“I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.”

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

“The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity.”

“Not all those who wander are lost."

“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.”

“Only a very small number of people are truly evil. But a very large number of people are conformists. To prevent evil on a mass scale it’s more important for us to ward against our own instinct to conform with the crowd than it is to worry about anything else."

“All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.” -

"Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road."

“It is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.”

"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."

“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.”

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

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A Living Philosophy