#Nonconformity Quotes

“Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind and in contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of an individual”

“Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore it if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.”

“Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.”

“The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future.”

“What forests of laurel we bring, and the tears of mankind, to those who stood firm against the opinion of their contemporaries!”

“Society does not love its unmaskers.”

“To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men - that is genius... Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist... What I must do, is all that concerns me; not what the people think... Nothing can bring you peace but yourself; nothing, but the triumph of principles.”

“Let lovers be crazy, disgraceful and wild Those who fret about such things Aren’t in love.”

“If you would serve your brother it is fit for you to serve him, do not take back your words when you find that prudent people do not commend you. Be true to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant and broken the monotony of a decorous age.”

“As long as I continue to hear 'normal' people telling me I am too childish, I know I'm doing just fine.”

“To be a man is to be a nonconformist.”

“For nonconformity the world will whip you with its displeasure.”

“If you're going to follow your bliss and make a difference in the world, you'll soon learn that you can't follow the herd.”

“Society demands conformity at the expense of individual liberty. Let us be for once a non conformist to be fully alive.”

“I have always marched to my own beat, and most frequently, it was inconsistent not only with my own immediate family, but with my culture as well.”

“He who would be a man must therefore be a non-conformist.”

“A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.”

“I will not descend among professors and capitalists.”

“Real men don't conform to the beliefs of others, even when society has concluded on what is good and true, but maintain the integrity of their own mind.”

“Resist much, obey little.”

“A strong person makes the law and custom null before his own will.”

“It is the dissenter, the theorist, the aspirant, who is quitting this ancient domain to embark on seas of adventure, who engages our interest. Omitting then for the present all notice of the stationary class, we shall find that the movement party divides itself into two classes, the actors, and the students.”

“Hear no evil, speak no evil, and you won't be invited to cocktail parties.”

“So few want to be rebels anymore. And out of those few, most, like myself, scare easily.”

“Genius, like a thunderstorm, comes up against the wind.”

“Geniuses are like thunderstorms: they go against the wind, terrify people, clear the air.”

“The nonconformist and the rebel say all manner of unanswerable things against the existing republic, but discover to our sense no plan of house or state of their own.”

“You pay a certain penalty for going your own way. A lot of people think you're nuts, and you're not as popular with girls as you should be.”

“Society has no bribe for me.”

“You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.”

“When I started writing seriously, I made the major discovery of my life - that I am right and everybody else is wrong if they disagree with me. What a great thing to learn: Don't listen to anyone else, and always go your own way.”

“I don't go by the rule book”

“...why did Plato say that poets should be chased out of the republic? Precisely because every poet and every artist is an antisocial being. He's not that way because he wants to be; he can't be any other way.... and if he really is an artist it is in his nature not to want to be admitted, because if he is admitted it can only mean he is doing something which is understood, approved, and therefore old hat - worthless. Anything new, anything worth doing, can't be recognized.”

“The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific and religious freedom have always been nonconformists.”

“The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.”

“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”

“I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society.”

“The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.”

“I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be made the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats still left to sow before they become submissive members of society. Undoubtedly, all men are not equally fit subjects for civilization; and because the majority, like dogs and sheep, are tame by inherited disposition, this is no reason why the others should have their natures broken that they may be reduced to the same level.”

“But I say to you, my friends, there are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good-will will be maladjusted until the good societies realize.”

“And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money, I don't even want to come in out of the rain.”

“The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists, who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood. The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific and religious freedom have always been nonconformists. In any cause that concerns the progress of mankind, put your faith in the nonconformist!”

“Wherever a man separates from the multitude, and goes his own way in this mood, there indeed is a fork in the road, though ordinary travelers may see only a gap in the paling. His solitary path across lots will turn out the higher way of the two.”

“Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much.”

“I'd rather hang out with the losers that would sit and smoke a cigarette than the ones who wanted to throw a baseball.”

“What have I to do with plows? I cut another furrow than you see.”

“The Great Man... is colder, harder, less hesitating, and without fear of 'opinion'; he lacks the virtues that accompany respect and 'respectability,' and altogether everything that is the 'virtue of the herd.' If he cannot lead, he goes alone... He knows he is incommunicable: he finds it tasteless to be familiar... When not speaking to himself, he wears a mask. There is a solitude within him that is inaccessible to praise or blame.”

“I am not bigoted enough for a system-and not even for my system.”

“March to the beat of your own drummer.”

“He who strays from the customary becomes a sacrifice to the extraordinary; he who keeps to the customary becomes its slave. He iscondemned to perish in either case.”