-broken-kingdoms.md) · p. 105 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/n-k-jemisin/the-broken-kingdoms/they-follow-the.md) Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > No one mentioned such things; it was not a rule, but was considered rude to call attention to things that were unsettling or different about individuals. [Lois Lowry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lois-lowry.md) · [The Giver](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lois-lowry/the-giver.md) · p. 20 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lois-lowry/the-giver/no-one-mentioned.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [otherness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/otherness.md) > It didn't worry him. How could someone not fit in? The community was so meticulously ordered, the choices so carefully made. [Lois Lowry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lois-lowry.md) · [The Giver](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lois-lowry/the-giver.md) · p. 48 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lois-lowry/the-giver/it-didnt-worry.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Cut off from direct experience, cut off from our own feelings and sometimes our own sensations, we are only too ready to adopt a viewpoint or perspective that is handed to us, and is not our own. [Michael Crichton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton.md) · [Travels](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/travels.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/travels/cut-off-from.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > In the midst of increasing mechanization and technological organization, propaganda is simply the means used to prevent these things from being felt as too oppressive and to persuade man to submit with good grace. When man will be fully adapted to this technological society, when he will end by obeying with enthusiasm, convinced of the excellence of what he is forced to do, the constraint of the organization will no longer be felt by him; the truth is, it will no longer be a constraint, and the police will have nothing to do. The civic and technological good will and the enthusiasm for the right social myths — both created by propaganda — will finally have solved the problem of man. [Jacques Ellul](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul.md) · [Propaganda](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/propaganda.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/propaganda/in-the-midst.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [propaganda](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/propaganda.md) > An optimist is somebody who thinks our various political and social systems, schools and churches, support groups and Boy Scout troops, jury trials and congressional committees, are on the up-and-up. That they are intended for the benefit of the members. The reality is that they are designed to keep everyone in line. [Jack Mcdevitt](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-mcdevitt.md) · [Odyssey](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-mcdevitt/odyssey.md) · p. 114 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-mcdevitt/odyssey/an-optimist-is-somebody.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Like so many other animals, we have an often-frantic need to conform, belong, and obey. Such conformity can be markedly maladaptive, as we forgo better solutions in the name of the foolishness of the crowd. [Robert M. Sapolsky](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-sapolsky.md) · [Behave](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-sapolsky/behave.md) · p. 451 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-sapolsky/behave/like-so-many.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > There are people out there who’d rather be tools than people. [China Miéville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville.md) · [Kraken](https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/kraken.md) · p. 252 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/kraken/there-are-people.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > People usually take for granted that the way things are is the way things must be. [Poul Anderson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/poul-anderson.md) · [The Enemy Stars](https://www.leafyquotes.com/poul-anderson/the-enemy-stars.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/poul-anderson/the-enemy-stars/people-usually-take.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [habits](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/habits.md) > I was trying to avoid the cliché all too common in science fiction, even today, of a whole population feeling itself oppressed and waiting only for a leader to rise in a body against its overlords. No government for which that was actually the case could last a minute. There must always be a majority who have some stake in things as they are, whether that stake consist of wealth and power or simply of law, order, and predictability. Moreover, most people cannot really imagine any system working which is very different from the one they are used to. Hence they find rationalizations for it. Even slaves often do this. [Poul Anderson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/poul-anderson.md) · [The Long Way Home](https://www.leafyquotes.com/poul-anderson/the-long-way-home.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/poul-anderson/the-long-way-home/i-was-trying.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [revolution](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/revolution.md) > They were too theatrical—and there were too many of them—for all to be truly deranged. This was a fad. A way of dealing with unexpected events and giving some shape to lives that had been turned upside down. > > That didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. A group of people all trying to impress one another was always more dangerous than the lone psychopath. [Brandon Sanderson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson.md) · [Oathbringer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/oathbringer.md) · p. 630 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/oathbringer/they-were-too.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [crowd](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/crowd.md) > You just sit here and tolerate it, the same way everything in this country is tolerated. Every deception, every lie, every bullet in the brains. Just as you are already tolerating bullets in the brains that will be implemented only after the bullet is put in your brains. [Imre Kertész](https://www.leafyquotes.com/imre-kertesz.md) · [Liquidation](https://www.leafyquotes.com/imre-kertesz/liquidation.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/imre-kertesz/liquidation/you-just-sit.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [indifference](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/indifference.md) > What people want, mainly, is to be told by some plausible authority that what they are already doing is right. I don’t know know of a quicker way to become unpopular than to disagree. [John Brunner](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-brunner.md) · [The Jagged Orbit](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-brunner/the-jagged-orbit.md) · p. 26 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-brunner/the-jagged-orbit/what-people-want.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Watching their sets in a kind of trance > > were people in Mexico, people in France. > > They don't chase Jones but the dreams are the same — > > Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere, that's the right name! > > Herr und Frau Uberall or les Partout, > > A gadget on the set makes them look like you. When the Everywhere couple crack a joke > > It's laughed at by all right-thinking folk. > > When the Everywhere couple adopt a pose > > It's the with-it view as everyone knows. > > It may be a rumor or it may be true > > But a gadget on the set has it said by you! "What do you think about Yatakang?" > > "I think the same as the Everywhere gang." > > "What do you think of Beninia then?" > > "The Everywheres will tell me but I don't know when." > > Whatever my country and whatever my name > > A gadget on the set makes me think the same. [John Brunner](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-brunner.md) · [Stand On Zanzibar](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-brunner/stand-on-zanzibar.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-brunner/stand-on-zanzibar/watching-their-sets.md) Topics: [media](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/media.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > We are the offspring of approval-seekers. We want approval so badly that we vacillate between conforming to get it and standing out (being outstanding) to get it. [Warren Farrell](https://www.leafyquotes.com/warren-farrell.md) · [Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say](https://www.leafyquotes.com/warren-farrell/women-cant-hear-what-men-dont-say.md) · p. 24 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/warren-farrell/women-cant-hear-what-men-dont-say/we-are-the.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [acceptance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/acceptance.md) > It's so easy to get caught up in what people expect of you. Sometimes, you can just lose yourself. [Sarah Dessen](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sarah-dessen.md) · [Dreamland](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sarah-dessen/dreamland.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sarah-dessen/dreamland/its-so-easy.md) Topics: [identity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/identity.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > "What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There's no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortablsigmae. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told-and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion. Next question." [Michael Crichton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton.md) · [The Lost World](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/the-lost-world.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/the-lost-world/what-makes-you-think.md) Topics: [human nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Our decisions are to a much greater extent dependent on our desire to conform to the standards of our class and environment than we are inclined to admit. A considerable proportion of our reasoning is merely an automatic function, so to speak, of influences and impressions which have become part of us, and anyone who has been brought up from childhood in the stern school of military discipline is particularly apt to succumb to the hypnotic and compulsive force exercised by an order of word of command; a force which is logically entirely incomprehensible and which irresistibly undermines his will. In the straitjacket of a uniform, even though fully aware of their absurdity, an officer will carry out his instructions lie a sleep-walker, unresistingly and almost unconsciously. [Stefan Zweig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stefan-zweig.md) · [Beware of Pity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stefan-zweig/beware-of-pity.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stefan-zweig/beware-of-pity/our-decisions-are.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [obedience](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obedience.md) > It always demands a far greater degree of courage for an individual to oppose an organized movement than to let himself be carried along with the stream — individual courage, that is, a variety of courage that is dying out in these times of progressive organization and mechanization. During the war practically the only courage I ran across was mass courage, the courage that comes of being one of a herd, and anyone who examines this phenomenon more closely will find it to be compounded of some very strange elements: a great deal of vanity, a great deal of fear — yes, fear of staying behind, fear of being sneered at fear of independent action, and fear, above all, of taking up a stand against the mass enthusiasm of one's fellows. [Stefan Zweig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stefan-zweig.md) · [Beware of Pity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stefan-zweig/beware-of-pity.