Quotes About Conformity

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

A man whose desire is to be something separate from himself, to be a member of Parliament, or a successful grocer, or a prominent solicitor, or a judge, or something equally tedious, invariably succeeds in being what he wants to be.  That is his punishment.  Those who want a mask have to wear it.

To be popular, one must be a mediocrity.

In my time, of course, we were taught not to understand anything. That was the old system, and wonderfully interesting it was. I assure you that the amount of things I and my poor dear sister were taught not to understand was quite extraordinary.

It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world.

Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others.

Well, everybody seems to be doing it, I said, so I suppose I had better make the thing unanimous. Here's a fiver. Why, thank you, sir. This is extremely - It won't seem much compared with these vast sums you've been acquiring. Oh, I assure you, sir. And I don't know why I'm giving it to you. No, sir. Still, there it is. Thank you very much, sir.

I ask permission to be like everybody else, like the rest of the world and what's more, like anybody else: I beg you, with all my heart, if we are talking about me, since we are talking about me, please resist blasting the trumpet during my visit and resign yourselves to my quiet absence.

If we owned ourselves we'd overturn this earth there would be no reason to destroy everything we are but it's easier and safer to stay small.

Que tu deseo sea mi deseo.

As young people, we are surrounded by expectations that may have little to do with who we really are, expectations held by people who are not trying to discern our selfhood but to fit us into slots.

If people feel a conflict between their inclinations and a norm that is followed by everybody else, it is a conflict within their heads.

They succeeded not only in making me normal but also in making me dull .

concolorous

But...if it's so awful and difficult who not try to become a group? Be accepted? He glittered at me for a moment, then said, I would rather be mad.

to live against one's grain, that is degeneration by definition.

Why should Dickie want to come back to subways and taxis and starched collars and a nine-to- five job? Or even a chauffeured car and vacations in Florida and Maine? It wasn't as much fun as sailing a boat in old clothes and being answerable to nobody for the way

One's just supposed to conform. I know what they'd like, they'd like a blank they could fill in. A person already filled in disturbs them terribly.

All right, he may not be queer. He's just a nothing, which is worse. He isn't normal enough to have any kind of sex life, if you know what I mean.

In a flash, I realized I had brought all this miser on myself by trying to fit myself into a pattern to which I did not conform.

we can become like Christ by doing one thing—by following him in the overall style of life he chose for himself.

Our mistake is to think that following Jesus consists in loving our enemies, going the "second mile," turning the other cheek, suffering patiently and hopefully—while living the rest of our lives just as everyone around us does.

Must one not wonder about people willing to wear a commercial trademark on the outside of their shirts or caps or shoes to let others know who they are? And just think of a world in which little children sing, "I wish I were a [certain kind of] wiener. That is what I really want to be. For if I were [that certain kind of] wiener. Everyone would be in love with me.

They do not know what they are doing and do not have the ability to distance themselves from it so they can see it for what it is. That is the power of "culture.