Quotes & Sayings About Individuality Vs. Conformity

If you design a system to do something specific, don't be surprised if it does it. If you run an education system based on standardization and conformity that suppresses individuality, imagination, and creativity, don't be surprised it that's what it does. — Ken Robinson

We are free to live the life we have imagined, not the life imagined for us. — Chris Matakas

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

The achievement of psychological maturity is an individual task-and so is increasingly difficult today when man's individuality is threatened by widespread conformity. — C. G. Jung

I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself. — Rita Mae Brown

Remember, the opposite of bravery is not cowardice, but conformity. — Gayle Forman

Instead of celebrating what makes each child unique, most parents push their children to "fit in" so that they don't "stick out." This unwittingly stomps out individuality and encourages conformity, despite these parents' good intentions — Tom Rath

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

As much as I live I shall not imitate them or hate myself for being different to them — Orhan Pamuk

You laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at you because you're all the same. — Jonathan Davis

It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations
past and present
are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millenia. — Eric Hoffer

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

[E]ach of our voices has something unique to say. Not only should I not mold my life to the demands of external conformity; I can't even find the model by which to live outside myself. I can only find it within. — Charles Taylor

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

I meant does it hurt when you hide every last shred of your individuality and self worth behind acres of silk and cups of powder and smiles that never, no matter how hard you try, reach your eyes? — Melissa De La Cruz

A self that is only differentiated - not integrated - may attain great individual accomplishments, but risks being mired in self-centered egotism. By the same token, a person who self is based exclusively on integration will be well connected and secure, but lack autonomous individuality. Only when a person invests equal amounts of psychic energy in these two processes and avoids both selfishness and conformity is the self likely to reflect complexity. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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

Now they were satisfied to express their individuality through which Rogers they preferred at the Saturday matinee: Ginger or Roy or Buck. America may be the land of opportunity, but in New York it's the shot at conformity that pulls them through the door — Amor Towles

Nowadays, ads don't just sell a product. They sell an attitude! Look at this one! Here's a cool guy saying nobody tells him what to do. He does whatever he wants and he buys this product as a reflection of that independence. So basically, this maverick is urging everyone to express his individuality through conformity in brand-name selection? — Bill Watterson

A human being who trades away individuality for conformity is nothing but a slave. — Auliq Ice

I imagine a school system that recognizes learning is natural, that a love of learning is normal, and that real learning is passionate learning. A school curriculum that values questions above answers ... creativity above fact regurgitation ... individuality above conformity.. and excellence above standardized performance ... And we must reject all notions of 'reform' that serve up more of the same: more testing, more 'standards', more uniformity, more conformity, more bureaucracy. — Tom Peters

American culture is a sheep culture - long on talk about individualism, but even longer on absolute conformity. Most still believe that individuality is based on which model car you like best - commodity identity, a selection of personalities on a shelf full of products approved by the Federal Identity Administration. I'm a Taurus aspiring to be a Lexus. — Stan Goff

But human beings are not machines, and however powerful the pressure to conform, they sometimes are so moved by what they see as injustice that they dare to declare their independence. In that historical possibility lies hope. — Howard Zinn

Because of the almost irresistible pull toward conformity in modern society, what we shall call 'existential individuality' is an achievement, and not a permanent one at that. We are born biological beings but we must become existential individuals by accepting responsibility for our actions. This is an application of Nietzsche's advice to 'become what you are'. Many people never do acknowledge such responsibility but rather flee their existential individuality into the comfort of the faceless crowd. As — Thomas R. Flynn

I am neither for conformity nor non-conformity. I am for individuality. If one's individuality is in effect non-conformity, then so be it. But basically, one's individuality consists of conformity
to one's self. — Paul Krassner

Schools train you to be ignorant with style [ ... ] they prepare you to be a usable victim for a military industrial complex that needs manpower. As long as you're just smart enough to do a job and just dumb enough to swallow what they feed you, you're going to be alright [ ... ] So I believe that schools mechanically and very specifically try and breed out any hint of creative thought in the kids that are coming up. — Frank Zappa

She has never understood, nor been able to relate to a herd mentality. She doesn't get along with followers and avoids the bandwagon. She marches to her own tune and does it alone. She's despised by the weak-minded and respected by the strong. She ruffles the feathers of the flock because she champion's the defenseless and pick's on the mob. Does she wish she could not give a damn and live an ordinary life surrounded by nodding and needy ordinary people? At times ... but she'd be bored out of her mind when she's never bored alone, and because of that she's patient because a couple of times in a lifetime she's lucky enough to come across a memorable, magnetic and remarkable person - one worth knowing, even if just for the brevity of a conversation. — Donna Lynn Hope

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

It is a brave thing to have courage to be an individual; it is also, perhaps, a lonely thing. But it is better than not being an individual, which is to be nobody at all. — Eleanor Roosevelt

Hold everything very carefully unless it is your lover's back. Then, become metal, become teeth, do not gentle yourself for any man. Do not change for the ones who think that
you should be softer, less mouth, less voice. You do not owe regrowth to anyone but yourself. When they begin to ask for you to shape yourself around them, leave. Shut the door firmly. Do not look back. — Azra Tabassum