Timothy Leary Quotes

I don't read my books, so I don't allow myself the dangerous luxury of toying with the idea of doing things differently.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.

We may make progress only by freeing ourselves from the rut of the past, but without this rut an orderly society would hardly be possible in the first place.

Familiarity is all the rage. And if you're doing something that doesn't have its rhythms preset, you know, everybody's a little bit uncomfortable.

I've never joined any organization - not even the ones I've organized myself. I prize my own independence too much.

Conservatism and respectability have their values, certainly; but has not the unconventional its values also?

The fear that individuality will be crushed out by the growing 'tyranny' of standardization is the sort of myth which cannot withstand the briefest examination.

As soon as I hear that there's something to get used to, I know that I won't; I sort of pledge myself to not getting used to it.

People, a lot of times, don't like what's different. When it's something different out there, the majority of people will be like 'aww, that's wack!' but if it's regular, plain or a straight through flow, it's easier for them to adapt to, because everyone likes the normal.

Being 'Strictlyfied' is the opposite to who I am normally, but on this show, you definitely have to go with the flow.

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

You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone.

The earth itself is slightly resistant to routine.

Many people feel they are powerless to do anything effective with their lives. It takes courage to break out of the settled mold, but most find conformity more comfortable. This is why the opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it's conformity.

If there had been no troublemakers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.

It doesn't occur to me at this moment to say more; another time, perhaps tomorrow, I may have more to say, but always the same thing and about the same, for only gypsies, robber gangs and swindlers follow the adage that where a person has once been he is never to go again.

In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service.

Change is freedom, change is life. It's always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe hierarchy and settle in. Don't make changes, don't risk disapproval, don't upset your syndics. It's always easiest to let yourself be governed. There's a point, around age twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities. Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I'm going to go fulfil my proper function in the social organism. I'm going to go unbuild walls.

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.

Any man that resists the present tides that run in the world, will find himself thrown upon a shore so high and barren that it will seem he has been separated from his human kind forever.

Times have changed, but people don't change. That's why ON THE ROAD has never been irrelevant.

I hate to do what I'm told, that's why I'm not good at 9-to-5s.

The other producer of old age is habit: the deathly process of doing the same thing in the same way at the same hour day after day, first from carelessness, then from inclination, at last from cowardice or inertia. Luckily the inconsequent life is not the only alternative; for caprice is as ruinous as routine. Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive.