Top 36 Nonconformist Quotes & Sayings

I was never a protestor, don't get me wrong, I was never like a vocal... what was the line I used to repeat to myself?... I was a nonconformist in a conforming society, that's what I thought about myself back in the '70s.

You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone.

To be a man is to be a nonconformist.

I'm a total nonconformist; for me, it's about going down rabbit holes.

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.

Historically, many of the great names in alpine climbing seemed to have just gone climbing as training. In fact, the model alpinist has often portrayed himself in literature as a half-crazed nonconformist, living life on the edge every moment he's sober enough to climb. It is true that amazing feats of skill and daring have been accomplished using this rather random approach. For some climbers that "life on the edge" approach may be the only way they can accomplish these feats, but there are far better methods to prepare for the challenges of alpine climbing.

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."

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

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.

In my heart I'm independent, a bit of a rebel, a nonconformist.

He had some measure of the infuriating trait that causes a young man to be a nonconformist for its own sake and found that the surest way to shock most people, in those days, was to believe that some kinds of behavior were bad and others good, and that it was reasonable to live one's life accordingly.

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.

I've always been a nonconformist. I think that nonconformity is part of the American DNA.

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!

When someone is good at what he does but is a nonconformist, there is a temptation in horse racing, like in all kinds of other areas of human endeavor, to dismiss him for his nonconformity rather than to recognize him for his excellence.

I remember at school one day there was a vocabulary list on the chalkboard, and the word 'nonconformist' was on there, and it said, 'Someone that doesn't appeal to society, someone who doesn't fit in.' We had this whole conversation about it, and I realized it cohered to the punk-rock world that I was into.

One radical free spirit nonconformist is pretty much like another.

Scratch me and you will find the Nonconformist.

Like many nonconformist and beat generation writers, William S. Burroughs takes the outcasts of society as his theme.

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.

I'd been a child during the 1960s when women burned their bras and hundreds of thousands gathered in protests against the Vietnam War. As a climber, I've felt connected to a similar nonconformist culture, one opposed to society's increasing materialism, pollution and corruption. Our approach to the rock—clean, traditional climbing, with the least dependence on equipment—was an extension of this ethical viewpoint.

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.

I'm not scary. It's scary for people to see someone being nonconformist.

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.

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

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.

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.

Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.