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stefan-zweig/beware-of-pity/it-always-demands.md) Topics: [courage](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/courage.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Outside the Sea Lounge were ranks of motorcycles, mostly Harleys. Through the open windows she could see a jammed crowd raising beer glasses to the monotonous thump of the live band. Being Harley guys, they were of course rebels, rugged lone wolves, individual spirits, as was obvious because they were all wearing the same jackets and jeans, bandannas and sunglasses, big brass belt buckles and tattoos, probably even the same underwear. [Gregory Benford](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford.md) · [Cosm](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm.md) · p. 231 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/outside-the-sea.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Avan was as religious as the next young dragon with his way to make in the world—which is to say that he held many traditional beliefs which he had never paused to examine, attended church because it would have seemed strange not to, rarely paid much attention when he was there, and found piety out of the pulpit thoroughly misplaced. [Jo Walton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jo-walton.md) · [Tooth and Claw](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jo-walton/tooth-and-claw.md) · p. 28 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jo-walton/tooth-and-claw/avan-was-as-religious.md) Topics: [religion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion.md), [irony](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/irony.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Marrying her to prove I do not subscribe to an outdated convention of class would be just as foolish as refusing to marry her because I did. [Jo Walton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jo-walton.md) · [Tooth and Claw](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jo-walton/tooth-and-claw.md) · p. 142 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jo-walton/tooth-and-claw/marrying-her-to-prove.md) Topics: [marriage](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/marriage.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > “The old guard believe in that code because they came to it the hard way. They raise their children to believe in that code — but their children believe it for entirely different reasons." > > "They believe it," the Constable said, "because they have been indoctrinated to believe it." > > "Yes. Some of them never challenge it — they grow up to be small-minded people, who can tell you what they believe, but not why they believe it. Others become disillusioned by the hypocrisy of the society and rebel." > > "Which path do you intend to take, Nell? Conformity or rebellion?" > > "Neither one. Both ways are simple-minded — they are only for people who cannot cope with contradiction and ambiguity." [Neal Stephenson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neal-stephenson.md) · [The Diamond Age](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neal-stephenson/the-diamond-age.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neal-stephenson/the-diamond-age/the-old-guard.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [upbringing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/upbringing.md), [rebellion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/rebellion.md) > He had some measure of the infuriating trait that causes a young man to be a nonconformist for its own sake and found that the surest way to shock most people, in those days, was to believe that some kinds of behavior were bad and others good, and that it was reasonable to live one’s life accordingly. [Neal Stephenson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neal-stephenson.md) · [The Diamond Age](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neal-stephenson/the-diamond-age.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neal-stephenson/the-diamond-age/he-had-some.md) Topics: [morality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality.md), [youth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/youth.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning. [Carl Rogers](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-rogers.md) · [On Becoming a Person](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-rogers/on-becoming-a-person.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-rogers/on-becoming-a-person/if-we-value.md) Topics: [education](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/education.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [independence](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/independence.md) > You had to be rude at least sometimes and edgy often to be credited with 'personality,' and without that accolade no one at Devon could be anyone. No one, with the exception of course of Phineas. [John Knowles](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-knowles.md) · [A Separate Peace](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-knowles/a-separate-peace.md) · p. 124 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-knowles/a-separate-peace/you-had-to-be-rude.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [character](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/character.md) > "Everyone wants to feel special - attain a special status among their peers - but not too special. Most kids only want to be special the same way their friends are special. [Chuck Palahniuk](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk.md) · [Rant](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk/rant.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk/rant/everyone-wants-to-feel.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [individualism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/individualism.md) > In my classroom, I tried to impress on the students that reality is a consensus. Objects, from diamonds to bubble gum, only have value because we all agree they do. Laws like speed limits are only laws because most people agree to respect them. " [Chuck Palahniuk](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk.md) · [Rant](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk/rant.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk/rant/in-my-classroom.md) Topics: [society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Whence all this passion toward conformity anyway?—diversity is the word. [Ralph Ellison](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-ellison.md) · [Invisible Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-ellison/invisible-man.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-ellison/invisible-man/whence-all-this.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [otherness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/otherness.md) > What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do? [Ralph Ellison](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-ellison.md) · [Invisible Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-ellison/invisible-man.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-ellison/invisible-man/what-and-how.md) Topics: [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Play the game, but don't believe in it. [Ralph Ellison](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-ellison.md) · [Invisible Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-ellison/invisible-man.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-ellison/invisible-man/play-the-game.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > My friends are appeased to stay in Odessa for their entire lives. They are appeased to age like their parents, and become parents like their parents. They do not desire anything more than everything they have known. [Jonathan Safran Foer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-safran-foer.md) · [Everything is Illuminated](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-safran-foer/everything-is-illuminated.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-safran-foer/everything-is-illuminated/my-friends-are.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [ambition](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ambition.md) > Our culture has made us all the same. No one is truly white or black or rich, anymore. We all want the same. Individually, we are nothing. [Chuck Palahniuk](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk.md) · [Fight Club](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk/fight-club.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk/fight-club/our-culture-has.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [culture](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/culture.md) > The word that [Sue] was avoiding was expressed To Conform in the infinitive, and it conjured up miserable images of hair in rollers, long afternoons in front of the ironing board in front of the soap operas, while hubby was off busting heavies in an anonymous Office... [Stephen King](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king.md) · [Carrie](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king/carrie.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king/carrie/the-word-that.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > "It's always best on these occasions to do what the mob do." "But suppose there are two mobs?" suggested Mr. Snodgrass. "Shout with the largest," replied Mr. Pickwick. [Charles Dickens](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens.md) · [The Pickwick Papers](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens/the-pickwick-papers.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens/the-pickwick-papers/its-always-best.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > The Sage of Toronto ... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a “global village” instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle’s present vulgarity. [Guy Debord](https://www.leafyquotes.com/guy-debord.md) · [Comments on the Society of the Spectacle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/guy-debord/comments-on-the-society-of-the-spectacle.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/guy-debord/comments-on-the-society-of-the-spectacle/the-sage-of-toronto.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [gossip](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/gossip.md) > Most men—most women, too, no doubt—lived and died under the general weight of the drives and needs, expectations and demands they experienced from within and without, beaten this way and that by longings for sex, love, admiration, comfort, importance and wealth and whatever else was their particular fancy, as well as being at the same time channelled into whatever furrows were deemed appropriate for them by those on high. > > In life you hoped to do what you could but mostly you did what you were told and that was the end of it. [Iain M. Banks](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks.md) · [Matter](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/matter.md) · p. 281 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/matter/most-men-most-women.md) Topics: [life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Did the Doctor really imagine that everbody went around believing different things? One believed what one was told to believe, what it made sense to believe. Unless one was a foreigner, of course, or a philosopher. [Iain M. Banks](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks.md) · [Inversions](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/inversions.md) · p. 125 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/inversions/did-the-doctor.md) Topics: [faith](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > There are those whose own vulgar normality is so apparent and stultifying that they strive to escape it. They affect flamboyant behavior and claim originality according to the fashionable eccentricities of their time. They claim brains or talent or indifference to mores in desperate attempts to deny their own mediocrity. These are frequently artists and performers, adventurers and wide-life devotees. > > Then there are those who feel their own strangeness and are terrified by it. They struggle toward normalcy. They suffer to exactly that degree that they are unable to appear normal to others, or to convince themselves that their aberration does not exist. These are true freaks, who appear, almost always, conventional and dull. [Katherine Dunn](https://www.leafyquotes.com/katherine-dunn.md) · [Geek Love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/katherine-dunn/geek-love.