George Carlin Quotes

I was shocked at college to see one hundred of my classmates in the library all reading copies of the same book. Instead of doing as they did, I went into the stacks and read the first book written by an author whose name began with Z. I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that the institution was not being run correctly. I left.

The 'futures' and 'careers' for which American students now prepare are for the most part intellectual and moral wastelands. This chrome-plated consumers' paradise would have us grow up to be well-behaved children. But an important minority of men and women coming to the front today have shown they will die rather than be standardized, replaceable, and irrelevant.

Don't follow leaders.

Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.

I understand it's difficult but you've got to think about yourself, you know, and not just follow the crowd.

You don't have to burn books, you don't have to rebel against teachers to rebel; to rebel is to truly own your own self.

I do not say think as I think, but think in my way. Fear no shadows, least of all in that great spectre of personal unhappiness which binds half the world to orthodoxy.

It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.

Punk was never about one particular clean-cut imagery... it's about many, many individuals coming very loosely together.

We need more people speaking out. This country is not overrun with rebels and free thinkers. It's overrun with sheep and conformists.

The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.

I don't like anything in the mainstream and they don't like me.

… a controlled disrespect for authority is essential to a scientist.

If I had followed the multitude, I should not have studied philosophy.

I'm a total nonconformist; for me, it's about going down rabbit holes.

I could never understand the herd mentality. I have always fought to do things my way and have stuck to that.

I remember at school one day there was a vocabulary list on the chalkboard, and the word 'nonconformist' was on there, and it said, 'Someone that doesn't appeal to society, someone who doesn't fit in.' We had this whole conversation about it, and I realized it cohered to the punk-rock world that I was into.

No rebellious heart is ever at ease with paths established by others.

In his essay 'Self-Reliance' Emerson wrote, 'Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.' The Apostle Paul reminds us that whoso would be a Christian must also be a a nonconformist. Any Christian who blindly accepts the opinions of the majority and in fear and timidity follows a path of expediency and social approval is a mental and spiritual slave.

The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.

The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.

I think one thing my mother always instilled in me was a sense of individuality. Being an only child, I never thought I had to rely on anyone. I was never afraid to be alone and I was never afraid to be my own person. So when all my friends were like, "Let's smoke weed," I was like, "I'm not doing it." It wasn't because I was trying to be a rebel or because I didn't like it or I was anti-drugs. I just didn't do it because I didn't want to do it, and if I didn't want to do it, I wasn't doing it. That was it.

I do not want to father a flock, to be the fetish of fools and fanatics or the founder of a faith whose followers are content to echo my opinions. I want each man to cut his own way through the jungle.

In my heart I'm independent, a bit of a rebel, a nonconformist.