Best 436 quotes in «conformity quotes» category

Carl Schmitt could boast with some justice that the Nazi revolution was orderly and disciplined. But the reason lies not so much within the Nazis themselves as in the lack of an effective opposition. For millions the Nazi ideology did assuage their anxiety, did end their alienation, and did give hope for a better future. Other millions watched passively, not deeply committed to resistance. "Let them have a chance" was a typical attitude. Hitler took the chance and made the most of it.

Case by case, we find that conformity is the easy way, and the path to privilege and prestige; dissidence carries personal costs that may be severe, even in a society that lacks such means of control as death squads, psychiatric prisons, or extermination camps. The very structure of the media is designed to induce conformity to established doctrine. In a three-minute stretch between commercials, or in seven hundred words, it is impossible to present unfamiliar thoughts or surprising conclusions with the argument and evidence required to afford them some credibility. Regurgitation of welcome pieties faces no such problem.

Christians should be cultural and intellectual thermostats, exulting in opposition, iconoclasm,and balancing insights.

College: two hundred people reading the same book. An obvious mistake. Two hundred people can read two hundred books.

Companies preach creativity, hire for conformity and call consultants when they fail who tell them to be more creative.

Conformity rules society not wisdom or simplicity.

Conformity is a cage that confines our ability to think. It is a cage that hinders growth and deters individualism

Conformity is a problem for many small groups. Members put a higher priority on cohesion than on coming up with a well-reasoned choice. They pressure dissenters, shield themselves from negative feedback, keep silent when they disagree ...

Conformity is often more dangerous than war. War destroys the body but confomity destoys the imaginative mind.

Conformity makes us blind. Our unwillingness to change keeps us blind.

Conform and be dull.

Conformity is a machine for creating boredom.

Conformity is a type of calm where you hover motionless on the edge of a scream that never comes.

Convention (is) so often a mask for injustice.

Convention, like Saturn, is a jealous god and eats its babies.

Courage is being yourself in a world that almost seems to endorse conformity.

Decadence, decadence, he said to himself. They’ve lost everything and gained nothing. The French had merely daubed on the finishing touches at the end of a process which had begun five hundred years ago, at least. Their intuitive moral desires coincided with the ideals embodied in the formulas of their religion, yet they could live in accordance neither with those deepest impulses nor with the precepts of the religion, because society came in between with all the pressure of its tradition. No one could afford to be honest or generous or merciful because every one of them distrusted all the others; often they had more confidence in a Christian they were meeting for the first time than in a Moslem they had known for years.

Do not go for conformity that breeds mediocrity! Choose instead to stand for transformation that does not only transforms lives, but true purpose and living as well.

Dehypnotize the world, my friend, and you shall witness the dawn of real religion – the religion, not of books, but of people.

Disrobe both conformity and rebellion to find true independence.

Do not follow conformity toward the darkness. Follow the light of wisdom to fill the world with happiness.

Don Quixote did not sleep at all that night but thought of his lady Dulcinea, in order to conform to what he had read in his books of knights spending many sleepless nights in groves and meadows, turning all their thoughts to memories of their ladies.

Don’t conform to those who have been overwhelmed by the tide of immorality sweeping our country!

Don’t conform. Don’t live in a small dirty pond when the ocean of life is lovingly inviting you.

Don't just conform; ask questions. Don't just believe if it isn't your truth. Don't follow dogma; it is blindness. Just love; don't kill to go to heaven.

Even though we think we have individuality, we still have a herd mentality. We often follow the dare-devil knowing that it is dangerous. We cling to conformity. We only transform when we reach awareness and consciousness. Then we will find true liberty.

Don't stay in the harbour and miss the greatness of the sea. Just because everyone else is anchored, doesn't mean you have to be.

Emily Dickinson sublimely unnames even the blanks.

Freedom began on the day the first sheep wandered away from the herd.

Evil would always come to me disguised in systems and dignified by law.

For the first time, a whole generation had the economic & educational opportunity to turn their backs on the dead end factory jobs of their parents, who, traumatized by two world wars, had responded by creating a safety blanket of conformity.

Free spirits don't run in packs.

Everyone knows that children and teens want to blend in and follow the crowd. And from whom do they learn this lesson? Adults, of course. Let's face it: Americans follow the herd. If you want to be successful, we are told in myriad ways, conformity is the way to go. Look at corporate America, with its "team player" ethic and all the strict rules delineating what you can and cannot wear on Casual Fridays. Consider the cycles of women's fashion, which dictate when square-toed, chunky-heeled shoes are out and when pointy-toed, ankle-straining stilettos are in. And what about best-seller lists and electoral horse-race polls and movie box-office postings? Everyone wants to know what everyone else is reading and seeing and thinking--so that they can go out and read and see and think the very same things themselves. If adults possess this tendency to efface themselves in this way, teenagers have it magnified to the thousandth degree. But studying and following the fashions of the times are not enough; teens also feel a need to be associated with fashionable people--the popular people. Their goal is to crack the glass ceiling that separates mere mortals from the "in" crowd. If they are unsuccessful, and most are, they console themselves with a clique of their own. Even an unpopular clique is, the thinking goes, is better than no clique at all.

for me obedience to another is the decay of self

For true liberation, you do not need to fight. You simply have to change your thoughts and drift away from conformity, comfort, security, and certainty of life and embrace and enjoy the possibilities and magnificence of the uncertainty of life.

From one dog all the dogs bark.

FRUITS AND NUTS Keep jumping around them like monkeys. The clones, Commercialized zombies, And the TV junkies. Keep throwing berries, Twigs, And nuts at them. Until they wake up To see what's up And figure out why We're laughing at 'em.

God’s purpose for us is that we ought to be conformed to the image of His Son. The world may exert its pressure to deform us, but we are told to “be transformed” [Romans 12:2 NIV].

Group pressure is also a fascinating process to watch. Given enough arguments, time, and stress, even the most resolute and determined man can be made fearful enough to completely reverse his ideals to conform with everyone else.

Great people have one thing in common: they do not conform.

Hazel, do you enjoy it?' I paused a second, trying to figure out if my response should be calibrated to please Augustus or his parents. 'Most of the people are really nice,' I finally said.

He who fails to achieve a dream set by himself is more honorable than he who succeeds in achieving a dream set by his society.

(He) committed the cardinal sin in a college atmosphere not only of being different but of being different in a way that left a lot of people with the impression that he thought he was better than they were.

Her mother, by showing her off all through childhood, had trained into her the instinct to defeat the expectations of others.

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.

I became one of those anonymous Americans who tries to keep his mind sharp and inquisitive while performing all the humiliating rituals of the middle class

How could you tell how much of it was lies? It might be true that the average human being was better off now than before the Revolution. The only evidence to the contrary was the mute protest in your own bones, the instinctive feeling that the conditions you lived in were intolerable and that at some other time they must have been different. It struck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness. Life, if you looked about you, bore no resemblance not only to the lies that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals that the Party was trying to achieve. Great areas of it, even for a party member, were neutral and nonpolitical, a matter of slogging through dreary jobs, fighting for a place on the Tube, darning a worn-out sock, cadging a saccharine tablet, saving a cigarette end. The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering--a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons--a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting--three hundred million people all with the same face.

I am not trapped in the wrong body; I am trapped in a world that makes very little space for bodies like mine.

Idolized my innocence, Stole it from me in the end
 Now I’m wide awaken and still paying for the poison they sold me.

Ideological conformity depends on conditions of prosperity; it has no staying-power of its own.