#conform

I am not a number; I am a free man. ↗

— Patrick McGoohan

#freedom #individuality #nonconformity #the-prisoner #freedom

Seeds have the power to preserve species, to enhance cultural as well as genetic diversity, to counter economic monopoly and to check the advance of conformity on all its many fronts. ↗

— Michael Pollan

#garden #gardening #nature #nonconformity #preservation

He who joyfully marches to music rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. ↗

— Albert Einstein

#morality #murder #obedience #patriotism #war

Conformity—the natural instinct to passively yield to that vague something recognized as authority. ↗

— Mark Twain

#nature

My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day. I told them this story: In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day. ↗

— Tom Waits

#individuality #music #musician #non-conformity #humor

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#conformity #fool #foolishness #law #rule

It's weird not to be weird. ↗

— John Lennon

#individualism #paradox #individuality

As much as I live I shall not imitate them or hate myself for being different to them ↗

— Orhan Pamuk

#difference #imitation #individuality #conformity

If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good. ↗

— Thomas J. Watson

#conformity #counted #down #flattened #from time to time

Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively. ↗

— Dalai Lama XIV

#rules #rules