79 Individuality Quotes To Inspire

In a world that often feels dominated by conformity, celebrating individuality is more important than ever. Whether you're looking to embrace your quirks, defend your unique perspective, or simply find the courage to be yourself, powerful words can act as a beacon of inspiration. We've gathered a curated collection of the top 79 individuality quotes to ignite your spirit and encourage you to stand out. These quotes come from a diverse range of voices and backgrounds, each one shedding light on the beauty and strength found in being authentically you. Ready to be inspired? Let's dive in and celebrate what makes each of us unique.

1. “Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else.” - Judy Garland

2. “It never got weird enough for me.” - Hunter S. Thompson

3. “I, myself, am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.” - Augusten Burroughs

4. “Its hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.” - Dolly Parton

5. “I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.” - Henry David Thoreau

6. “It's so hard to express yourself.' I understand this.'I want to express myself.'The same is true for me.' I'm looking for my voice.' It's in your mouth.' I want to do something I'm not ashamed of.'Something you are proud of, yes?' Not even. I just don't want to be ashamed.” - Jonathan Safran Foer

7. “Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.” - Henry David Thoreau

8. “Everyone marries the Duke of Westminster. There are a lot of duchesses, but only one Coco Chanel.” - Coco Chanel

9. “Being an American is about having the right to be who you are. Sometimes that doesn't happen.” - Herb Ritts

10. “My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day. I told them this story: In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day.” - Tom Waits

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

12. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.” - Robert Frost

13. “Once a man strays out of the common herd, he's more likely to meet wolves in the thickets than angels.” - Walter de la Mare

14. “Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.” - Margaret Mead

15. “For it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose.” - Marcus Aurelius

16. “We are sun and moon, dear friend; we are sea and land. It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is: each the other's opposite and complement.” - Hermann Hesse

17. “I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.” - Theodore Roosevelt

18. “I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of catfish.” - Edith Sitwell

19. “You swallow hard when you discover that the old coffee shop is now a chain pharmacy, that the place where you first kissed so-and-so is now a discount electronics retailer, that where you bought this very jacket is now rubble behind a blue plywood fence and a future office building. Damage has been done to your city. You say, ''It happened overnight.'' But of course it didn't. Your pizza parlor, his shoeshine stand, her hat store: when they were here, we neglected them. For all you know, the place closed down moments after the last time you walked out the door. (Ten months ago? Six years? Fifteen? You can't remember, can you?) And there have been five stores in that spot before the travel agency. Five different neighborhoods coming and going between then and now, other people's other cities. Or 15, 25, 100 neighborhoods. Thousands of people pass that storefront every day, each one haunting the streets of his or her own New York, not one of them seeing the same thing.” - COLSON WHITEHEAD

20. “It’s probably not just by chance that I’m alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he’s terribly strong. And if he’s stronger than I, I’m the one who can’t live with him. … I’m neither smart nor stupid, but I don’t think I’m a run-of-the-mill person. I’ve been in business without being a businesswoman, I’ve loved without being a woman made only for love. The two men I’ve loved, I think, will remember me, on earth or in heaven, because men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness. I’ve done my best, in regard to people and to life, without precepts, but with a taste for justice.” - Coco Chanel

21. “The things that make me different are the things that make me.” - A. A. Milne

22. “I' is merely one of the world's instantaneous spasms.” - Clarice Lispector

23. “There is not one big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.” - Anais Nin

24. “What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.” - Confucius

25. “There are many who consider as an injury to themselves any conduct which they have a distaste for, and resent it as an outrage to their feelings; as a religious bigot, when charged with disregarding the religious feelings of others, has been known to retort that they disregard his feelings, by persisting in their abominable worship or creed. But there is no parity between the feeling of a person for his own opinion, and the feeling of another who is offended at his holding it; no more than between the desire of a thief to take a purse, and the desire of the right owner to keep it. And a person's taste is as much his own peculiar concern as his opinion or his purse. It is easy for any one to imagine an ideal public, which leaves the freedom and choice of individuals in all uncertain matters undisturbed, and only requires them to abstain from modes of conduct which universal experience has condemned. But where has there been seen a public which set any such limit to its censorship? or when does the public trouble itself about universal experience. In its interferences with personal conduct it is seldom thinking of anything but the enormity of acting or feeling differently from itself; and this standard of judgment, thinly disguised, is held up to mankind as the dictate of religion and philosophy, by nine tenths of all moralists and speculative writers. These teach that things are right because they are right; because we feel them to be so. They tell us to search in our own minds and hearts for laws of conduct binding on ourselves and on all others. What can the poor public do but apply these instructions, and make their own personal feelings of good and evil, if they are tolerably unanimous in them, obligatory on all the world?” - John Stuart Mill

26. “What I was suddenly aware of was the importance of their being whatever each of them was--cocky and contemptuous, or bothered and beaten--as long as it was something they'd come to in their own way: the importance of being human, in fact. The peace and harmony Uncle Ian and the others claimed to be handing out in fact was death, because without being yourself, an individual, you weren't really alive.” - John Christopher

