Quotes About Conformity

Emulating God's justice is, according to the Biblical prophets, the evidence of what it means to know God. True knowledge of God entails both an appreciation of God's own unswerving devotion to justice and a commitment to live one's personal life in conformity to God's justice [see Hosea 4:1-2, 5:3, 6:6; Jeremiah 2:8; 4:22; 9:2-6, 24, 22:16; Isaiah 58:2. Titus 1:16; 1 John 4:8]

The goal of the Christian is not to become like Jesus; because as He is, so are we in this world.

Certain peer pressures encourage little fingers to learn how to hold a football instead of a crayon. Rumors circulate around the schoolyard: kids who draw or wear white socks and bring violins to school on Wednesdays might have cooties. I confess to having yielded to these pressures.

Du bist Nummer 55«, sagt Marga. Manuela blickt auf zu der Nummer über ihrem Schrank. Eine schwarze 55. »Deine Kleider tragen die Nummer 55. Deine Schuhe gehören in die Stiefelkammer in das Fach 55, dein Mantel und dein Hut kommen unten neben dem Hauseingang in die Garderobe, Abteilung 55. Deine Waschkabine ist Nummer 55, ebenso dein Bett.« Manuela fühlte, wie sie langsam zu Nummer Fünfundfünfzig wurde.

She was doubtful, amid our toxic swirl of new namegiving; what she doubted was the reality of names, though she had to deal with them; she certainly felt that naming is seldom accurate, name and thing coincide only for a short time. She shrank from stamping any name on herself, the brand mark which decides which herd you belong to and which stable you should occupy.

And so it is that you learn how to pass, if you're lucky, to look like everyone else, even though you're broken inside.

He squints at me. "Except for the red hair and freckles, you look okay. You'll be fine and dandy sitting at the table with a napkin on your lap.

am learning to pretend, to smile and nod, to display empathy I do not feel. I am learning to pass, to look like everyone else, even though I feel broken inside.

It's all part of Dina's unwavering message: Be grateful. Dress like a normal person. Don't have opinions. Eat the food that's put in front of you. Molly

Pondering it further, this suppression that gets instilled upon us at the Numbered Age Date, and those of us who missed out on being amongst the popular ones who honestly were able to brag about, I made out with Jeremy under the bleachers during the big game against Milwaukee,

Normal is a setting on a washing machine.

You see, that's what's so odd, how everyone thinks they're normal and the truth is no one in the world is normal at all. Isn't that wonderful?

People believe unbelievable things because it's self-flattering to think that you are intellectually daring enough to accept what others find preposterous.

At a certain point, it seems more polite to just become the person people assume you to be.

Soll ich, weil's Brauch ist, ein Stück Eisen stecken in das nächste Fleisch oder ins übernächste, mich dran zu halten, weil die Welt sich dreht? Herr, brich mir das Genick im Sturz von einer Bierbank.

Just because you can fit into something tight doesn't mean that you belong in it.

At casinos, I see senior citizens grazing on slot machines clad in a trend that I call toddling. Toddling is dressing like a toddler: clamdiggers and a cotton top, no belt, mall-walking sneakers. It's a look that says, I give up. Or, I don't give a damn what anybody thinks of me anymore. I'm not sure which.

the regime's utter cultural and intellectual mediocrity, and especially its obsession with ensuring a rigid outward conformity to its neo-traditionalist values in public life.

those with the habit of line-crossing as a mode of being would never and could never fit the requirements of any state narrative.

Oaths sworn to the Kami show that the Kami were increasingly perceived as requiring people to conform to a moral code. The Great Purification Prayer was fully loosed from its original moorings in annual jingi rites. It came to be used in shortened form for all manner of personal, individual, and private devotional purposes.

For years he'd lived by the maxim Henry Green put so beautifully in his public-school memoir Pack My Bag: 'The safest way to avoid trouble if one may not be going to fit is to take as great a part as possible in what is going on.'12 To gain approval, to avoid trouble, he had to mirror what was around him: it was how he had tried to win love from his mother as a child. It was a life of perpetual disguise.

her body held in frightened rigidity because if she dared stop clapping then a bad thing would come.

So everybody lives the way they're told to. The way they have to. Everybody most of the time. Not ever all the time. Hair style, clothing, manner of speech, ideas, cars, houses, and everything. Just like they have to. Even the way we walk. But not all the time. Comes a time when everybody breaks out. And that's the only characteristic of human nature I know of. Not greed, not obedience, not violence, nor any of those things the capitalists would have us believe are intrinsic. Only rebellion.

In the '50s, a lot of girls never saw beyond the wedding day.