50 Nonconformity Quotes and Sayings

Nonconformity is the non-fulfillment of requirements related to predetermined objectives. Nonconformities are usually called defects, which mean deviations from specifications, expectations, or standards. Discrepancies can be grouped in several ways of seriousness, although a typical classification scheme may have three to four degrees of serious, critical, minor, and major. In addition, nonconformity means refusal to conform to the prevailing rules and practices. Incongruity is a way of exploiting new truths. There are many collections of “nonconformity” quotes and sayings that you can use as motivation.

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion. – Jack Kerouac

If a minority culture doesn’t accept you as much as majority culture, think about following a path of non-conformity. – Paul Isaacs

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. – Winston Churchill

Non-conformity is the only real passion worth being ruled by. – Julian Assange

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

The fastest way to succeed is to look as if you’re playing by somebody else’s rules, while quietly playing by your own. – Michael Korda

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

For nonconformity the world will whip you with its displeasure. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

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

A writer or painter cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of nonconformity alive. – Luis Bunuel

Those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter. – Bernard Baruch

The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. – Rob Siltanen

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. – Mark Twain

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. – John Locke

Don’t get caught up in fashion games. These kids probably think we’re old, nark conformists or something, but really, they’re just conforming in their own ways. They’re conforming to nonconformity. – Richelle Mead

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

You were born an original work of art. Stay original always. Originals cost more than imitations. – Suzy Kassem

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

In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. – John Stuart Mill

Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to. – Alan Keightley

Nonconformity is an empty goal, and rebellion against prevailing opinion merely because it is prevailing should no more be praised than acquiescence to it. – William H. Whyte

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. – Herman Melville

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

The human condition … is defined by the aspiration to always supersede oneself, which in turn requires nonconformity. – Pablo Antonio Cuadra

The fragrances are really a dream about the possibilities of a life. Nonconformity, no judgement. – Jared Leto

We are half ruined by conformity; but we should be wholly ruined without it. – Dudley Warner

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. – Herman Melville

Madness is only a variety of mental nonconformity and we are all individualists here. – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Any fool can do something cool and look cool, but it takes skill to make something uncool cool again. – Criss Jami

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

Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature! – George Bernard Shaw

If you don’t give yourself permission to create a new world, chances are nobody else will. – James Altucher

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

All art is based on nonconformity. – Ben Shahn

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

They will say you are on the wrong road, if it is your own. – Antonio Porchia

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

High-fiving people who share your beliefs is easy. What’s hard is allowing others to have a different opinion without attempting to silence them. – Duane Alan Hahn

Most people believe most of the things they believe only because they believe that most people believe them. – Mokokoma Mokhonoana

People would rather be wrong than be different. – Henry Jacobsen

Conform and be dull. – J. Frank Doble

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

Hope is some extraordinary spiritual grace that God gives us to control our fears, not to oust them. – Vincent McNabb

You don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note. – Doug Floyd

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds! – Bob Marley

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. – Dr. Seuss

Not all those who wander are lost. – J.R.R. Tolkien

The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking. – J.K. Galbraith

What this country needs is radicals who will stay that way regardless of the creeping years. – John Fischer

Some phrases from various quotes about nonconformity can make you change your life for the better, and quotes on motivation in life experiences to be useful.