#conform

[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

#individuality #individuals #self #uniqueness #life

We must beware of yielding to the pressure of a spirit of cowardly conformity which proclaims itself everybody's friend in the hope that everybody will obligingly return the compliment. ↗

— Antonin Sertillanges

#distinct #non-conformity #life

We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything, than when we are at play. ↗

— Charles Schaefer

#freedom #fun #maturity #orthodoxy #play

We are not supposed to all be the same, feel the same, think the same, and believe the same. The key to continued expansion of our Universe lies in diversity, not in conformity and coercion. Conventionality is the death of creation. ↗

— Anthon St. Maarten

#conformity #conventionality #creation #diversity #expansion

I am not a number; I am a free man. ↗

— Patrick McGoohan

#freedom #individuality #nonconformity #the-prisoner #freedom

Giving style” to one’s character - a great and rare art! It is exercised by those who see all the strengths and weaknesses of their own natures and then comprehend them in an artistic plan until everything appears as art and reason and even weakness delights the eye. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#courage #individuality #nonconformity #self-freedom #truth-to-self

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

#imagination #mankind #imagination

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 ... ↗

— Craig E. Johnson

#context #culture #small-groups #leadership

Seeds have the power to preserve species, to enhance cultural as well as genetic diversity, to counter economic monopoly and to check the advance of conformity on all its many fronts. ↗

— Michael Pollan

#garden #gardening #nature #nonconformity #preservation

A sure way of retaining the grace of heaven is to disregard outward appearances, and diligently to cultivate such things as foster amendment of life and fervour of soul, rather than to cultivate those qualities that seem most popular. ↗

— Thomas à Kempis

#nonconformity #popularity #soul #life