453 Quotes About Conformity

Who was I fooling, telling my heart to quiet its beautiful song so I could march in the parade of conformity? My biggest fool was me.

The essence of the Christian life is not attending meetings or even praying and fasting. The essence of the Christian life is looking intently for bits of God in everything and everyone, everyday, so that you see him a little more clearly, everyday, so that he becomes a little more dear to you, everyday. The essence of the Christian life is being unwilling to close your eyes at night until, having seen a little more of him, you have become a little more like him.

What I’m starting to realize is that when you conform, people are not accepting you for who you are. They’re accepting you for who they think you are.

The relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.

Happiness is not intelligence. You can be in a group of happy people, but they may be miles off course.

Ideological conformity depends on conditions of prosperity; it has no staying-power of its own.

We conform to pain until we don't notice it anymore; it's what you call — numb — and it tragically blots out our pleasure too.

They need a social mechanism to make us require conformity of one other, and the best way to do that is to provide a mechanism to make us punish our own deviants.

When I understand that everything happening to me is to make me more Christlike, it resolves a great deal of anxiety.