We cannot expect that all nations will adopt like systems, for conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
--John F. Kennedy – American President 1917-1963

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.
--Chauncey Depew – American Politician 1834-1928

Group conformity scares the pants off me because it's so often a prelude to cruelty towards anyone who doesn't want to - or can't - join the Big Parade.
--Bette Midler – American Actress Born 1945

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 – American Scientist 1874-1956

In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.
--Peter Ustinov – English Actor 1921-2004

The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.
--Jim Hightower – American Activist Born 1943

The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you but yourself.
--Rita Mae Brown – American Writer Born 1944

To be one's self, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity.
--Irving Wallace – American Author 1916-1990⁶