Quotes About Conformity

Ardent love or desire introduced, as passionately longing to please and glorify the Divine Being, to be in every respect conformed to him, and in that way to enjoy him.

She was artificially narrowing herself, amputating every humane and tender piece that didn't fit into a rigid frame.

You can't become normal by pretending you are.

Absolutes do not exist in this universe. If you try to force your experiences into absolute categories, you will be constantly depressed because your perceptions will not conform to reality. You will set yourself up for discrediting yourself endlessly because whatever you do will never measure up to your exaggerated expectations. The technical name for this type of perceptual error is "dichotomous thinking." You see everything as black or white—shades of gray do not exist.

Snark often functions as an enforcer of mediocrity and conformity. In its cozy knowingness, snark flatters you by assuming that you get the contemptuous joke. You've been admitted, or readmitted, to a club, though it may be the club of the second-rate.

Consistency is the defense of a small mind

If you try to fit the mold of your organization too much, the rap will be that you are too dull or too dry or too sycophantic. So you might as well be yourself and get points for having the courage of your own style.

Being transformed also means being unconformed.

Evangelicals now stand among those who are on easiest terms with the world, for they have lost their capacity for dissent.

Vivimos sometidos a la tiranía de los deseos ajenos

Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.

Political rituals — the daily flag salute by schoolchildren, singing the national anthem — use public conformity to build a private belief in patriotism.

Fearing a court martial for disobedience, some of the soldiers at My Lai participated in the massacre. Normative influence leads to compliance, especially for people who have recently seen others ridiculed or who are seeking to climb a status ladder (Hollander, 1958; Janes & Olson, 2000).

One of the reasons people steer clear of environmentalism is all the guilt associated with it. The creepy feeling that by doing what everyone else in one's society is doing - driving, washing the dishes, catching a flight - we are bringing about the end of the world.

It's not just that some people get to break the rules—it's that loyalty to the organization is to some degree measured by one's willingness to pretend this isn't happening.

Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. —H. L. Mencken

What "the public," "the workforce," "the electorate," "consumers," and "the population" all have in common is that they are brought into being by institutionalized frames of action that are inherently bureaucratic, and therefore, profoundly alienating.

all in all, you're just another jade in the wall').

It is the premise of this book that we live in a deeply bureau­cratic society. If we do not notice it, it is largely because bureau­cratic practices and requirements have become so all-pervasive that we can barely see them—or worse, cannot imagine doing things any other way.

Influencers" succeed in a culture when the masses stop reading and thinking for themselves.

Political correctness is actually a term coined by the Chinese dictator and mass murderer Mao Zedong. By "politically correct," Mao meant adhering to the official position of the Communist Party, which the comrades referred to as "the party line.

Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past.

Truth is of two kinds, consisting either in the discovery of the proportions of ideas, consider'd as such, or in the conformity of our ideas of objects to their real existence (Hume, 1739, p. 495).

The reason most people don't express their individuality and actually deny it, is not fear of what prime ministers think of us or the head of the federal reserve, It's what their families and their friends down at the bar are going to think of them.