Quotes About Conformity

When you make your peace with authority, you become authority.

Man is extremely uncomfortable with uncertainty. To deal with his discomfort, man tends to create a false sense of security by substituting certainty for uncertainty. It becomes the herd instinct.

If you have ever had a position on and intended to do one thing but actually did something else, then you were a member of the psychological crowd and made a crowd trade—whether you knew it or not. Otherwise, you would have done what you originally intended.

When people are intimidated about having their own opinions, oppression is at hand.

So here is where I am so far, and this is all I know: the world is a big sardine can, and some of us are too agreeable for words. Most of us, really.

Why do people want to be so skinny? What do they think will happen when they reach their size-zero goal? What happens at zero? Zero means there's nothing left. Why does she want to disappear?

It was probably easier in the old days when the bad guys rode into town wearing black capes or whatever bad guys wore and the milk cows were ownded by honest people. Right off the bat, you'd know who you were dealing with. Now everybody dresses alike.

The Karen personality was created when Jo was nine and her mother said once too often, "Why can't you be like your cousin Karen?" Jo's internal Karen was the perfect mimic of her cousin, and fulfilled Nancy's demand that the child be neat and organized.

You won't get extra marks for being teacher's pet. You won't go to the top of the class. There is no class. There is no teacher. Or if there is then you have to understand that he or she doesn't actually like you. You are not being marked out of ten for how neatly you sharpen your pencil and how lovely your handwriting is. You are not going to get a gold star. You are not the fucking flower monitor and no one cares what you do.

I tried once, you know, went to a dance all dressed up, but I felt like such a fool. Everyone kept making encouraging remarks about my looks as if they were afraid I'd cross back over the line again; I was trying , you know, I was proving their way of life was right, and they were terrified I'd stop.

I've never slept with a girl. I couldn't. I wouldn't want to. That's abnormal and I'm not, although you can't be normal unless you do what you want and you can't be normal unless you love men. To do what I wanted would be normal, unless what I wanted was abnormal, in which case it would be abnormal to please myself and normal to do what I didn't want to do, which isn't normal.

Places have their own characters. . . . But the people begin to look the same.

And though, truly, she sometimes felt like something inside her had disappeared, it seemed that must be a natural part of growing up. Standing out too much made one feel too alone to do it forever.

except for Aunt Fire, who was never self-aware enough to feel awkward / but you're a girl, someday you'll want to be a prisoner to someone other than yourself

White-supremacist-patriarchal-heteronormative-capitalism socializes us to aspire to "good Negro" status. It convince little Black girls from East Oakland to graduate from Howard—summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, to pledge the oldest Black sorority, to earn PhDs, to be in the "right" rooms…" - Melina Abdullah

Few indeed are those who get a choice. We do as we are told. We stand or fall beside those who were born near to us, who look as we do, who speak the same words, and all the while we know as little of the reasons why as does the dust we return to.

Because there are so many kids, they run schools like factories, or dare I say, jails. You're put into lines and rows and moved when a bell rings. None of this is conducive to deep thinking or creativity. You start to go deep into a subject, and a bell rings to pull you out of it.

It's because you know that more is possible that you'll always see the pointlessness in following a stupid rule or clocking in and out of a boring class. Most people can't see that distinction, so they just do as they're told. Of course, this makes them bored and irritated, but they think that's the human condition. You and I are lucky enough to see that it doesn't have to be that way.

And in part because there are so many kids, they run the schools like factories, or, dare I say, jails. You're put in lines, moved when the bells ring, allowed to run around in a high-fenced yard once a day. None of this is conducive to deep thinking or creativity. You start to go deep into a subject, and a bell rings to pull you out of it.

her size bothered them, like a piece of mail they couldn't find a mailbox for. Still, there were other young

class. Most people can't see that distinction, so they just do as they're told. Of course, this makes them bored and irritated, but they think that's the human condition. You and I are lucky enough to see that it doesn't have to be that way.

Arrest the meek! Reward the obnoxious!

So shiny was bad and 'too sad' was bad, and 'too joyous' was bad, which meant you had to go around not being anything; also nit thinking, least not at the top level, which was why everybody kept their private thoughts safe and sound in those recesses underneath.

What if one person happened to be sane, longest friend, against a whole background, a race mind, that wasn't sane, that person would probably be viewed by the mass consciousness as mad - but would that person be mad?