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/katherine-dunn/geek-love/there-are-those.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [otherness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/otherness.md) > Every thing in life is a uniform; the only time our bodies are truly in civilian dress is when we’re naked. [José Saramago](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago.md) · [The Cave](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave.md) · p. 92 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/every-thing-in-life.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [the body](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-body.md) > It was the old New York way of taking life "without effusion of blood": the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes," except the behaviour of those who gave rise to them. [Edith Wharton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edith-wharton.md) · [The Age of Innocence](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edith-wharton/the-age-of-innocence.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edith-wharton/the-age-of-innocence/it-was-the.md) Topics: [courage](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/courage.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Along the way, all meaning was lost except for verbal signals, the kind of signals any animal species develops in order to stay in touch with its own kind, call others to a feeding spot, or alert others to danger. Every linguist should know that language must be used to be retained, and the compilers of this report have warned that human language on Earth is also being reduced. As humans become more crowded, they become less tolerant of variety. To fit into a crowd, people must be similar, and Earth’s population today is a vat of homogeneity with only a pretense of choice remaining. One may pick model x with one curlicue or model y with three, the tasteless brown cracker or the tasteless yellow cracker, the actual difference in either case being nil. Any real choice among things of unlike value might lead to disparity, which leads to conflict. Ideas also contribute to disparity, and therefore in crowded populations ideas must be restricted to the least controversial, the least interesting. Children all receive the same grades in school. Workers all receive the same pay. Clothing is similar; Foods are identical; and with the passage of all distinctions the words for them also pass. [Sheri S. Tepper](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper.md) · [The Margarets](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/the-margarets.md) · p. 151 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/the-margarets/along-the-way.md) Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [crowd](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/crowd.md) > It did not take long to find out that Earth was no different from Phobos. People on Earth engaged in ritual repetition; most of them thought as little as possible; most of them occupied themselves with things and events that were not very important. Amusement stage dramas were the same as the ones I had seen on Phobos. All music had been so extensively filtered, corrected, and augmented by technology that it all sounded alike. Singing voices were improved by electronic means, as were the faces, the bodies, and the dramatic ability of actors and actresses. No one was plain; no one was allowed to be ugly; no one was very different from anyone else. In school, the stupid students got the same grades as the smart ones except for the tiny secret marks the educational archivists made in their records – in case a VIP needed a truthful reference. [Sheri S. Tepper](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper.md) · [The Margarets](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/the-margarets.md) · p. 86 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/the-margarets/it-did-not.md) Topics: [media](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/media.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [culture](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/culture.md) > “The groups are stratified, with one or more leaders and the rest as followers. This pattern continues even today, though the acquisition of language allows such groups to be institutionalized as tribes, armies, political parties, commercial empires, religious hierarchies, or sports teams. All of these have rules requiring defense and extension of territory by carrying some play object—a ball, flag, icon, trademark, or belief system—into someone else’s territory. From the psychological point of view, there is very little difference between making religious converts, kicking the winning goal, or cornering the market on Thorbian gigarums. > > “Proper gang activity requires the control of members. Gangs cannot tolerate ‘loose’ persons wandering around. One is either with the church or against it; with the company or against it; with the team or against it.” [Sheri S. Tepper](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper.md) · [Six Moon Dance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/six-moon-dance.md) · p. 100 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/six-moon-dance/the-groups-are.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [community](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/community.md), [crowd](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/crowd.md) > A Pharisee is someone who is virtuous out of obedience to the Great Beast. [Simone Weil](https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-weil.md) · [Simone Weil: An Anthology](https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-weil/simone-weil-an-anthology.md) · p. 125 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-weil/simone-weil-an-anthology/a-pharisee-is-someone.md) Topics: [hypocrisy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hypocrisy.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > The state of conformity is an imitation of grace. By a strange mystery — which is connected with the power of the social element — a profession can confer on quite ordinary men in their exercise of it, virtues which, if they were extended to all circumstances of life, would make of them heroes or saints. > > But the power of the social element makes these virtues natural. Accordingly they need a compensation. [Simone Weil](https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-weil.md) · [Simone Weil: An Anthology](https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-weil/simone-weil-an-anthology.md) · p. 124 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-weil/simone-weil-an-anthology/the-state-of-conformity.md) Topics: [morality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality.md), [work](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/work.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > It is precisely those artists and writers who are most inclined to think of their art as the manifestation of their personality who are in fact the most in bondage to public taste. [Simone Weil](https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-weil.md) · [Simone Weil: An Anthology](https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-weil/simone-weil-an-anthology.md) · p. 57 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-weil/simone-weil-an-anthology/it-is-precisely.md) Topics: [art](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > “He’s a fair man.” > > I looked at him, startled. > > “I said fair,” he repeated. “Not likable.” > > I kept quiet. His father wasn’t the monster he could have been with the power he held over his slaves. He wasn’t a monster at all. Just an ordinary man who sometimes did the monstrous things his society said were legal and proper. [Octavia E. Butler](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler.md) · [Kindred](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/kindred.md) · p. 134 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/kindred/hes-a-fair.md) Topics: [evil](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evil.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [slavery](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/slavery.md) > The main misfortune, the root of all evil to come, was loss of the confidence in the value of one's own opinion. People imagined that it was out of date of follow their own moral sense, that they must all sing in chorus, and live by other people's notions, notions that were crammed down everybody's throat. [Boris Pasternak](https://www.leafyquotes.com/boris-pasternak.md) · [Doctor Zhivago](https://www.leafyquotes.com/boris-pasternak/doctor-zhivago.md) · p. 43 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/boris-pasternak/doctor-zhivago/the-main-misfortune.md) Topics: [morality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > What I wanted looked more and more like what I'd always been trained to want. [Chuck Palahniuk](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk.md) · [Invisible Monsters](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk/invisible-monsters.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk/invisible-monsters/what-i-wanted.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [desire](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire.md) > "Whatever you're thinking, a million other folks are thinking. whatever you do, they're doing, and none of you is responsible. All of you is a cooperative effort." [Chuck Palahniuk](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk.md) · [Invisible Monsters](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk/invisible-monsters.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk/invisible-monsters/whatever-youre-thinking.md) Topics: [responsibility](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/responsibility.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Sex is the dim echo of that original nakedness, primal, before anything else that is also human; later, isolated in an identity, hidden by it, in insensate because of it, one is a societal human being ruled by conformity and convention, not naked. [Andrea Dworkin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/andrea-dworkin.md) · [Intercourse](https://www.leafyquotes.com/andrea-dworkin/intercourse.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/andrea-dworkin/intercourse/sex-is-the.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [sex](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/sex.md) > Each man thought: one of the others is bound to say something soon, some protest, and then I'll murmur agreement, not actually say anything, I'm not as stupid as that, but definitely murmur very firmly, so that the others will be in no doubt that I thoroughly disapprove, because at a time like this it behooves all decent men to nearly stand up and be almost heard… But no one said anything. The cowards, each man thought. [Terry Pratchett](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett.md) · [Guards! Guards!](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/guards-guards.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/guards-guards/each-man-thought.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [cowardice](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/cowardice.md) > Having been bullied as a new boy, he bullied others when they seemed unhappy or weak, not because he was cruel but because it was the proper thing to do. [E.M. Forster](https://www.leafyquotes.com/em-forster.md) · [Maurice](https://www.leafyquotes.com/em-forster/maurice.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/em-forster/maurice/having-been-bullied.md) Topics: [violence](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/violence.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > "If the culture doesn't work, don't buy it." [Mitch Albom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mitch-albom.md) · [Tuesdays with Morrie](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mitch-albom/tuesdays-with-morrie.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mitch-albom/tuesdays-with-morrie/if-the-culture.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [culture](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/culture.md) > If I had to give you one piece of advice, it would be this: don’t be intimidated by other people’s opinions. [Paulo Coelho](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paulo-coelho.md) · [Aleph](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paulo-coelho/aleph.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paulo-coelho/aleph/if-i-had.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [advice](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/advice.md) > This is what I know. The ward is a factory for the Combine. It's for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches, the hospital is. When a completed product goes back out into society, all fixed up good as new, better than new sometimes, it brings joy to the Big Nurse's heart; something that came in all twisted and different is now a functioning, adjusted component, a credit to the whole outfit and a marvel to behold. [Ken Kesey](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-kesey.md) · [One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-kesey/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-kesey/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest/this-is-what.md) Topics: [society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > He who marches out of line hears another drum. [Ken Kesey](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-kesey.md) · [One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-kesey/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-kesey/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest/he-who-marches.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Myself, I suspect it’s a kind of madness: the madness that makes one repeat whatever one is trained to repeat. [Samuel R. Delany](https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-r-delany.md) · [Neveryona](https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-r-delany/neveryona.md) · p. 367 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-r-delany/neveryona/myself-i-suspect.md) Topics: [madness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/madness.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Although wanting to be an individual, the male is scared of anything about him that's the slightest bit different from other men; it causes him to suspect he's not really a "Man," that he's passive and totally sexual, a highly upsetting suspicion. If other men are A and he's not, he must be not a man; he must be a fag. So he tries to affirm his "Manhood" by being like all the other men. Differentness in other men, as well as in himself, threatens him; it means they're fags, who he must, at all costs, avoid, so he tries to ensure that all other men conform. [Valerie Solanas](https://www.leafyquotes.com/valerie-solanas.md) · [SCUM Manifesto](https://www.leafyquotes.com/valerie-solanas/scum-manifesto.md) · p. 8 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/valerie-solanas/scum-manifesto/although-wanting-to.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [men](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/men.md), [feminism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/feminism.md) > There's a right way of doing things and a wrong way. If you've made up your mind to be different from everybody else, I don't suppose I can stop you, but I really don't think it's very considerate. [F.Scott Fitzgerald](https://www.leafyquotes.com/fscott-fitzgerald.md) · [Tales of the Jazz Age](https://www.leafyquotes.com/fscott-fitzgerald/tales-of-the-jazz-age.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/fscott-fitzgerald/tales-of-the-jazz-age/theres-a-right.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [individualism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/individualism.md) > In the most advanced areas of this civilization, the social controls have been introjected to the point where even individual protest is affected at its roots. The intellectual and emotional refusal “to go along” appears neurotic and impotent. This is the socio-psychological aspect of the political event that marks the contemporary period: the passing of the historical forces which, at the preceding stage of industrial society, seemed to represent the possibility of new forms of existence. But the term “introjection” perhaps no longer describes the way in which the individual by himself reproduces and perpetuates the external controls exercised by his society. Introjection suggests a variety of relatively spontaneous processes by which a Self (Ego) transposes the “outer” into the “inner.” Thus introjection implies the existence of an inner dimension distinguished from and even antagonistic to the external exigencies—an individual consciousness and an individual unconscious apart from public opinion and behavior. The idea of “inner freedom” here has its reality: it designates the private space in which man may become and remain “himself.” Today this private space has been invaded and whittled down by technological reality. Mass production and mass distribution claim the entire individual, and industrial psychology has long since ceased to be confined to the factory. The manifold processes of introjection seem to be ossified in almost mechanical reactions. The result is, not adjustment but mimesis: an immediate identification of the individual with his society and, through it, with the society as a whole. This immediate, automatic identification (which may have been characteristic of primitive forms of association) reappears in high industrial civilization; its new “immediacy,” however, is the product of a sophisticated, scientific management and organization. In this process, the “inner” dimension of the mind in which opposition to the status quo can take root is whittled down. The loss of this dimension, in which the power of negative thinking—the critical power of Reason—is at home, is the ideological counterpart to the very material process in which advanced industrial society silences and reconciles the opposition. The impact of progress turns Reason into submission to the facts of life, and to the dynamic capability of producing more and bigger facts of the same sort of life. The efficiency of the system blunts the individuals' recognition that it contains no facts which do not communicate the repressive power of the whole. If the individuals find themselves in the things which shape their life, they do so, not by giving, but by accepting the law of things—not the law of physics but the law of their society. [Herbert Marcuse](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse.md) · [One-Dimensional Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man.md) · p. 9 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man/in-the-most.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [rebellion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/rebellion.md) > Outside the academic establishment, the “far-reaching change in all our habits of thought” is more serious. It serves to coordinate ideas and goals with those exacted by the prevailing system, to enclose them in the system, and to repel those which are irreconcilable with the system. The reign of such a one-dimensional reality does not mean that materialism rules, and that the spiritual, metaphysical, and bohemian occupations are petering out. On the contrary, there is a great deal of “Worship together this week,” “Why not try God,” Zen, existentialism, and beat ways of life, etc. But such modes of protest and transcendence are no longer contradictory to the status quo and no longer negative. They are rather the ceremonial part of practical behaviorism, its harmless negation, and are quickly digested by the status quo as part of its healthy diet. [Herbert Marcuse](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse.md) · [One-Dimensional Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man.md) · p. 13 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man/outside-the-academic.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [rebellion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/rebellion.md) > "Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone." [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [The Fountainhead](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead.md) · p. 739 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead/men-have-been-taught-that.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [individualism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/individualism.md) > "Listen to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us. You've wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether he's ever held a truly personal desire, he'd find the answer. He'd see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He's not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-handers delusion—prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. He can't say about a single thing: 'This is what I wanted because I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me.' Then he wonders why he's unhappy." [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [The Fountainhead](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead.md) · p. 660 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead/listen-to-what.md) Topics: [happiness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > "They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They're concerned only with people. They don't ask: 'Is this true?' They ask: 'Is this what others think is true?' Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. Not ability, but friendship. Not merit, but pull." [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [The Fountainhead](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead.md) · p. 658 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead/they-have-no-concern.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > "Every form has its own meaning. Every man creates his meaning and form and goal. Why is it so important—what others have done? Why does it become sacred by the mere fact of not being your own? Why is anyone and everyone right—so long as it's not yourself? Why does the number of those others take the place of truth? Why is truth made a mere matter of arithmetic—and only of addition at that? Why is everything twisted out of all sense to fit everything else? There must be some reason. I don't know. I've never known it. I'd like to understand." [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [The Fountainhead](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead.md) · p. 18 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead/every-form-has.md) Topics: [truth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > "Why do you want me to think that this is great architecture?" He pointed to the picture of the Parthenon. > > "That," said the Dean, "is the Parthenon!" > > "So it is." > > "I haven't the time to waste on silly questions." > > "All right, then." Roark got up, he took a long ruler from the desk, he walked to the picture. "Shall I tell you what's rotten about it?" > > "It’s the Parthenon!" said the Dean. > > "Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon." > > The ruler struck the glass over the picture. > > "Look, " said Roark. "The famous flutings on the famous columns—what are they there for? To hide the joints in the wood—when columns were made of wood, only these aren't, they're marble. The triglyphs, what are they? Wood. Wooden beams, the way they had to be laid when people began to build wooden shacks. Your Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it, because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the Renaissance came along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Now here we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Why?" [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [The Fountainhead](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead.md) · p. 23 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead/why-do-you.