100 Nonconformist Quotes

Following is our list of nonconformist quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about nonconformity.

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Famous Nonconformist Quotes

Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity. — Eric Hoffer

A free society cherishes nonconformity. It knows from the non-conformist, from the eccentric, have come many of the great ideas. — Henry Steele Commager

He who would be a man must therefore be a non-conformist. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

He who would be a man must therefore be a non-conformist. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nonconformity is the highest evolutionary attainment of social animals. — Aldo Leopold

Great thoughts are against all doctrines of conformity — Austin Osman Spare

Go against the grain, refuse to conform, take the road less traveled instead of the well-beaten path. — Mandy Hale

A contrarian isn’t one who always objects — that’s a conformist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently, from the ground up, and resists pressure to conform. — Naval Ravikant

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

I cannot change the world, but I do not have to conform. — Marva Collins

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. — John F. Kennedy

To some extent, people who are insane are nonconformists, and society and their family wish they would live what appear to be useful lives. — John Forbes Nash

All new ideas begin in a non-conforming mind that questions some tenet of the conventional wisdom. — Hyman Rickover

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

Conformity is the only real fashion crime — Simon Doonan

Short Nonconformist Quotes

  • Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else? — James Thurber
  • You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. — Eric Hoffer
  • In my heart I'm independent, a bit of a rebel, a nonconformist. — Nicole Kidman
  • Talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels. — David Ogilvy
  • Why do you have to a nonconformist like everybody else? — James Thurber
  • To be a man is to be a nonconformist. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Scratch me and you will find the Nonconformist. — Austen Chamberlain
  • One radical free spirit nonconformist is pretty much like another. — George Will
  • Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind. — Gilbert Seldes
  • The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity. — Robert Anthony

Non Conformist Quotes

We live in a society that penalizes highly creative individuals for their non-conformist autonomy. This makes the teaching of problem solving in design both discouraging and difficult. A...student (has) massive blocks against new ways of thinking, engendered by some 16 years of mis-education. — Victor Papanek

All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. All change is the result of a change in the contemporary state of mind. — Adlai E. Stevenson

Rebels and non-conformists are often the pioneers and designers of change. — Indira Gandhi

The Non-Conformist Conscience makes cowards of us all. — Max Beerbohm

Why is it that all non-conformists look the same? — Billy Corgan

Don't you get tired of seeing so many "non-conformists" with the same non-conformist look? — Thomas Sowell

The only true non-conformists are in the asylums; the only radically free spirits are in the death house awaiting the chair. We live by patterns. — Herman Wouk

(...the non-conformist, how do you keep from getting scarred?)/i don’t! i got a scar here…and uh i got a scar on my knee…and uh a few scars on my soul. — Marlon Brando

If children were brought up to become non-conformists it would only ruin their lives. So parents all over China who loved their children told them to do as Chairman Mao said. It was not possible to tell them anything else. — Jung Chang

Society demands conformity at the expense of individual liberty. Let us be for once a non conformist to be fully alive. — Wayne Dyer

Nonconformity Quotes

I am not made like any of those I have seen. I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Be the one who sets the trend, not the one who follows it. — Isaac Mashman

The majority of what you want will come from the minority of what you do. — Gary Keller

The unbeaten brat will remain unlearned. — R.K. Narayan

Innovation and progress are achieved only by those who venture beyond standard operating procedure. — Michael Abrashoff

If you’re even a little bit different than what is considered the norm, then you’re an oddball. — Markiplier

If a warrior is to succeed at anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession. — Carlos Castaneda

When all think alike, then no one is thinking — Walter Lippmann

You may confuse a lot of people when going against the grain of conventional thinking, and that's perfectly okay. — Lewis Howes

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls. — Carl Jung

Non Conformity Quotes

dreaming of the person you want to be is wasting the person you already are. — Kurt Cobain

Go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows. — Rainer Maria Rilke

We come from the mentality, that rarely sees the horror in symmetry or the beauty in non-conformity — Shane Koyczan

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. — Edward R. Murrow

My darling girl, when are you going to understand that "normal" isn't a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage. — Stockard Channing

Since I'm a contrarian, I don't want to go along with what everyone else thinks. — Akira Toriyama

In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. — John Stuart Mill

To be a genuine individualist requires a great deal of strength and courage. It is never easy to chart new territory, to cross new frontiers, or to introduce subtle shadings to an established color. — Toller Cranston

I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine. — Frederick Salomon Perls

I was very far away. My real life had gone underground and could not be seen by anybody. The person at the surface that everybody saw was no longer me. — Philip O Ceallaigh

People Writing About Nonconformist

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson
quotes on love and marriage, nature and self reliance

