37 Quotes On Embracing Nonconformity

In a world that often celebrates conformity and adherence to the status quo, embracing nonconformity becomes an act of courage and self-discovery. It invites individuals to break free from societal molds and carve out paths defined by personal truth and authenticity. Whether it's in art, business, or everyday life, nonconformity fuels innovation and fosters genuine creativity. In this blog post, we delve into a thoughtfully curated collection of 37 quotes that capture the essence of nonconformity. These words of wisdom serve as a reminder that true greatness often resides just beyond the boundaries of convention, waiting to be embraced by those daring enough to stand apart. Enjoy this exploration into the minds of visionaries and rebels, and let their insights inspire you to step boldly into your unique path.

1. “Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: 'You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society.” - Doris Lessing

2. “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” - J. Krishnamurti

3. “Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.” - Henry David Thoreau

4. “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” - John F. Kennedy

5. “Alas, everything that men say to one another is alike; the ideas they exchange are almost always the same, in their conversation. But inside all those isolated machines, what hidden recesses, what secret compartments! It is an entire world that each one carries within him, an unknown world that is born and dies in silence! What solitudes all these human bodies are!” - Alfred De Musset

6. “At the age of four, you were an artist. And at seven, you were a poet.” - Seth Godin

7. “The job is what you do when you are told what to do. The job is showing up at the factory, following instructions, meeting spec, and being managed.Someone can always do your job a little better or faster or cheaper than you can.The job might be difficult, it might require skill, but it's a job.Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people.I call the process of doing your art 'the work.' It's possible to have a job and do the work, too. In fact, that's how you become a linchpin.The job is not the work.” - Seth Godin

8. “Be neither a conformist or a rebel, for they are really the same thing. Find your own path, and stay on it” - Paul Vixie

9. “One can often recognize herd animals by their tendency to carry bibles.” - Allen Wheelis

10. “All the heroes of tomorrow are the heretics of today.” - Yip Harburg

11. “A soft and sheltered Christianity, afraid to be lean and lone, unwilling to face the storms and brave the heights, will end up fat and foul in the cages of conformity.” - Vance Havner

12. “perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque.” - Salman Rushdie

13. “The Master said of Gong Yechang, “He is marriageable. Although he was once imprisoned and branded as a criminal, he was in fact innocent of any crime.” The Master gave him his daughter in marriage.(Analects 5.1)” - Confucius

14. “No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

15. “We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything, than when we are at play.” - Charles Schaefer

16. “It's weird not to be weird.” - John Lennon

17. “The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains.” - Henry David Thoreau

18. “The great safeguard of society and of domestic life was, that opinions were not acted on. Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.” - George Eliot

19. “Evil would always come to me disguised in systems and dignified by law.” - Pat Conroy

20. “I would rather be an artist than a leader. Ironically, a leader has to follow the rules.” - Criss Jami

21. “Joining a sub-culture, any sub-culture, for whatever reason, is as I see it never a legitimate self-expression. It is always a result of sheep mentality; a wish to belong somewhere.” - Varg Vikernes

22. “One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.” - Shannon L. Alder

23. “We are not here to match and homogenize and agree on every point. One size of spirituality does not fit all. We are here to be our divine selves, boldly, passionately, respectfully, to the absolute best of our ability — and this, this is more than enough.” - sera break

24. “There are no norms. All people are exceptions to a rule that doesn’t exist.” - Fernando Pessoa

25. “The trouble with this world is that everybody has to compromise and conform.” - Tennessee Williams

26. “What editors are obliged to appear to say that men want from women is actually what their advertisers want from women.” - Naomi Wolf

27. “The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.” - H.L. Mencken

28. “Curiosity is very important I think, and I think too much of education, starting with childhood education, is either designed to kill curiosity or it works out that way anyway.” - Myles Horton

29. “Christians should be cultural and intellectual thermostats, exulting in opposition, iconoclasm,and balancing insights.” - Gene Edward Veith Jr.

30. “I'd trapped myself in a script.... But to be scripted at all is to be prepackaged, programmed, pinned to a page. Only the unwritten can truly live a life. So who I was, what I was, had to be unwritten.” - David James Duncan

31. “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.” - Marge Piercy

32. “It then becomes necessary to stop short and make a choice: Either/Or. Either one drifts with their absurd system of ideas, believing that this is the human community. Or one dissents totally from their system of ideas and stands as a lonely human being. (But luckily one notices that the others are in the same crisis and making the same choices.)” - Paul Goodman

33. “Majority decisions tend to be made without engaging the systematic thought and critical thinking skills of the individuals in the group. Given the force of the group's normative power to shape the opinions of the followers who conform without thinking things through, they are often taken at face value. The persistent minority forces the others to process the relevant information more mindfully. Research shows that the deciscions of a group as a whole are more thoughtful and creative when there is minority dissent than when it is absent.” - Philip G. Zimbardo

34. “One of the useful things about age is realizing conventional wisdom is often simply inertia with a candy coating of conformity.” - Anna Quindlen

35. “It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!” - Henry David Thoreau

36. “The human spirit lives on creativity and dies in conformity and routine.” - Vilayat Inayat Khan

37. “We're all teased or pressured into conforming to the all-levelling social norms of mediocrity.” - H.M. Forester