27. “I just never let anything bother me, man. I know myself really well. Nobody's opinion of me can shake my opinion of myself.” - Ruben Studdard

28. “He thought: How difficult it is to explain yourself to yourself. Sometimes there only is, and no knowing.” - Aidan Chambers

29. “I would rather die an individual than live my life as a clone.” - Cristina Marrero

30. “As much as I live I shall not imitate them or hate myself for being different to them” - Orhan Pamuk

31. “It kills me how these days everyone has clinical justification for their strangeness.” - Miguel Syjuco

32. “I'd rather be a freak than a clone.” - Joanne Harris

33. “The worst curse to befall anyone is stagnation, a banal existence, the quiet desperation that comes out of a need for conformity. ” - Deepak Chopra

34. “I wore black because I liked it. I still do, and wearing it still means something to me. It's still my symbol of rebellion -- against a stagnant status quo, against our hypocritical houses of God, against people whose minds are closed to others' ideas.” - Johnny Cash

35. “One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.” - Robert Frost

36. “I want you to stop being subhuman and become 'yourself'. 'Yourself,' I say. Not the newspaper you read, not your vicious neighbor's opinion, but 'yourself.' I know, and you don't, what you really are deep down. Deep down, you are what a deer, your God, your poet, or your philosopher is. But you think you're a member of the VFW, your bowling club, or the Ku Klux Klan, and because you think so, you behave as you do. This too was told you long ago, by Heinrich Mann in Germany, by Upton Sinclair and John Dos Passos in the United States. But you recognized neither Mann nor Sinclair. You recognize only the heavyweight champion and Al Capone. If given your choice between a library and a fight, you'll undoubtedly go to the fight.” - Wilhelm Reich

37. “To be a jazz freedom fighter is to attempt to galvanize and energize world-weary people into forms of organization with accountable leadership that promote critical exchange and broad reflection. The interplay of individuality and unity is not one of uniformity and unanimity imposed from above but rather of conflict among diverse groupings that reach a dynamic consensus subject to questioning and criticism. As with a soloist in a jazz quartet, quintet or band, individuality is promoted in order to sustain and increase the creative tension with the group--a tension that yields higher levels of performance to achieve the aim of the collective project. This kind of critical and democratic sensibility flies in the face of any policing of borders and boundaries of "blackness", "maleness", "femaleness", or "whiteness".” - Cornel West

38. “Whatever does not pretend at all has style enough.” - Booth Tarkington

39. “In reaction against the age-old slogan, "woman is the weaker vessel," or the still more offensive, "woman is a divine creature," we have, I think, allowed ourselves to drift into asserting that "a woman is as good as a man," without always pausing to think what exactly we mean by that. What, I feel, we ought to mean is something so obvious that it is apt to escape attention altogether, viz: (...) that a woman is just as much an ordinary human being as a man, with the same individual preferences, and with just as much right to the tastes and preferences of an individual. What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

40. “Even despotism does not produce its worst effects, so long as individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.” - John Stuart Mill

41. “I don't fit into any stereotypes. And I like myself that way.” - C. JoyBell C.

42. “Sleep my little baby-ohSleep until you wakenWhen you wake you'll see the worldIf I'm not mistaken...Kiss a loverDance a measure,Find your nameAnd buried treasure...Face your lifeIts pain, Its pleasure,Leave no path untaken.” - Neil Gaiman

43. “To find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is needed; and suddenly we realize how uncommonly difficult the discovery of individuality is.” - C.G. Jung

44. “Don't you ever let a soul in the world tell you that you can't be exactly who you are.” - Lady Gaga

45. “Individuality or Unity? I say there's room for both.” - Brian Celio

46. “When someone loves you, the way they talk about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable.” - Jess C. Scott

47. “You laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at you because you're all the same.” - Jonathan Davis

48. “Nie, nie ludzie w naszym kraju nie mają umiejętności zrzeszania się i tworzenia wspólnoty, nawet pod sztandarem prawdziwka. To kraj neurotycznych indywidualistów, z których każdy, gdy tylko znajdzie się wśród innych, zaczyna ich pouczać, krytykować, obrażać i okazywać im swoją niewątpliwą wyższość.” - Olga Tokarczuk

49. “Who would guess," he teased, "that I'd ever see you on a rooftop with straw in your hair?"Kit giggled. "Are you saying I've turned into a crow?""Not exactly." His eyes were intensely blue with merriment. "I can still see the green feathers if I look hard enough. But they've done their best to make you into a sparrow, haven't they?” - Elizabeth George Speare

50. “We are flawed creatures, all of us. Some of us think that means we should fix our flaws. But get rid of my flaws and there would be no one left.” - Sarah Vowell

51. “Ja uopšte mislim da najčudniji ljudi izgledaju vrlo konvencionalno, vrlostandardno. Jer čovek koji je zaista čudan iznutra, onaj koji je u dubokomnesporazumu sa svetom koji ga ne prihvata i ne shvata, ne oseća nikakvupotrebu da se ukrašava spolja, da privlači ičiju pažnju. Naprotiv! On želida se sakrije. Ima li čudnijeg ljudskog stvorenja od Kafke, na primer, a onje gotovo čitavog života radio u jednom osiguravajućem društvu u Pragu,ne razlikujući se spolja od ostalih činovnika.” - Momo Kapor

