#conform

But the death of spirit goes by another name. It is usually called the birth of reason. The dreams of reason are, at this late date, everywhere to be seen, much like headstones in a cemetery. The inertia of a standard which prunes every tree to the dimensions of a utility pole will, with the same determination, core the heart out of the human personality. This fermenting mind, intoxicated by its heady sobriety, methodically slits its own throat, all the while mistaking the elongating wound for a smile. When the spirit is free, according to Nietzsche, the head will be the bowels of the heart. In these top heavy days that have turned life topsy-turvy the head has little appetite for freedom. Instead it has developed a taste for coprophagy. ↗

— Ed Lawrence

#freedom #reason #dating

He likes driving very fast on the wrong side of the road," said Sarah. "Which I can completely understand. ↗

— Hilary McKay

#fast #life #nonconformity #family

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

#freedom #independence #individuality #freedom

I always have a problem liking things I'm told I should like. ↗

— Karl Pilkington

#life #liking #relatable #telling #life

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

Every day that we're not practicing godliness we're being conformed to the world of ungodliness around us. ↗

— Jerry Bridges

#conformitying #godliness #life #life

It occurred to the man that the biggest problem with this staid world was the overwhelming demand for conformity. Everything was so eerily definitive: assent to the mandates of society would see you on the rise, but dissent was a steady downward path. ↗

— Django Wylie

#life #life-lessons #puns #wordplay #life

-I have to admit that ever since I started to rip-up the lawns of rich people I have felt a lot calmer! ↗

— Andrew James Pritchard

#meditation #nonconformity #life

It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#men

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