Michel de Montaigne Quotes

Conformity is dangerous.

Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it, and a lethargy steals over all the finer nerves and faculties of the soul. She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous, and indifferent.

The enemy of individuality is groupthink.

The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.

The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

I think a lot of people have lost respect for the individual, you know, the individual, the person who doesn't conform.

Working in lock-step simply isn't a good idea. Never has been, never will be.

People relate to the spirit of the band, which is to live your way and succeed on your own terms. There's no hypocrisy in being successful and still railing against conformity.

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.

I try to not focus on what people expect from me.

Some people still believe you should just fall in line with what's going on - and that's scary. It makes a mockery of freedom of speech.

Rules are made for people who aren't willing to make up their own.

Unless you hit your television with a sledgehammer, you're not going to be able to be an individual.

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

It is a retrogression when human beings begin to insist on uniform, on one-mindedness, on conditioning their offspring so that all their reactions are automatic.

Teach him to think for himself? Oh, my God, teach him rather to think like other people!

Personally, I think the best motto for an educational establishment is: 'Or Would You Rather Be a Mule?'

Society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal impulses and preferences.

Patterning your life around other's opinions is nothing more than slavery.

The burden of originality is one that most people don't want to accept. They'd rather sit in front of the TV and let that tell them what they're supposed to like, what they're supposed to buy, and what they're supposed to laugh at.

Many of us will endure a lifetime following others. Institutionalisation suits many but not all. Some of us thrive beyond those boundaries.

I'd never jump on a bandwagon; sometimes people do that and it's not what I wanted to do.

If you live your life by what others say, it stops being your life.

We never want to toe the line.