W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

Tend to choose what is popular over what is right when they are in conflict. They desire to fit in both at church and outside of church; they care more about what people think of their actions (like church attendance and giving) than what God thinks of their hearts and lives.

There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.

Now, in music, it seems more like the popular crowd suppresses anyone who is different.

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

People tell you what you have to wear and do, and I've never been a fan of it.

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'm not out here trying putting on an act like I'm crazy. In my opinion, everyone else is crazy. They're the ones who put on an act for you, doing what they're told in front of the camera.

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

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?

It's easy to assume people are conforming when we witness them all choosing the same option, but when we choose that very option ourselves, we have no shortage of perfectly good reasons for why we just happen to be doing the same thing as those other people; they mindlessly conform, but we mindfully choose. This doesn't mean that we're all conformists in denial. It means that we regularly fail to recognize that others' thoughts and behaviors are just as complex and varied as our own. Rather than being alone in a crowd of sheep, we're all individuals in sheep's clothing.

We are not attracted to people because they are virtuous. In fact, there's something a little creepy about people who are too good. There is a big draw to people who are successful at breaking the rules. That means we end up admiring a lot of people that we think we shouldn't.

People tell me what to do every single day. They think I'm boring. I'm Disney kid. So, there's that.

I get slightly irritated by people who say they're natural rebels because it just means that they're going to be against whatever anybody does, which is almost like saying you might as well leave it as it is. I'm naturally quite conformist, really. If I go to a country and they say, "You've got to drive on the right," I'm not going to drive on the left to show that I'm different. I'm able to stick to the law. I'm not a soldier for anything, either. I'm only a singer and I don't think it makes a difference what we sing.

It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.

In the 1950s that tug-of-war between the expectations of behaving normally and the limitlessness of thinking freely produces some very strange characters.

A lot of what we say and do are regurgitated things that have to do with what we think we're supposed to be saying and doing.

I went to public school for like, one day. I don't get it. Everybody tries to be exactly the same. I think being an outsider is a good thing.

In fashion, there are so many gangs, if you identify too much with one, you get caught - I would lose my freedom.

Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to drink other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits.

At every point I am besieged by people who would like me to conform to some social norm of whatever sort of social group they expect me to be a part of. I never have any identification with these social groups.

I'm not really rebellious. People think I am, but I'm not.

He who goes against the fashion is himself its slave.

It is hard to be an individual in Japan.

In the age of the individual's liquidation, the question of individuality must be raised anew.

Bandwagons roll through our lives. It's up to you whether you jump on them unquestioningly or jump on them to overturn them and subvert them.