#conform

I took the other road, all right, but only because it was the easy road for me, the way I wanted to go. If I've encountered some unnecessary resistance that's because most of the traffic is going the other way. ↗

— Edward Abbey

#life #nonconformity #life

But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice ↗

— Ayn Rand

#groupthink #masses #men

The simplistic way of not conforming is to see what is in style in our culture and then do the opposite. If short hair is in vogue, the nonconformist wears long hair. If going to the movies is popular, then Christians avoid movies as “worldly.” The extreme case of this may be seen in groups that refuse to wear buttons or use electricity because such things, too, are worldly. A superficial style of nonconformity is the classical pharisaical trap. The kingdom of God is not about buttons, movies, or dancing. The concern of God is not focused on what we eat or what we drink. The call of nonconformity is a call to a deeper level of righteousness, that goes beyond externals. When piety is defined exclusively in terms of externals, the whole point of the apostle’s teaching has been lost. Somehow we have failed to hear Jesus’ words that it is not what goes into a person’s mouth that deflies a person, but what comes out of that mouth. We still want to make the kingdom a matter of eating and drinking. ↗

— R.C. Sproul

#nonconformity #movies

The trouble with this world is that everybody has to compromise and conform. ↗

— Tennessee Williams

#conformity

to be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its’ best, night and day, to make you just like everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ↗

— E.E. Cummings

#identity #non-conformity #pressures #truth #conformity

The urge to shout filthy words at the top of his voice was as strong as ever. ↗

— George Orwell

#conformity #control #profanity #sexuality #conformity

It is simply wrong to begin with a theme, symbol or other abstract unifying agent, and then try to force characters and events to conform to it. ↗

— Thomas Pynchon

#conformity

perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#individualism #conformity

If a man does not keep pace with his companion, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#individuality #conformity

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

— Criss Jami

#cool #coolness #fool #independence #individuality