Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity. ~ Christopher Morley
You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note. ~ Doug Floyd
The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain. ~ Colin Wilson
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking. ~ J.K. Galbraith
The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them. ~ George Bernard Shaw
With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists the small trumpet of your defiance. ~ Norman Mailer
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
In the moment of our creation we receive the stamp of our individuality; and much of life is spent in rubbing off or defacing the impression. ~ Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare
To be dragged in the wake of the passive flock and to pass a hundred and one times beneath the shears of the shepherd, or to die alone like a brave eagle on a rocky crag of a great mountain: that is the dilemma. ~ Praxedis Guerrero
When I was four years old they tried to test my IQ, they showed me this picture of three oranges and a pear. They asked me which one is different and does not belong, they taught me different was wrong. ~ Ani Difranco
Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt. ~ Clarence Darrow
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature. ~ George Bernard Shaw
Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us - and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along. ~ Carl Sagan
The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself. ~ Rita Mae Brown
Labels are for filing. Labels are for clothing. Labels are not for people. ~ Martina Navratilova
Not all those who wander are lost. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. ~ Winston Churchill
Common experience shows how much rarer is moral courage than physical bravery. A thousand men will march to the mouth of the cannon where one man will dare espouse an unpopular cause. ~ Clarence Darrow
If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. ~Anatole France
Just because something is tradition doesn't make it right. ~ Anthony J. D'Angelo
All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. ~ Adlai Stevenson
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. ~ Albert Camus
No man can cause more grief than that one clinging blindly to the vices of his ancestors. ~ William Faulkner
The number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging for themselves is very small indeed. ~ Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them. ~ Albert Einstein, letter to Sigmund Freud, 30 July 1932
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. ~ G.B. Shaw