J. B. Priestley Quotes

To belong to the masses is the great longing of the 'alienated' intellectual.

Why should we pay so much attention to what the majority thinks?

When you do not name a group of people, you are compelled to look at each individual face and not treat them all as the mass.

Also in contemporary Western society the union with the group is the prevalent way of overcoming separateness. It is a union which the individual self disappears to a large extent, and where the aim is to belong to the heard. If I am like everybody else, if I have no feeling or thoughts which make me different, if I conform in custom, dress, ideas, to the pattern of the group, I am saved: saved from the frightening experience of aloneness.

It didn't matter that I wore clothes from Sears; I was still different. I looked different. My name was different. I wanted to pull away from the things that marked my parents as being different.

I was just another girl.

I am against the whole cliche of the moment.

You don't have to be a certain thing to be cool. If you're white, you don't have to act black or whatever. Just be you and know who you are.

In the society, where people are just parts in a larger machine, individuals are unable to develop fully.

Consensus is what many people say in chorus but do not believe as individuals.

It's misleading to essentialize an entire society as if it were a single mind.

I still never get recognized. Small, bald white guys like myself - we all kind of look the same.

In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.

I felt that there were so many people doing it that I would just be like one of the others.

Married, you're basically part of the herd, and that makes life easier in a lot of ways in terms of social support. But if you're not by nature a herd animal, you start to feel like you're passing.

It's a bit weird; everybody is trying to be different, but then they're exactly the same as whatever mob they hang out with.

We like to be in touch with our fans, but we're also very private. 'Cause, to us, it's not about Zacky or M. Shadows or Synyster Gates. It's about Avenged Sevenfold; it's more important than any one of us.

People aren't grapes - you can't weigh them in a bunch, but I guess it's easier than dealing with people as individuals.

If by the people you understand the multitude, the hoi polloi, 'tis no matter what they think; they are sometimes in the right, sometimes in the wrong; their judgment is a mere lottery.

I don't belong to any side. What's more, I think flags are nothing but painted rags that represent rancid emotions. Just seeing someone wrapped up in one of them, spewing out hymns, badges and speeches, gives me the runs. I've always thought that anyone who needs to join a herd so badly must be a bit of a sheep himself

The human psyche has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta across generations, and the tendency to fasten group labels on people rather than see them as individuals.

The savage hatred I feel for crowds is getting worse, natural enemies that they are of imagination and of thought.

Worship of society and popular opinion is idolatry.

We're so many, we're so hard to distinguish from each other, but we long to be distinguished.

Young people want to look like peas in a pod, and there is no use trying to make them different.