Quotes About Conformity

Freedom to be oneself is all very well; the greater freedom is not to be oneself.

But instead of being con-formed to the world, Christians are to be changed from within to be increasingly like Jesus Christ.

People always talk about how great it is to get older. All I saw were more rules and more adults telling me what I could and couldn't do, in the name of what's good for me. Yeah, well, asparagus is good for me, but it still makes me want to throw up.

I want to do it too!" said Gazzy, sitting very, very quietly, completely motionless. "Nope," said Nudge, shaking her head. "You stand out like a fart in church.

I look like prep school Barbie, Nudge complained, as she entered the kitchen. She caught sight of me in my uniform and looked mollified. Actually, you like prep school Barbie. I'm just Barbie's friend.

Normal behavior, therefore, is when we collectively believe that the circumstances justify the behavior. Likewise, abnormal behavior is when we don't.

Plus, if I can wax philosophical for a paragraph, there's an even more fundamental principle involved here, and it apples to everything from what you decide to do for a living, to making an omelette, which is that there is nothing so consistently dangerous, not to mention more likely to mess with your head and leave you muttering into your beer, than playing it safe.

out that shoes are required to eat in the cafeteria. But socks can eat anywhere they like!

there is nothing so consistently dangerous, not to mention more likely to mess with your head and leave you muttering into your beer, than playing it safe.

Why are you here, young man? Shouldn't you be home watching Thomas the Tank Engine with the rest of the kids in your kindergarten class?

keep your head down, try to blend in, and don't get on anyone's bad side. You've already seen what I look like, so you can probably guess which one I chose. As soon as I got to homeroom, I went straight for the back row and sat as far from the teacher's desk as possible. There was just one problem with that plan, and his name was Miller. Miller

Very often, unfortunately, people may believe something, but they go along with a group of people because they don't have the courage to stand alone or stand up for themselves.

Unfortunately what came out of it was also kind of an imitation community with a lot of mindless conformity.

When I was young, I used to hear people say, 'He's a golden boy. Look at that guy. Can you imagine what he's going to be like when he grows up?' Well, I unfortunately bought into that. And I hadn't even found myself. Quite honestly, I was running from myself. But I knew how to work Top 40 radio.

I worked with someone who told me they'd never like me. But for some reason, I just felt like I needed her approval. So I started changing myself to please her. It made me stop being social and friendly. I was so unhappy.

As long as I can remember, I saw myself as black. I was socially conditioned to discard that. It was an all-white town. I was very unhappy. I felt like I was constantly self-sabotaging in order to conform to religion, culture dynamics. I was censoring myself. I was shutting down inside.

When you're in a world, and your parents are one way, and you're told, 'This is how the whole world is, and this is how you're supposed to be,' and you're terribly unhappy in that world, it's a very scary thing.

Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.

When you put on a uniform, there are certain inhibitions that you accept.

Clothes are a kind of uniform. A nun's habit, a surgeon's scrubs, a cop's uniform. People often say that when they put on a certain uniform, they actually think of themselves differently.

I never had a problem with genre because a genre actually is like a uniform - you put yourself into a certain uniform. But if you dress up in a police officer's uniform, it doesn't mean that you are an officer; it can mean something else.

It is a retrogression when human beings begin to insist on uniform, on one-mindedness, on conditioning their offspring so that all their reactions are automatic.

I'd done my time in corporate America, from McDonald's making shakes to Morgan Stanley making deals and, yet, I felt awfully constrained by the uniform - not just my clothes, but how I felt I needed to conform - that a traditional job required me to wear.

I remember there were days when - and this is kind of gross - I would sleep in my uniform to save time in the morning and then get up and go to school... it didn't matter because I didn't have to impress anyone, and I didn't have to look cute in class.