Anne Applebaum Quotes

Most people live their life around what other people do.

A big element of what they regard as conformity is simply a desire to have an audience.

Few people can resist doing what is universally expected of them. This invisible pressure is more difficult to stand against than individual tyranny.

When people are free to do as we please, they usually imitate each other.

When in doubt, look at what everyone else is doing.

When we find ourselves in groups or with charismatic individuals, we might do things we wouldn't ordinarily do.

We laugh at sheep because sheep just follow the one in front. We humans have out-sheeped the sheep, because at least the sheep need a sheep dog to keep them in line. Humans keep each other in line. And they do it by ridiculing or condemning anyone who commits the crime, and that’s what it’s become, of being different.

Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.

The only behaviour that is truly common is to avoid doing something because you think others might consider it common.

Conformism is a potent statement, and as much as we do talk about individuality in fashion, there's a sense that people are fearful of not conforming and not being part of action.

Most of us are 'ultraconformists' when it comes to who we are most likely to follow... to socialise with, or even who we are most likely to hire.

Everybody wants to be like everybody else.

I felt that there were so many people doing it that I would just be like one of the others.

Men are herd animals, and prefer to go with the flow, especially when moving in the other direction is harsh.

When all run by common consent into vice, none appear to do so.

Conformity--the natural instinct to passively yield to that vague something recognized as authority.

I don't like going to 155; I do it because everyone else does.

We were born in this society, we grew up in this society. And we learn to be like everyone else, playing nonsense all the time.

I'd rather look ridiculous when everybody else does than plain and sensible all by myself.

Or about how when you're a child, to stop you from following the crowd you're assaulted with the line "If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you?" but when you're an adult and to be different is suddenly a crime, people seem to be saying, "Hey. Everyone else is jumping off a bridge. Why aren't you?

Failing conventionally is the route to go; as a group, lemmings may have a rotten image, but no individual lemming has ever received bad press

Conformity may not always reign in the prosperous bourgeois suburb, but it ultimately always governs.

The only law which is really lived up to wholeheartedly and with a vengeance is the law of conformity.

The problem is that we humans are deep conformists.

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