Quotes About Conformity

Rather than the idyllic picture created by false nostalgia, the fifties were really straight white america's cooling-off period of "let's pretend we're happy and that this is the best of all possible worlds and we'll blow those nasty commies to hell if they dare to say otherwise.

Life would be fabric-softener, tuna-salad-on-white, PTA-meeting normal.

As I sat in the hot, salty water, I thought, 'No wonder Mr. Bubble always gives me a urinary tract infection and hives.' Mr. Bubble was for common people. Mr. Bubble was for my so-called brother, their true child. I was a Vanderbilt. I should bathe in condiments and seasonings.

As I sat in the hot, salty water, I thought, 'No wonder Mr. Bubble always gave me a urinary tract infection and hives.' Mr Bubble was for common people. Mr. Bubble was for my so-called brother, their true child. I was a Vanderbilt. I should bathe in condiments and seasonings. It was in my Vanderbilt genes.

It is forbidden to walk on the grass. It is not forbidden to fly over the grass.

Frustrated at never being able to figure out which silver Prius was mine, I put a second Obama sticker on the bumper, because having only one made it indistinguishable from the rest. I suppose, if I really wanted to make it easier to find, I'd slap a National Rifle Association sticker on it.

There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.

A Conformist is a man who declares, It's true because others believe it - but an Individualist is NOT a man who declares, It's true because I believe it. An Individual declares, I believe it because I see in reason that it is true.

We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those year in the Home of the Students. It was not that the learning was too hard for us. It was that the learning was too easy. This is a great sin, to be born with a head which is too quick. It is not good to be different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to them. The Teachers told us so, and they frowned when they looked at us.

The crowd would have forgiven anything, except a man who could remain normal under the vibrations of its enormous collective sneer.

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.

What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word We.

People said it because other people said it. They did not know why it was being said and heard everywhere. they did not give or ask for reasons.

Don't set out to raze all shrines, you'll frighten men. enshrine mediocrity-and the shrines are razed.

Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron bracelet which all men wear on their left wrists with their names upon it. We are twenty-one years old. We are six feet tall, and this is a burden, for there are not many men who are six feet tall. Ever have the Teachers and the Leaders pointed to us and frowned and said: There is evil in your bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has grown beyond the bodies of your brothers. But we cannot change our bones nor our body.

He had not liked the things taught to him in college. He had been taught a great deal about social responsibility, about a life of service and self-sacrifice. Everybody had said it was beautiful and inspiring. Only he had not felt inspired. He had felt nothing at all.

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?

The thinking child seeks equals; the conformist seeks protectors.

I would have to think on a nice clean job. I don't want to think. Not their way. It will have to be their way, no matter where I go. I want a job where I won't have to think.

The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!

A thinking child cannot conform. Thought does not bow to authority.

We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are we allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers who are the State. Amen.

She said, "I'm curious. How many here are afraid of change?" No one responded so she suggested, "How about a show of hands?" Only one hand went up. "Well, it looks like we've got one honest person in our group!" she said. And then continued, "Maybe you'll like this next question better. How many here think other people are afraid of change?" Practically everyone raised their hands. Then they all started laughing.

Public meetings, business meetings, encounters on the street, conversations, even posters on the wall all get wrapped up in an official language that doesn't contain a single word of truth. People in the West can't possibly understand what it is really like to lose the right to say what you think for years on end, and the way you have to repress the tiniest illegal thought you might have and stay silent as the tomb. That sort of pressure breaks something inside people.