Robert M. Hutchins Quotes

I despise followers of any kind, especially those who follow me.

A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that 'individuality' is the key to success.

You are not a special snowflake.

There is nothing in the world that I loathe more than group activity, that communal bath where the hairy and slippery mix in a multiplication of mediocrity.

What concerns me, is the general social tendency to enforce a level, above which nothing rises and stands out.

When I die, I want to be the only person in the world not to have seen 'The Sound Of Music.'

It's more than magnificent - it's mediocre.

Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else

I have always been in the minority, even when I was in the majority.

There are those whose own vulgar normality is so apparent and stultifying that they strive to escape it. They affect flamboyant behaviour and claim originality according to the fashionable eccentricities of their time. They claim brains or talent or indifference to mores in desperate attempts to deny their own mediocrity.

We actually became just what it was that we'd set out to make fun of.

If you see somebody dressing like me, you know they're purposely trying to dress like me because I dress like nothing.

I don't want to be special.

I started out making fun of comedy. Then I became the thing I was making fun of.

The more you are like me, the less interested in my band you are.

The first effect of adjusting to other people is that one becomes boring.

And meanwhile the sad truth was that not everyone could be extraordinary, not everyone could be extremely cool; because whom would this leave to be ordinary?

I just got this new camera. It's very advanced - you don't even need it.

The reason they want you to fit in... is that once you do, then they can ignore you.

If everybody likes you, you're pretty dull.

I'm a jerk, that's who I am. I'm like everybody else.

You can’t be a non-conformist if you don’t wear the proper uniform.

It seems unfortunate that strong people are usually so disagreeable and overbearing that no one cares for them. In fact, to be different from your fellow creatures is always a misfortune.

I do think ordinariness is, in a way, the enemy, but not ordinariness as the opposite of flamboyance.

The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others.