Quotes About Individuality

Art doesn't have to matter to a lot of people to matter a lot.

It is curious how a man can stamp his personality upon earthly things.

But, do you know it hadn't occurred to me that a man's beard was really part of him. It always seemed to me that men wore their beards, like they wear their neckties, for show.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.... it is a cold, lifeless business, when you go to the shops to buy me something which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's.

Be a cupcake in a world of muffins.

After all, cats are the only untamed pets that we have. You cannot tame a cat.

The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor: he took my measure anew every time he saw me, whilst all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.

Don't let the city steal your soul.

We are creatures trapped in culture.

It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.

One should either be a work of Art, or wear a work of Art.

It's not what you wear — it's how you take it off.

My skin is kind of sort of brownish Pinkish yellowish white. My eyes are greyish blueish green, But I'm told they look orange in the night. My hair is reddish blondish brown, But it's silver when it's wet. And all the colors I am inside Have not been invented yet.

Be proud to wear you.

Don't think you're on the right road just because it's a well-beaten path.

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.

The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself.

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause & reflect).

It may be that most men do not care how they look, so long as they do not look ridiculous, and their conception of looking ridiculous is that they should look different from anybody else... In regard to shaving, the view of the conventionalist is that it does not much matter whether we shave or grow beards provided we all shave or grow beards at the same time, and ninety-nine men out of a hundred are conventionalists.

One who walks in another's tracks leaves no footprints.

I may not be different, but I'm definitely not the same.

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world—and never will.

Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like — then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping.

Emily Dickinson is a good example of the visionary who sets down her little glimpses of truth or beauty in the condensed forms in which they flashed into her mind, without effort to expand and interpret, probably without the ability to do so. Her poems will never be enjoyed by a multitude of readers because she never sought to reach the many. The few who enjoy will do so by reason of the fact that they are themselves supplying all of the expansion and interpretation.