John Taylor Gatto Quotes

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

In a society that tries to standardize thinking, individuality is not highly prized.

The educator should do anything but advise the child to do what everybody does. He should rather rejoice when he sees in the child tendencies to deviation.

When you don't dress like everybody else, you don't have to think like everybody else.

Very few people are original. There's very little original anything out there. Because to be original means you have to stand alone.

The American people ... have a stake in con-conformity, for they know that the American genius is non-conformist.

I make no concessions to conformism.

I don't follow trends. I just do what I like doing.

I never wanted to be like anyone growing up. It's always been about the enjoyment, and I've just never wanted to imitate anyone.

I don't want to be anyone's mimic.

I had my own mind made up in that I was going to do my own thing. I wasn't going to copy from this guy or that guy.

Each individual's way is going to be different. Never follow anybody. That is the greatest calamity that can happen to a man. Once you start following somebody else, you become a carbon copy. You become an imitation.

I think it's very desirable to be an individual and a free thinker.

The function of education is to help you from childhood not to imitate anybody, but be yourself all the time.

Be neither a conformist or a rebel, for they are really the same thing. Find your own path, and stay on it.

Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.

I discovered very early that it wasn't quite enough for me to imitate people.

The kids are not brought up to have minds of their own as individuals.

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.

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

Forget about trying to compete with someone else. Create your own pathway. Create your own new vision.

The supreme lesson of any education should be to think for yourself and to be yourself; absent this attainment, education creates dangerous, stupefying conformity.

I'm very big on doing my own thing.

No, because I don't want to hear what's hot and feel I have to copy it. I'll just make up my own thing.

I've never been resigned to ready-made ideas as I was to ready-made clothes, perhaps because although I couldn't sew, I could think.