Quotes About Conformity

The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation; certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the Press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it: he cannot grow or mature.

Sanctification is conformity to the image and the example of Christ. The more the believer is growing like Jesus, the more he is growing in holiness.

My soul, sir? I haven't got one. The management doesn't allow them.

Society is always trying in some way to grind us down to a single flat surface.

Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or that our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than we suspect of what we think.

Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our father's have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a large part than what we suspect of what we think.

They have,' she said, 'the uniformity of their insecurity.

The meaning of the expression "with the Heavenly Principle as the master" is just the opposite. It means that we should abandon our self-centered wills, be free from personal opinions, be absorbed both physically and spiritually in whatever concerns us at the moment, and become completely one with things.

But often we have inherited someone else's view of who we are or who we should be. And sometimes, although we may ourselves hold these values, their dominance in our lives in a particular form does not allow us to live out other aspects of what we love and who we are. The deepest desires of the soul are rarely concerned with the practical details of mortgage payments, pension plans, prior commitments, past honours, or others' opinions.

Il vero inquisitore è un uomo lugubre. Filosoficamente è il vero fascista, cioè il fascista privo di colore che serve tutti i fascismi, tutti i totalitarismi, tutti i regimi purché servano a mettere gli uomini in fila come croci in un cimitero. Lo trovi ovunque vi sia un'ideologia, un principio assoluto, una dottrina che proibisca all'individuo d'essere sé stesso.

Adolescents never understand that the best way to avoid notice is to behave normally.

Law can change how people behave when others are watching that's all.

Being general, the categories never address us as individuals. At best our individuality is lost in the generality. At worst, it is contradicted and denied. Such categories force us to lie on their Procrustean bed, and anything about us that doesn't fit they lop off. They trim the picture of our personalities to fit their mass-produced frames.

As theologian N. T. Wright points out, trees behave as trees, rocks as rocks and the seas as the seas, but "Only humans, it seems, have the capacity to live as something other than what they are.

but conformity to the will and the way of Jesus is life and freedom itself—under his authority.

Am I wrong in thinking that these people have become such complete egoists and are so convinced of the normality of their way of life that they have never once doubted themselves?

All I feel are the assaults of apprehension and terror at the thought that I am the only one who is entirely unlike the rest.

Society won't stand for it. It's not society. You're the one who won't stand for it--right? If you do such a thing society will make you suffer for it. It's not society. It's you, isn't it? Before you know it, you'll be ostracized by society. It's not society. You're going to do the ostracizing, aren't you?

Toplum nedir ki? ?nsanlar?n ço?ulu mu? Bu toplum denilen ?ey somut olarak nerededir? Yine de her nas?lsa, ?iddetli, sert, korkutucu bir kavram oldu?unu dü?ünerek ya?am??t?m hep.

Across from me four or five salarymen who all looked about the same age were just sitting there. They must have been around 30. I didn't like any of them. Their eyes were empty and dull. They had no vigor. But now, if I so much as grinned at them, I could very well be dragged off by one of these men, falling into the chasm of compulsory marriage. A mere smile can determine a woman's fate. It is frightening. Fascinatingly so. I have to be careful.

It's not society. You're going to do the ostracizing, aren't you?... What is society but an individual?

No sentía ni entusiamo ni aversión por lo que hacía. Mi letargo era tal, que simplemente me dejaba llevar por lo que consideraban mejor para mí quienes me rodeaban.

I wondered if in the end I would not be argued into silence by someone in good graces with the world, by the excuses of which the world approved.

The problem with tradition is that it can cause even an error of great magnitude to go unnoticed