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [tradition](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/tradition.md), [architecture](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/architecture.md) > "If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking." [Haruki Murakami](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami.md) · [Norwegian Wood](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/norwegian-wood.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/norwegian-wood/if-you-only.md) Topics: [reading](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > The more defensive a society, the more conformist. [Ursula K. Le Guin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin.md) · [City Of Illusions](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/city-of-illusions.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/city-of-illusions/the-more-defensive.md) Topics: [society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > 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](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-erikson.md) · [Midnight Tides](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-erikson/midnight-tides.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-erikson/midnight-tides/civilization-after-civilization.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [tyranny](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/tyranny.md) > Individualism is going around these days in uniform, handing out the party line on individualism. [Wendell Berry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry.md) · [A Continuous Harmony](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry/a-continuous-harmony.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry/a-continuous-harmony/individualism-is-going.md) Topics: [irony](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/irony.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > All of them perceived that American Democracy did not imply any equality of wealth, but did demand a wholesome sameness of thought, dress, painting, morals, and vocabulary. ~ Ch. 34 [Sinclair Lewis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis.md) · [Babbitt](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/babbitt.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/babbitt/all-of-them.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [democracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/democracy.md) > They all had the same ideas and expressed them always with the same ponderous and brassy assurance. If it was not Babbitt who was delivering any given verdict, at least he was beaming on the chancellor who did deliver it. ~ Ch. 10 [Sinclair Lewis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis.md) · [Babbitt](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/babbitt.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/babbitt/they-all-had.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > I hate your city. It has standardized all the beauty out of life. It is one big railroad station—with all the people taking tickets for the best cemeteries. ~ Ch. 7 [Sinclair Lewis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis.md) · [Babbitt](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/babbitt.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/babbitt/i-hate-your.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Think how much better it is to criticize conventional customs if you yourself live up to them, scrupulously. Then people can't say you're attacking them to excuse your own infractions. Yes, I've heard that plea.... To word it differently, 'You must live up to the popular code if you believe in it; but if you don't believe in it, then you must live up to it!' [Sinclair Lewis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis.md) · [Main Street](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/main-street.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/main-street/think-how-much.md) Topics: [hypocrisy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hypocrisy.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > With... small-town life... there are hundreds of thousands... who are not content. The more intelligent young people... flee to the cities... and... stay there, seldom returning even for holidays. The reason, Carol insisted... is an unimaginatively standardized background, a sluggishness of speech and manners, a rigid ruling of the spirit by the desire to appear respectable. It is contentment... the contentment of the quiet dead, who are scornful of the living for their restless walking. It is the prohibition of happiness. It is the slavery self-sought and self-defended. It is dullness made God. A savorless people, gulping tasteless food and sitting afterward, coatless and thoughtless, in rocking-chairs prickly with inane decorations, listening to mechanical music, saying mechanical things about the excellence of Ford automobiles, and viewing themselves as the greatest race in the world. [Sinclair Lewis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis.md) · [Main Street](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/main-street.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/main-street/with-small-town-life.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Just as he was an Elk, a Booster, and a member of the Chamber of Commerce, just as the priests of the Presbyterian Church determined his every religious belief and the senators who controlled the Republican Party decided in little smoky rooms in Washington what he should think about disarmament, tariff, and Germany, so did the large national advertisers fix the surface of his life, fix what he believed to be his individuality. These standard advertised wares—toothpastes, socks, tires, cameras, instantaneous hot-water heaters—were his symbols and proofs of excellence; at first sight the signs, then the substitutes, for joy and passion and wisdom. ~ Ch. 7 [Sinclair Lewis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis.md) · [Babbitt](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/babbitt.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/babbitt/just-as-he-was.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [consumerism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consumerism.md), [advertising](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/advertising.md) > What I fight in Zenith is the standardization of thought, and, of course, the traditions of competition. The real villains of the piece are the clean, kind, industrious Family Men who use every known brand of trickery and cruelty to insure the prosperity of their cubs. The worst thing about these fellows is that they're so good and, in their work at least, so intelligent. You can't hate them properly, and yet their standardized minds are the enemy. ~ Ch. 7 [Sinclair Lewis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis.md) · [Babbitt](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/babbitt.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/babbitt/what-i-fight.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Maybe if they didn't know it beforehand, they wouldn't find out I'd ever been guilty of trying to think for myself. [Sinclair Lewis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis.md) · [Main Street](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/main-street.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/main-street/maybe-if-they.md) Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > The cliché organizes life; it expropriates people's identity; it becomes ruler, defense lawyer, judge, and the law. [Václav Havel](https://www.leafyquotes.com/vaclav-havel.md) · [Disturbing the Peace](https://www.leafyquotes.com/vaclav-havel/disturbing-the-peace.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/vaclav-havel/disturbing-the-peace/the-cliche-organizes.md) Topics: [identity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/identity.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > "The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap." [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [Atlas Shrugged](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/atlas-shrugged.md) · p. 1020 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/atlas-shrugged/the-man-who.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [leadership](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/leadership.md) > Thwarted, or starved, in the important objects proper to young capacities, the boys and young men naturally find or invent deviant objects for themselves. … Their choices and inventions are rarely charming, usually stupid, and often disastrous; we cannot expect average kids to deviate with genius. But on the other hand, the young men who conform to the dominant society become for the most part apathetic, disappointed, cynical and wasted. [Paul Goodman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman.md) · [Growing Up Absurd](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd.md) · p. 13 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/thwarted-or-starved.md) Topics: [youth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/youth.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > In such an environment there operates an unfortunate natural selection. Since not only the rewards but also the means and opportunities of public activity belong to the organized system, a bright boy will try to get ahead in it. He will do well in school, keep out of trouble, and apply for the right jobs. It would follow from this that the organized system is sparked by a good proportion of the bright boys, and so it is. On the other hand, in sheer self-protection, smart boys who are sensitive, have strong animal spirits or great souls, cannot play that game. There are two alternative possibilities: (1) Either the advantages of the organized system cause them to inhibit their powers, and they turn into cynical pushers or obsessional specialists or timid hard workers that make up the middle status of the system. Or (2) their natural virtues and perhaps alternative training are too strong and they become independents; but as such they are hard put, not so much hard put for money as for means to act; and so they are likely to become bitter, eccentric, etc., and so much the less effective in changing the system they disapprove [Paul Goodman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman.md) · [Growing Up Absurd](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd.md) · p. 157 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/in-such-an-environment.md) Topics: [youth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/youth.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Social scientists … have begun to think that “social animal” means “harmoniously belonging.” They do not like to think that fighting and dissenting are proper social functions, nor that rebelling or initiating fundamental change is a social function. Rather, if something does not run smoothly, they say it has been improperly socialized; there has been a failure in communication. … But perhaps there has not been a failure in communication. Perhaps the social message has been communicated clearly to the young men and is unacceptable. … We must ask the question, “Is the harmonious organization to which the young are inadequately socialized perhaps against human nature, or not worthy of human nature, and therefore there is difficulty in growing up?” [Paul Goodman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman.md) · [Growing Up Absurd](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd.md) · p. 10 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/social-scientists-have.