Kofi Annan Quotes

Didn't this beat everything? A pretty and an ugly taking a stroll together. The warden came closer, confusion all over his middle-pretty face. Tally smiled. At least she was causing trouble to the end. "I'm Tally Youngblood," she said. "Make me pretty.

Everyone's got skeletons in their closet, and I've got a million in mine, believe me. I tested the envelope; I pushed it. Whenever somebody in authority told me not to do something, I did it just to find out why they said not to do it.

I remember in seventh grade we used to wear lipstick to school, and the teachers would get so angry, and they'd steal our lipstick if we had them.

Bandwagons roll through our lives. It's up to you whether you jump on them unquestioningly or jump on them to overturn them and subvert them.

I did fine in school. School was cool until I started personally rebelling.

From childhood, we're trained to be a certain way, to behave a certain way - so that the power base can control us, really. And punk and drag are completely outside of that.

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

I didn’t write the rules. Why would I follow them?

What did you learn in school that you still use today? Go ahead teachers, tell me. What? Fear, conformity, don't question authority.

Invent nothing, deny nothing, speak up, stand up, stay out of school.

I didn't break the rules, but I challenged the rules.

Curiosity and irreverence go together. Curiosity cannot exist without the other. Curiosity asks, "Is this true?" "Just because this has always been the way, is the best or right way of life, the best or right religion, political or economic value, morality?" To the questioner, nothing is sacred. He detests dogma, defies any finite definition of morality, rebels against any repression of a free, open search of ideas no matter where they may lead. He is challenging, insulting, agitating, discrediting. He stirs unrest.

We do not need to teach students to embrace the status quo.

I was a real rebel. I got expelled.

A lot of people believe that if everybody just did what they were told - obeyed - everything would be fine. But that's not what life is all about. That's not real. It's never going to happen.

I was seen in earlier years by family members and people of authority as somebody wasting his time. I had trouble with the restrictions of conformity. It made me edgy.

At the Harvard Business School, I really felt I had gained the ability to resolve difficult issues. But I also felt that I wasn't in the mainstream with my fellow students. During job-hunting season, for example, everybody shaved their beards for interviews. I thought, 'This is crazy.' So I grew a beard.

Any pigeonhole is something to be rebelled against.

I didn't have my parents to rebel against, but I had society, and that definitely is what they taught me. Just: Trust nothing.

Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.

People look at me, they know I've appeared in costume dramas and they automatically assume I must be a Tory, I must be a certain type of person. Not a lot of people would think that I spent most of my early years totally rebelling against anything I could, getting suspended from school, going on demonstrations. I was a pretty difficult teenager.

As soon as a norm is established, people start questioning it, which is probably a good thing in the end.

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

I don't push buttons to push buttons. Throwing the rebel card out there is really cheap.

I always wanted to go against hat grain because it was too restricting.