Quotes about conventionality

He who would be a man must therefore be a non-conformist.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

What greater reassurance can the weak have than that they are like anyone else?

— Eric Hoffer

Why can't somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes

Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves.

— Bertrand Russell

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

— Henry David Thoreau