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [rebellion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/rebellion.md) > To become a crowd is to keep out death. [Don DeLillo](https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo.md) · [White Noise](https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/white-noise.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/white-noise/to-become-a-crowd.md) Topics: [death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > The professional tends to classify and to specialize, to accept uncritically the ground rules of the environment. The ground rules provided by the mass response of his colleagues serves as a pervasive environment of which he is contentedly unaware. (p. 93) [Marshall McLuhan](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan.md) · [The Medium is the Massage](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan/the-medium-is-the-massage.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan/the-medium-is-the-massage/the-professional-tends.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > For in spite of ourselves we respect those whom we see respected. [Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert.md) · [The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert/for-in-spite.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [respect](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/respect.md) > When our food and clothing and housing all are born in the complication of mass production, mass method is bound to get into our thinking and to eliminate all other thinking. In our time mass or collective production has entered our economics, our politics, and even our religion, so that some nations have substituted the idea collective for the idea God. [John Steinbeck](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck.md) · [East of Eden](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/east-of-eden.md) · p. 130 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/east-of-eden/when-our-food.md) Topics: [religion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Mr. Pritchard was a businessman, president of a medium-sized corporation. He was never alone. His business was conducted by groups of men like himself who joined together in clubs so that no foreign element or idea could enter. His religious life was again his lodge and his church, both of which were screened and protected. One night a week he played poker with men so exactly like himself that the game was fairly even, and from this fact his group was convinced that they were very fine poker players. Wherever he went he was not one man but a unit in a corporation, a unit in a club, in a lodge, in a church, in a political party. His thoughts and ideas were never subjected to criticism since he willingly associated only with people like himself. He read a newspaper written by and for his group. The books that came into his house were chosen by a committee which deleted material that might irritate him. He hated foreign countries and foreigners because it was difficult to find his counterpart in them. He did not want to stand out from his group. He would like to have risen to the top of it and be admired by it; but it would not occur to him to leave it. At occasional stags where naked girls danced on the tables and sat in great glasses of wine, Mr. Pritchard howled with laughter and drank the wine, but five hundred Mr. Pritchards were there with him. [John Steinbeck](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck.md) · [The Wayward Bus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/the-wayward-bus.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/the-wayward-bus/mr-pritchard-was.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > What we need is equality without conformity. [Kim Stanley Robinson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson.md) · [Green Mars](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/green-mars.md) · p. 338 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/green-mars/what-we-need.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [equality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/equality.md) > No doubt the artist is the child of his time; but woe to him if he is also its disciple, or even its favorite. [Friedrich Schiller](https://www.leafyquotes.com/friedrich-schiller.md) · [On the Aesthetic Education of Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/friedrich-schiller/on-the-aesthetic-education-of-man.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/friedrich-schiller/on-the-aesthetic-education-of-man/no-doubt-the.md) Topics: [art](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > We are citizens of an age, as well as of a State; and if it is held to be unseemly, or even inadmissable, for a man to cut himself off from the customs and manners of the circle in which he lives, why should it be less of a duty, in the choice of his activity, to submit his decision to the needs and the taste of his century? [Friedrich Schiller](https://www.leafyquotes.com/friedrich-schiller.md) · [On the Aesthetic Education of Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/friedrich-schiller/on-the-aesthetic-education-of-man.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/friedrich-schiller/on-the-aesthetic-education-of-man/we-are-citizens.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Does history record any case in which the majority was right? [Robert A. Heinlein](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein.md) · [Time Enough For Love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/time-enough-for-love.md) · p. 347 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/time-enough-for-love/does-history-record.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [democracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/democracy.md) > Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite. [Robert A. Heinlein](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein.md) · [Time Enough For Love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/time-enough-for-love.md) · p. 351 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/time-enough-for-love/freedom-begins-when.md) Topics: [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > A military hierarchy automatically places a premium on conservative behavior and dull conformance with precedent; it tends to penalize original and imaginative thinking. [Robert A. Heinlein](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein.md) · [Space Cadet](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/space-cadet.md) · p. 101 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/space-cadet/a-military-hierarchy.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [obedience](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obedience.md) > In these matters, as often in our culture, it is far, far better to be wrong in a respectable way than to be right for the wrong reasons. [John Kenneth Galbraith](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith.md) · [The Great Crash 1929](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith/the-great-crash-1929.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith/the-great-crash-1929/in-these-matters.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [mistakes](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mistakes.md) > Most of the members of the convent were old-fashioned Satanists, like their parents and grandparents before them. They'd been brought up to it and weren't, when you got right down to it, particularly evil. Human beings mostly aren't. They just get carried away by new ideas, like dressing up in jackboots and shooting people, or dressing up in white sheets and lynching people, or dressing up in tie-dye jeans and playing guitars at people. Offer people a new creed with a costume and their hearts and minds will follow. [Neil Gaiman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-gaiman.md) · [Good Omens](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-gaiman/good-omens.md) · p. 26 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-gaiman/good-omens/most-of-the.md) Topics: [human nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature.md), [evil](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evil.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > It was an appalling thought, to be so well-integrated into the machinery of society and history as to be able to move in only one plane, and along one line. [Kurt Vonnegut](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut.md) · [Player Piano](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/player-piano.md) · p. 41 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/player-piano/it-was-an-appalling.md) Topics: [society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > You want to be yourself, idiosyncratic; the collective (school, rules, jobs, technology) wants you generic to the point of castration. [Nassim Nicholas Taleb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb.md) · [The Bed of Procrustes](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes.md) · p. 54 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes/you-want-to-be-yourself.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [being different](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/being-different.md) > They are born, put in a box; they go home to live in a box; they study by ticking boxes; they go to what is called “work” in a box, where they sit in their cubicle box; they drive to the grocery store in a box to buy food in a box; they talk about thinking “outside the box”; and when they die they are put in a box. [Nassim Nicholas Taleb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb.md) · [The Bed of Procrustes](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes.md) · p. 31 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes/they-are-born.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [everyday life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/everyday-life.md) > Veteran trader Marty O'Connell calls this the firehouse effect. ...[F]iremen ...who talk to each other for too long come to agree on many things that an outside, impartial observer would find ludicrous... [Nassim Nicholas Taleb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb.md) · [Fooled by Randomness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/fooled-by-randomness.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/fooled-by-randomness/veteran-trader-marty.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > You wanted to look at life for yourself — but you were not allowed; you were punished for your wish. You were ground in the very mill of the conventional! [Henry James](https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-james.md) · [The Portrait of a Lady](https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-james/the-portrait-of-a-lady.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-james/the-portrait-of-a-lady/you-wanted-to-look.md) Topics: [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > The conventional mind is at best a petty piece of machinery. It is oyster-like in its functioning, or, perhaps better, clam-like. It has its little siphon of thought-processes forced up or down into the mighty ocean of fact and circumstance; but it uses so little, pumps so faintly, that the immediate contiguity of the vast mass is not disturbed. Nothing of the subtlety of life is perceived. No least inkling of its storms or terrors is ever discovered except through accident. [Theodore Dreiser](https://www.leafyquotes.com/theodore-dreiser.md) · [The Financier](https://www.leafyquotes.com/theodore-dreiser/the-financier.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/theodore-dreiser/the-financier/the-conventional-mind.md) Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > The judges of normality are present everywhere. We are in the society of the teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge, the social worker-judge; it is on them that the universal reign of the normative is based; and each individual, wherever he may find himself, subjects to it his body, his gestures, his behavior, his aptitudes, his achievements. [Michel Foucault](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michel-foucault.md) · [Discipline and Punish](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michel-foucault/discipline-and-punish.