John Lennon Quotes

Men are destroyed for being rebellious, and women destroy themselves by failing to be rebellious. Unless you can make that next jump to either getting along with people or resisting people, you are ultimately destroying yourself.

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

How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.

There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy.

I'm such a Goody Two-shoes, but I get a vicarious thrill at someone sticking it to the Man.

When there is a huge force pressing down on freedoms, sub-cultures with more creativity and power are likely to form.

I just felt like I was making people angry because I wouldn't wear the frilly bows.

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

The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, the finish by loading honors on your head.

If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.

No one can go on being a rebel too long without becoming an autocrat.

Disparaging public opinion is ... a necessary prelude to ignoring it.

Conformity is painful. You know, it's too tight. Conformity leads to rebellion. So a desire for happiness is in direct conflict with a desire for freedom.

I'm done with rules that are there just to be rules.

Woe betide the man who refuses to conform.

Too fat, too thin, too loud, too quiet - I was never going to fit the standards others created for me. Instead of complying, I protested.

How can we choose to selectively follow what we find comfortable and attack anybody who tries to break free from the norms that we choose to set?

I am an enemy of the State. But isn't everyone?

Who do you think is more difficult to face: oppressive governments, or oppressive societies?

Non-conformity is the only real passion worth being ruled by.

All in all you're just another brick in the wall

Children live in occupied territory. The brave and the foolhardy openly rebel against authority, whether harsh or benign. But most tread warily, outwardly accommodating themselves to alien mores and edicts while living in secret their iconoclastic and subversive lives.

Each man too is a tyrant in tendency, because he would impose his idea on others; and their trick is their natural defence. Jesuswould absorb the race; but Tom Paine or the coarsest blasphemer helps humanity by resisting this exuberance of power.

Long live freedom and damn the ideologies.