Great men or men of great gifts you shall easily find, but symmetrical men never.

Individuality is founded in feeling; and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.

You don’t need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!

Everyone has their style and your style explains a lot about who you are – you feel me? I’ve had style since childhood, so I like to dress how I feel. But maybe I get carried away by some trends.

You should do what other people do, unless you have a very good reason not to.

The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I’m against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.

The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you’re wrinkled.

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.

Freedom is relative.

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.

I’ve never been one to sit back and go, ‚I’d better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don’t want to lose them.‘

The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

I don’t compare myself to anyone else; I don’t make comments about anyone else because they do what feels right for them, and that’s okay by me.

It’s nice to be included in people’s fantasies but you also like to be accepted for your own sake.

No one tells me what to do with my music. Real. My mom doesn’t tell what to say, how is someone else going to?

Everybody always laughs because I feel so much more comfortable with, like, a giant paper bag on my whole body and paint on my face. Sometimes I try really hard to take it all off. But inevitably what’s underneath is still not a straight edge. And I don’t think it ever will be.

I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.

Everybody has their thing they like or don’t like to see. It’s all in your head. That’s why people take their own pictures, because it’s difficult for someone else to capture what you seek.

The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.

‚Born this Way‘ is about being yourself, and loving who you are and being proud.

People look at the same passage, and one person will say this is the best thing he’s ever read, and another person will say it’s absolutely idiotic. I mean, there’s no way to reconcile those two things. You just have to forget the whole business of what people are saying.

Most people are happy being average. Most are happy being faceless in a sea of faces.

I specifically did not read other First Ladies‘ books, because I didn’t want to be influenced by how they defined the role. I knew that I would have to find this role – very uniquely and specifically to me and who I was.

To become ‚unique,‘ the challenge is to fight the hardest battle which anyone can imagine until you reach your destination.

I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.

You know, I just do whatever feels right to me! And so that’s what you’re gonna get!

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

I don’t really have a gimmick or a ‚thing.‘ I’m one of the few artists who gets to be himself every day.

This has always been my life and no one else’s, and that’s how it’s always been since the day I came in it.

I’m not big on flak jackets and tie-dyed shirts. You know, that’s not me.

I’m gonna make what I want to make, and other people are gonna like what they’re gonna like. It doesn’t really matter.

It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.

I feel like when I try to fit in, it comes across as not genuine, and that is not good. I’d rather just do me and have people say, ‚Oh. That’s interesting,‘ than try to fit in.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

I have a hard time figuring out what kind of box to put me in, too, because I don’t know exactly what’s going on around me or why. But I need to stay outside of boxes because then I can look at what’s inside of them without being part of them.

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

Remember that the revolution is what is important, and each one of us, alone, is worth nothing.

Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

It’s absolutely normal that different human beings want to go different ways.

I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing.

I’ve always felt quite singular, even as a child. That I must stay on track to keep my purpose.

Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.

Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world’s phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again.

I can simply tell you that since I was a kid, I didn’t like to look like anyone else.

We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.

When I began in 1960, individuality wasn’t an accepted thing to look for; it was about species-specific behaviour. But animal behaviour is not hard science. There’s room for intuition.

I like to be myself, and I don’t pretend. For instance, I don’t dress up for occasions; I am what I am.

I’ve never bought into any sort of hard and fast, this-box/that-box characterization. People are individuals. Yes, they may be expected to be a particular way. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to be that way.

The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people who ne’er loved them.

The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.

As the father of eight children, I’m quite convinced that each individual arrives here with their own unique personality. We are intended here from an invisible held of infinite potentiality. That which has no form, has no boundaries – it’s the I that’s in the ever-changing body.

I never set out to be weird. It was always other people who called me weird.

I just want to be myself.

My life is not to be somebody else’s impact – you know what I mean?

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

Everybody looks like clones and the only people you notice are my age. I don’t notice anybody unless they look great, and every now and again they do, and they are usually 70.

There are definitely elements of experience and stuff that someone who’s my age wouldn’t have. But there are also things that I can do that other people wouldn’t necessarily be able to.

When we started, a lot of bands sounded really different from one another.