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michel-foucault/discipline-and-punish/the-judges-of-normality.md) Topics: [power](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. [John Locke](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-locke.md) · [An Essay Concerning Human Understanding](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-locke/an-essay-concerning-human-understanding.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-locke/an-essay-concerning-human-understanding/new-opinions-are.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [prejudice](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/prejudice.md) > On starlight nights I used to pace up and down those long, cold streets, scowling at the little, sleeping houses on either side, with their storm-windows and covered back porches. They were flimsy shelters, most of them poorly built of light wood, with spindle porch-posts horribly mutilated by the turning-lathe. Yet for all their frailness, how much jealousy and envy and unhappiness some of them managed to contain! The life that went on in them seemed to me made up of evasions and negations; shifts to save cooking, to save washing and cleaning, devices to propitiate the tongue of gossip. This guarded mode of existence was like living under a tyranny. People's speech, their voices, their very glances, became furtive and repressed. Every individual taste, every natural appetite, was bridled by caution. The people asleep in those houses, I thought, tried to live like the mice in their own kitchens; to make no noise, to leave no trace, to slip over the surface of things in the dark. [Willa Cather](https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather.md) · [My Antonia](https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/my-antonia.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/my-antonia/on-starlight-nights.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [gossip](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/gossip.md), [everyday life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/everyday-life.md) > On second handers: [They are] always concerned with people - not facts, ideas, work or production. What would happen to the world without those who think, work, and produce? [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [The Journals of Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-journals-of-ayn-rand.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-journals-of-ayn-rand/on-second-handers.md) Topics: [work](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/work.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques. The guys that are on the basketball team stick together, the Catholics stick together, the goddam intellectuals stick together, the guys that play bridge stick together. Even the guys that belong to the goddam Book-of-the-Month club stick together. [J.D. Salinger](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jd-salinger.md) · [The Catcher in the Rye](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jd-salinger/the-catcher-in-the-rye.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jd-salinger/the-catcher-in-the-rye/its-full-of-phonies.md) Topics: [education](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/education.md), [hypocrisy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hypocrisy.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > One Folk, One Realm, One Leader. Union with the unity of an insect swarm. Knowledgeless understanding of nonsense and diabolism. And then the newsreel camera had cut back to the serried ranks, the swastikas, the brass bands, the yelling hypnotist on the rostrum. And here once again, in the glare of his inner light, was the brown insectlike column, marching endlessly to the tunes of this rococo horror-music. Onward Nazi soldiers, onward Christian soldiers, onward Marxists and Muslims, onward every chosen People, every Crusader and Holy War-maker. Onward into misery, into all wickedness, into death! [Aldous Huxley](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley.md) · [Island](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/island.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/island/one-folk-one.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [fanaticism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fanaticism.md) > Wheels must turn steadily, but cannot turn untended, There must be men to tend them, men as steady as the wheels upon their axles, sane men, obedient men, stable in contentment. [Aldous Huxley](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley.md) · [Brave New World](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/brave-new-world.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/brave-new-world/wheels-must-turn.md) Topics: [society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Colleges being nothing but grooming schools for the middleclass non-identity which usually finds its perfect expression on the outskirts of the campus in rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television sets is each living room with everybody looking at the same thing and thinking the same thing at the same time while the Japhies of the world go prowling in the wilderness to hear the voice crying in the wilderness, to find the ecstasy of the stars, to find the dark mysterious secret of the origin of faceless wonderless crapulous civilization. [Jack Kerouac](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-kerouac.md) · [The Dharma Bums](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-kerouac/the-dharma-bums.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-kerouac/the-dharma-bums/colleges-being-nothing-but.md) Topics: [education](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/education.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > "You be respectable, sister," she said, "Me, I'll be alive." [Salman Rushdie](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie.md) · [Midnight's Children](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/midnights-children.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/midnights-children/you-be-respectable.md) Topics: [life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > The people are asleep; they remain indifferent. They forge their own chains and do the bidding of their masters to crucify their Christs. (p. 304) [Emma Goldman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emma-goldman.md) · [Living My Life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emma-goldman/living-my-life.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emma-goldman/living-my-life/the-people-are.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [slavery](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/slavery.md) > “To be free from convention is not to spurn it but not to be deceived by it. It is to be able to use it as an instrument instead of being used by it.” [Alan W. Watts](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alan-w-watts.md) · [The Way of Zen](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alan-w-watts/the-way-of-zen.md) · p. 11 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alan-w-watts/the-way-of-zen/to-be-free.md) Topics: [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Health consists of having the same diseases as one’s neighbours. [Quentin Crisp](https://www.leafyquotes.com/quentin-crisp.md) · [The Naked Civil Servant](https://www.leafyquotes.com/quentin-crisp/the-naked-civil-servant.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/quentin-crisp/the-naked-civil-servant/health-consists-of-having.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [health](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/health.md) > The young always have the same problem — how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this problem by defying their elders and copying each other. [Quentin Crisp](https://www.leafyquotes.com/quentin-crisp.md) · [The Naked Civil Servant](https://www.leafyquotes.com/quentin-crisp/the-naked-civil-servant.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/quentin-crisp/the-naked-civil-servant/the-young-always.md) Topics: [youth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/youth.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [rebellion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/rebellion.md) > “We shouldn’t have tried to create new symbols,” he said. We should've realized we weren't supposed to introduce uncertainties into accepted belief, that we weren't supposed to stir up curiosity about God. We are daily confronted by the terrifying instability of all things human, yet we permit our religions to grow more rigid and controlled, more conforming and oppressive. What is this shadow across the highway of Divine Command? It is a warning that institutions endure, that symbols endure when their meaning is lost, that there is no summa of all attainable knowledge. [Frank Herbert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert.md) · [Dune](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/dune.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/dune/we-shouldnt-have.md) Topics: [religion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > “There is considerable hypocrisy in conventionalism. Any thinking person is aware of this paradox; but in dealing with conventional people it is advantageous to treat them as though they were not hypocrites. It isn't a question of faithfulness to your own concepts; it is a matter of compromise so that you can remain an individual without the constant threat of conventional pressures.” [Truman Capote](https://www.leafyquotes.com/truman-capote.md) · [In Cold Blood](https://www.leafyquotes.com/truman-capote/in-cold-blood.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/truman-capote/in-cold-blood/there-is-considerable.md) Topics: [hypocrisy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hypocrisy.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [individualism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/individualism.md) > '''Here, by the grace of God and an inside straight, we have a personality untouched by the psychotic taboos of our tribe — and you want to turn him into a carbon copy of every fourth-rate conformist in this frightened land! [Robert A. Heinlein](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein.md) · [Stranger in a Strange Land](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/stranger-in-a-strange-land.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/stranger-in-a-strange-land/here-by-the.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > When an opinion has taken root in a democracy and established itself in the minds of the majority, it afterward persists by itself, needing no effort to maintain it since no one attacks it. Those who at first rejected it as false come in the end to adopt it as accepted, and even those who still at the bottom of their hearts oppose it keep their views to themselves, taking great care to avoid a dangerous and futile contest. [Alexis de Tocqueville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville.md) · [Democracy in America](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/when-an-opinion.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [democracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/democracy.md), [public opinion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/public-opinion.md) > The public, therefore, among a democratic people, has a singular power, which aristocratic nations cannot conceive; for it does not persuade others to its beliefs, but it imposes them and makes them permeate the thinking of everyone by a sort of enormous pressure of the mind of all upon the individual intelligence. [Alexis de Tocqueville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville.md) · [Democracy in America](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/the-public-therefore.