Quotes about Nonconformity

You can not live your life just based on what everyone else thinks.

The apostle Paul urges Christians everywhere in all ages to be nonconformists as far as the world system is concerned. We are not to conform. A true Christian, living an obedient life, is a constant rebuke to those who accept the moral standards of this world.

There are those today that say we must do as others do, that we must conform to the world [to win it], that we must swim with the tide, that we must move with the crowd. But the believer should say, "No".

It is easy for Christians to allow themselves to be squeezed into the world's mold... When nonbelievers see nothing different in the lifestyle of believers, they wonder if our profession of faith is sincere.

Unfortunately, the world has taken some of the greatest minds God has given us and locked them up in cages. Most very brilliant or creative people seem strange to ordinary people. Geniuses are almost always outcasts. The intelligent are bullied on the playground. They see the world differently and are shunned for it. They nearly all turn out to be lonely at the least, locked up at the worst. It's human nature to encourage the status quo and shun those who see life differently.

I'm not big on flak jackets and tie-dyed shirts. You know, that's not me.

Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.

Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak. Shall he turn his spring into summer? If the condition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute?

You will never become a category of one if you run with the pack.

How I hate the attitude of ordinary people to life. How I loathe ordinariness! How from my soul I abhor nice simple people, with their eternal price list. It makes my blood boil.

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