4234 36527
Read quotes by Eric Hoffer

Eric Hoffer
quotes on leadership, happiness and intelligence

581 4280
Read quotes by James Thurber

James Thurber
quotes on education, life and love

185 1867
Read quotes by Henry Steele Commager

Henry Steele Commager
quotes on america, government and education

34 135
Read quotes by Aldo Leopold

Aldo Leopold
quotes on conservation, hunting

203 1476
Read quotes by Austin Osman Spare

Austin Osman Spare
quotes on death, love

19 356

More Nonconformist Quotes

It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed. — Albert Einstein

My birth sign is Scorpio and they eat themselves up and burn themselves out. I swing between happiness and misery. I am part prude and part nonconformist. I say what I think and I don't pretend and I am prepared to accept the consequences of my actions. — Vivien Leigh

Conformity may give you a quiet life; it may even bring you to a University Chair. But all change in history, all advance, comes from the nonconformists. If there had been no trouble-makers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves. — A. J. P. Taylor

By opening our lives to God in Christ, we become new creatures. This experience, which Jesus spoke of as the new birth, is essential if we are to be transformed nonconformists . . . Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men - that is genius... Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist... What I must do, is all that concerns me; not what the people think... Nothing can bring you peace but yourself; nothing, but the triumph of principles. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yes, I see the Church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists, who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood. The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific and religious freedom have always been nonconformists. In any cause that concerns the progress of mankind, put your faith in the nonconformist! — Martin Luther King, Jr.

If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity. — Bill Vaughan

What a country, and what a culture, when the liberals cry before they are hurt, and the reactionaries pose as brave nonconformists, while the radicals make a fetish of their own jokey irrelevance. — Christopher Hitchens

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific and religious freedom have always been nonconformists. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

The nonconformist here may be "beat down" by life but still has a beauty in his or her longing for freedom and for an awakening of the mind. — William S. Burroughs

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. — Christopher Morley

The business community wants remarkable advertising, but turns a cold shoulder to the kind of people who can produce it. That is why most advertisements are so infernally dull.... our business needs massive transfusions of talent. And talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels. — David Ogilvy

We need to recapture the gospel glow of the early Christians who were nonconformists in the truest sense of the word . . . Their powerful gospel put an end to such barbaric evils as infanticide and bloody gladiatorial contests. Finally, they captured the Roman Empire for Jesus Christ. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Artists should not look to the left or the right. Art should be strong and nonconformist - and most importantly, art should always be personal. — Isa Genzken

Our dourest parsons, who followed the nonconformist fashion of long extemporary prayers, always seemed to me to be bent on bullying God. — J. B. Priestley

Every great historic change has been based on nonconformity, has been bought either with the blood or with the reputation of nonconformists. — Ben Shahn

Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore it if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A rebel is a nonconformist who is constantly saying no, and I'm not that. I'm a conformist and I believe in progress, and you can't make much progress by saying no all the time. A rebel is destructive. I know I have something constructive to offer. — Paul Newman

I grew up in New York City in Greenwich Village and had parents who were somewhat bohemian so I was always on the nonconformist side of the equation. — Anne Waldman

The whole attempt to advance the kind of consumer society that depends for its growth on the ceaseless stimulation of unlimited covetousness among the rich, while the poor majority rot in their poverty-this is surely something against which a Christian should be a nonconformist. — Lesslie Newbigin

When I was in fourth grade, we were learning vocabulary words, and the word nonconformist came up. The teacher said, "It's somebody who whatever everybody is doing, they do the opposite." I remember raising my hand and saying, "Mrs. Christiansen, I would like to be a nonconformist." — Nick Offerman

In almost any society I think, the quality of the nonconformists is likely to be just as good as and no better than that of the conformists. — Margaret Mead

The nonconformist and the rebel say all manner of unanswerable things against the existing republic, but discover to our sense no plan of house or state of their own. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Imagine what it must be like for teenagers who don't feel they have room to breathe in their own homes. If you are a parent reading this book, you care about your child. If she is quirky, unusual, or nonconformist, ask yourself whether you are doing everything you can to nurture her unusual interests, style, or skills, or whether instead you are directly or subtly pushing her to hide them. — Alexandra Robbins

The first step in freeing yourself from social restrictions is the realization that there is no such thing as a safe code of conduct - one that would earn everyone's approval. Your actions can always be condemned by someone - for being too bold or too apathetic, for being too conformist or too nonconformist, for being too liberal or too conservative. So it's necessary to decide whose approval is important to you. — Harry Browne

We as Christians have a mandate to be nonconformists. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Too often an institution serves to bless the majority opinion. Today when too many move to the rhythmic beat of the status quo, whoever would be a Christian must be a nonconformist. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

These unwritten amenities have been in part responsible for giving our people the feeling of independence and self-confidence, the feeling of creativity. These amenities have dignified the right of dissent and have honored the right to be nonconformists and the right to defy submissiveness. They have encouraged lives of high spirits rather than hushed, suffocating silence. — William O. Douglas

In his essay 'Self-Reliance' Emerson wrote, 'Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.' The Apostle Paul reminds us that whoso would be a Christian must also be a a nonconformist. Any Christian who blindly accepts the opinions of the majority and in fear and timidity follows a path of expediency and social approval is a mental and spiritual slave. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

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