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [democracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/democracy.md), [public opinion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/public-opinion.md) > I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America. [Alexis de Tocqueville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville.md) · [Democracy in America](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/i-know-of-no-country-in.md) Topics: [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [America](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/america.md) > In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own. [Alexis de Tocqueville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville.md) · [Democracy in America](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/in-the-united-states-the.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [public opinion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/public-opinion.md) > Quality is better seen up at the timberline than here obscured by smoky windows and oceans of words, and he sees that what he is talking about can never really be accepted here because to see it one has to be free from social authority and this is an institution of social authority. Quality for sheep is what the shepherd says. And if you take a sheep and put it up at the timberline at night when the wind is roaring, that sheep will be panicked half to death and will call and call until the shepherd comes, or comes the wolf. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/quality-is-better.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [authority figures](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/authority-figures.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > The Church of Reason, like all institutions of the System, is based not on individual strength but upon individual weakness. What's really demanded in the Church of Reason is not ability, but inability. Then you are considered teachable. A truly able person is always a threat. Phædrus sees that he has thrown away a chance to integrate himself into the organization by submitting to whatever Aristotelian thing he is supposed to submit to. But that kind of opportunity seems hardly worth the bowing and scraping and intellectual prostration necessary to maintain it. It is a low-quality form of life. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/the-church-of-reason.md) Topics: [education](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/education.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > Sanity is not truth. Sanity is conformity to what is socially expected. Truth is sometimes in conformity, sometimes not. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Lila](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/lila.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/lila/sanity-is-not.md) Topics: [truth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth.md), [madness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/madness.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Lack of originality, everywhere, all over the world, from time immemorial, has always been considered the foremost quality and the recommendation of the active, efficient and practical man... [Fyodor Dostoyevsky](https://www.leafyquotes.com/fyodor-dostoyevsky.md) · [The Idiot](https://www.leafyquotes.com/fyodor-dostoyevsky/the-idiot.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/fyodor-dostoyevsky/the-idiot/lack-of-originality.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > "But he has nothing on at all," said a little child at last. "Good heavens! listen to the voice of an innocent child," said the father, and one whispered to the other what the child had said. "But he has nothing on at all," cried at last the whole people. That made a deep impression upon the emperor, for it seemed to him that they were right; but he thought to himself, "Now I must bear up to the end." And the chamberlains walked with still greater dignity, as if they carried the train which did not exist. [Hans Christian Andersen](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hans-christian-andersen.md) · [Fairy Tales](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hans-christian-andersen/fairy-tales.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hans-christian-andersen/fairy-tales/but-he-has.md) Topics: [truth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > I Photo Elfed all day for a variety of Santas and it struck me that many of the parents don't allow their children to speak at all. A child sits upon Santa's lap and the parents say, 'All right now, Amber, tell Santa what you want. Tell him you want a Baby Alive and My Pretty Ballerina and that winter coat you saw in the catalog.' > > The parents name the gifts they have already bought. They don't want to hear the word 'pony' or 'television set,' so they talk through the entire visit, placing words in the child's mouth. When the child hops off the lap, the parents address their children, each and every time, with, 'What do you say to Santa?' > > The child says, 'Thank you, Santa.' > > It is sad because you would like to believe that everyone is unique and then they disappoint you every time by being exactly the same, asking for the same things, reciting the exact same lines as though they have been handed a script. > > All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to the fingerprints. [David Sedaris](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-sedaris.md) · [Barrel Fever](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-sedaris/barrel-fever.md) · p. 233 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-sedaris/barrel-fever/i-photo-elfed.md) Topics: [children](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/children.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [parents](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/parents.md) > No quality of human nature is more remarkable, both in itself and in its consequences, than that propensity we have to sympathize with others, and to receive by communication their inclinations and sentiments, however different from, or even contrary to our own. This is not only conspicuous in children, who implicitly embrace every opinion propos'd to them; but also in men of the greatest judgment and understanding, who find it very difficult to follow their own reason or inclination, in opposition to that of their friends and daily companions. To this principle we ought to ascribe the great uniformity we may observe in the humours and turn of thinking of those of the same nation; and ’tis much more probable, that this resemblance arises from sympathy, than from any influence of the soil and climate, which, tho’ they continue invariably the same, are not able to preserve the character of a nation the same for a century together. A good-natur'd man finds himself in an instant of the same humour with his company; and even the proudest and most surly take a tincture from their countrymen and acquaintance. A chearful countenance infuses a sensible complacency and serenity into my mind; as an angry or sorrowful one throws a sudden dump upon me. Hatred, resentment, esteem, love, courage, mirth and melancholy; all these passions I feel more from communication than from my own natural temper and disposition. So remarkable a phaenomenon merits our attention, and must be trac'd up to its first principles. [David Hume](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume.md) · [A Treatise of Human Nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume/a-treatise-of-human-nature.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume/a-treatise-of-human-nature/no-quality-of-human.md) Topics: [emotions](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emotions.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [empathy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/empathy.md) > Their view evidently was that genius was like offences--needs must that it come, but woe unto that man through whom it comes. A man’s business, they hold, is to think as his neighbours do, for Heaven help him if he thinks good what they count bad. And really it is hard to see how the Erewhonian theory differs from our own, for the word “idiot” only means a person who forms his opinions for himself. [Samuel Butler](https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-butler.md) · [Erewhon](https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-butler/erewhon.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-butler/erewhon/their-view-evidently.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [genius](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/genius.md) > For in the mulitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little. The story of their coming to be shapen after the average and fit to be packed by the gross, is hardly ever told even in their consciousness; for perhaps their ardor is generous unpaid toil cooled as imperceptibly as the ardor of other youthful loves, till one day their earlier self walked like a ghost in its old home and made the new furniture ghastly. Nothing in the world more subtle than the process of their gradual change! In the beginning they inhaled it unknowingly: you and I may have sent some of our breath towards infecting them, when we uttered our conforming falsities or drew our silly conclusions: or perhaps it came. with the vibrations from a woman's glance. [George Eliot](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot.md) · [Middlemarch](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/middlemarch.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/middlemarch/for-in-the.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [idealism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/idealism.md) > Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them. [George Eliot](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot.md) · [Middlemarch](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/middlemarch.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/middlemarch/sane-people-did.md) Topics: [madness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/madness.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > If I got places, sir, it was because I made myself fit for 'em. If you want to slip into a round hole, you must make a ball of yourself; that's where it is. [George Eliot](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot.md) · [The Mill on the Floss](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/the-mill-on-the-floss.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/the-mill-on-the-floss/if-i-got.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > Sometimes I think it ain’t none of us pure crazy and ain’t none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way. It’s like it ain’t so much what a fellow does, but it’s the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it. [William Faulkner](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner.md) · [As I Lay Dying](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/as-i-lay-dying.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/as-i-lay-dying/sometimes-i-think.md) Topics: [madness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/madness.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [public opinion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/public-opinion.md) > Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad. [George Orwell](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell.md) · [Nineteen Eighty-Four](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/nineteen-eighty-four.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/nineteen-eighty-four/being-in-a-minority.md) Topics: [truth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth.md), [madness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/madness.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md) > It was curious how that beetle-like type proliferated in the Ministries: little dumpy men, growing stout very early in life, with short legs, swift scuttling movements, and fat inscrutable faces with very small eyes. It was the type that seemed to flourish best under the dominion of the Party. [George Orwell](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell.md) · [Nineteen Eighty-Four](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/nineteen-eighty-four.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/nineteen-eighty-four/it-was-curious.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [totalitarianism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/totalitarianism.md)