52. “Autists are the ultimate square pegs, and the problem with pounding a square peg into a round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. It's that you're destroying the peg.” - Paul Collins

53. “Any fool can do something cool and look cool, but it takes skill to make something uncool cool again.” - Criss Jami

54. “Christ delves far beyond the means of superficiality, not simply because of his immaculate love, but also because he considers the distinct cases of each individual rather than withholding a broadened perception by use of stereotypes.” - Criss Jami

55. “Dance above the surface of the world. Let your thoughts lift you into creativity that is not hampered by opinion.” - Red Haircrow

56. “In yourself right now is all the place you've got.” - Flannery O'Connor

57. “Phoebe Marks was a person who never lost her individuality. Silent and self-contained, she seemed to hold herself within herself, and take no colour from the outer world.” - Mary Elizabeth Braddon

58. “Human groupings have one main purpose: to assert everyone’s right to be different, to be special, to think, feel and live in his or her own way. People join together in order to win or defend this right. But this is where a terrible, fateful error is born: the belief that these groupings in the name of a race, a God, a party or a State are the very purpose of life and not simply a means to an end. No! The only true and lasting meaning of the struggle for life lies in the individual, in his modest peculiarities and in his right to these peculiarities.” - Vasily Grossman

59. “This is a perfectly good picture. And if I didn't know you, I would be impressed and charmed. But I do know you."He thought some more, wondering whether he dared say precisely what he felt, for he knew he could never explain exactly why the idea came to him. "It's the painting of a dutiful daughter," he said eventually, looking at her cautiously to see her reaction. "You want to please. You are always aware of what the person looking at this picture will think of it. Because of that you've missed something important. Does that make sense?"She thought, then nodded. "All right," she said grudgingly and with just a touch of despair in her voice. "You win."Julien grunted. "Have another go, then. I shall come back and come back until you figure it out.""And you'll know?""You'll know. I will merely get the benefit of it.” - Iain Pears

60. “The individuals inside are frequently fighting that their individual voices be heard, while the walls of the place, which are the mask, and the perception, are reluctant to give over to the voices of the individuals. Those in the margins are always trying to get to the center, and those at the center, frequently in the name of tradition, are trying to keep the margins at a distance. Part of the identity of a place is the tension between those in the margins, and those in the center, and they all live behind the walls which wear the tradition.” - Anna Deveare Smith

61. “I want a simple, ordinary life . . . like humans enjoy.” - Deborah Harkness

62. “I’d love to step off this well-trodden straight and boring path. To somehow live differently, think different thoughts, feel different feelings than others. It wouldn’t bother me to be as alone as a tree on the plains. My leaves would be like no other tree’s.” - Gyula Krúdy

63. “Sem indivíduos, vemos apenas números: mil mortos, cem mil mortos, «as mortes podem chegar a um milhão». Com as histórias individuais, as estatísticas transformam-se em pessoas - mas até isso é mentira, pois as pessoas continuam a sofrer em números que são, em si mesmos, entorpecedores e desprovidos de significado.” - Neil Gaiman

64. “To live in any true sense of the word is to reject others; to accept them, one must be able to renounce, to do oneself violence, to act against one's own nature, to weaken oneself; we conceive freedom only for ourselves - we extend it to our neighbours only at the cost of exhausting efforts; whence the precariousness of liberalism, a defiance of our instincts, a brief and miraculous success, a state of exception, at the antipodes of our deepest imperatives.” - Emil Cioran

65. “tetaplah prinsipil walau berada diantara berbagai pemikiran yang bertolak belakang” - Kartika Nirmala 2012

66. “The political problem of mankind is to combine three things: economic efficiency, social justice and individual liberty.” - John Maynard Keynes

67. “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

68. “People need to learn how to take the role of leader out of God's hands.” - Lionel Suggs

69. “You are not who you think you are.” - Silvia Hartmann

70. “You are the gift that only you would have to give.” - Silvia Hartmann

71. “Nothing is the same.” - Silvia Hartmann

72. “See with your own eyes, hear with your own ears, think your own thoughts, say what you must say, do what you must do, love all that you can and stand on your own two feet.” - Paul Palnik

73. “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” - Rudyard Kipling

74. “I cannot say this too strongly: Do not compare yourselves to others. Be true to who you are, and continue to learn with all your might.” - Daisaku Ikeda

75. “When you're the only sane person, you look like the only insane person.” - Criss Jami

76. “People worried about our passing over into some robotic state, but we were so much like robots already, programmed and easy to manipulate.” - Dave Eggers

77. “To exist is to stand out, away from the background," The Preacher said. "You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.” - Frank Herbert

78. “The authentic human has the might of compassion and the creative power to do any manner of good.” - Bryant McGill

79. “The worst thing to call somebody is crazy, it's dismissive. 'But I don't understand this person', so they're crazy. That's bullshit cause people are not crazy, they strong people, maybe their environment is a little sick.” - Dave Chapelle