Quotes About Conformity

Few people realize how much courage it takes in a community like ours to ignore the established taboos.

When you didn't live in a strict corporate world, you didn't have to worry about fitting in and being politically correct all the time. You could afford the luxuries of self-expression. We took advantage of self-expression in spades.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I would rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me.

I'd spent so long trying to fit in,trying to be someone i wasn't,that i had no idea who i was any more.

Some people base their sense of ethics on what they've been told that God, or their church, or their parents, or their culture, believes to be okay or not okay. They believe that being good consists of obedience to laws set down by a power greater than themselves.

You pretend to be more eccentric than you actually are because you fear you are an interchangeable cog.

Big companies are like marching bands. Even if half the band is playing random notes, it still sounds kind of like music. The concealment of failure is built into them.

You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note.

I think if human beings had genuine courage, they'd wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween. Wouldn't life be more interesting that way? And now that I think about it, why the heck don't they? Who made the rule that everybody has to dress like sheep 364 days of the year? Think of all the people you'd meet if they were in costume every day. People would be so much easier to talk to - like talking to dogs.

You really don't get it, do you? Most people are sheep. Stupid and uninformed. And they don't dig. They don't think for themselves. They'll trust a sincere voiceover and whatever the television tells them.

The lure of safety drags us into lives we'd prefer to dodge.

It may be argued that intellectual achievement, as measured by consistently high grades in all subjects, is evidence of motivation and willingness to work. Perhaps it is—in the academic setting—but it is also evidence of willingness to conform to the quite arbitrary demands of the educational system. There

you are only a member of a recognized minority group so long as you accept the specific grievances, political grievances and resulting electoral platforms that other people have worked out for you. Step outside of these lines and you are not a person with the same characteristics you had before but who happens to think differently from some prescribed norm. You have the characteristics taken away from you.

having to sort of pretend – collectively – that it is in fact true.

Como sabe cualquiera que haya vivido bajo un régimen totalitario, hay algo humillante y hasta autodestructivo en tener que marchar al son de consignas que uno no cree ni puede creer.

Society is a funny thing. The rules are arbitrary and designed to maintain control of the masses.

We tend to assume that if the existing authorities tell us to do anything short of swearing an oath to worship Satan, then we have to do it. This does not exhibit a mature theology of resistance.

Conformity can be costly in a world of uncertainty.

Rules are mostly made to be broken and are too often for the lazy to hide behind

The tyranny of some is possible only through the cowardice of others.

La mayoría de las sociedades imponen a sus ciudadanos un concepto de la sexualidad buena, o normal, como forma de vida obligada, negándoles así la libertad de personalizar quiénes son sexualmente.

His famous example was that of the grocer who places in his shop window, among his vegetables, a sign that reads, "Workers of the world, unite!" Havel argued that the grocer did it not because he believed in the slogan but because it was easier to do it than to not. "If he were to refuse," Havel wrote, "there would be trouble."35 By placing the sign in his shop front, the grocer is effectively saying, "I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient.

Acceptance of prevailing standards often means we have no standards of our own.

He who lets the world choose his plan of life for him has need of no other faculty than that of ape-like imitation.