Quotes About Conformity

Every time we are assailed by images of women very different from ourselves, unless these images are eliminated by being forgotten or overlaid by others, we can have no peace of mind until we have converted these strangers into something more like us, the self in that respect being similar in its action and reactions to the physical organism, which is incapable of accepting a foreign body within itself without immediately setting to work to digest and assimilate the intruder.

The gods have provided me with clear and compelling signs of what it means to live in conformity to nature. They did their part. So far as their gifts, aid, and inspiration are concerned, nothing prevented me from following the path prescribed by nature. If from time to time I have strayed from this path, the fault lies with me and with my failure to heed the gods' signs, or rather, their explicit instructions.

Orwell's vision of our terrible future was that world - the world in which books are banned or burned. Yet it is not the most terrifying world I can think of. I think instead of Huxley [...] I think of his Brave New World. His vision was the more terrible, especially now because it appears to be rapidly coming true, whereas the world of 1984 did not. What is Huxley's horrific vision? It is a world where there is no need for books to be banned, because no one can be bothered to read one.

I had the additional disadvantage of being unable to approve my own conduct; being a child of the age, I knew how wrong and how misguided it was. I walked around with a scarlet letter embroidered upon my bosom, visible enough in the end, but the A stood for Abstinence, not for Adultery.

When women let their hair down, it means either sexiness or craziness or death, the three by Victorian times having become virtually synonymous.

Because they don't know [the anger is] there inside them. [...] They think they are sweet reasonableness, and it's you that's in the wrong, just by being, and not being like them, or looking like them, or wanting their kind of life.

People in America, of course, live in all sorts of fashions, because they are foreigners, or unlucky, or depraved, or without ambition; people live like that, but Americans live in white detached houses with green shutters. Rigidly, blindly, the dream takes precedence.

You are totally unique. Just like everyone else.

It was a street of conformity; where identical houses were painted at the same time every spring, a place of rules where gardens, parenthood and the future were planned with equal care, and even if everything went wrong the master plan remained in effect–keep up appearances, clip the hedges, mow the lawn, so that no one will suspect that there's a third mortgage and that Mother's headaches are caused by martinis not migraine.

That is the one unforgivable sin in any society. Be different and be damned!

Why does it scare me to think I might be ordinary? I remember when I started first grade and I could hardly pay attention for fear I wouldn't learn to read and write. I didn't want to be like everyone else. I didn't want to have to learn. I wanted to know everything already

As people grow up, they teach themselves to do what distinguishes adults from children: they will choke and cough until they have mastered the cigarette, or force themselves to down bitter beer until they are ready to join the group that actually likes it.

I have a natural tendency to go away when told to do so. Do you really want me to?

Seventh grade. Eleven years old. A bookworm-misfit with long black braids, childish white socks, pointy pink glasses, and no courage for flirting. It's doesn't take long to learn that I'm ridiculous.

With living creatures / one must begin very early / to dwarf their growth : / the bound feet, / the crippled brain, / the hair curlers, / the hands you / love to touch.

The societies kids naturally form are tribal. Gangs, clubs, packs. But we're herded into schools and terrified into behaving. Taught how we're supposed to pretend to be, taught to parrot all kinds of nonsense at the flick of a switch, taught to keep our heads down and our elbows in and shut off our minds and shut off our sex. We learn we can't even piss when we have to. That's how we learn to be plastic and dumb.

If we placed too high a value on the looks, manners, and morals called the birthright of the Anglo-Saxon… White people wanted to be white just as much as we did. They worked just as hard at it. They failed just as often. They failed more often. But they could pass, so no one objected.

Young, good-looking white women were the most desirable creatures in the world. It was hard not to want to imitate them; it was highly toxic too, as we would learn.

Here Fashion is a despot, and no one dreams of evading its dictates.

Jonas var dypt skuffet over de to andre. Han hadde måttet bøye seg for «overmakten» som han uttrykte det.

En realidad le importaba poco integrarse: el concepto de grupo le parecía más bien de "rebaño". Miraba a sus compañeros de facultad o de residencia y sentía que eran todos iguales. Bueno, quizá por grupos, pero iguales. De un solo vistazo podías saber si leían o no y qué, qué música escuchaban y hasta el tipo de chico o chica con que les gustaría salir. A Laura aquello le parecía aburrido. ¿Qué interés podría tener la gente en parecerse?

Rules? Ixion is supposed to be free of rules, yet it seems as strict as Grave in its own way and more...more dangerous.

I find that respectability grows wearisome after a time, when one is accustomed to being a disgrace.

I set to work making a place for myself in Society, even if it was not the place Society intended for me.