individuality quotes

Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.

We boil at different degrees.

I love wearing whatever is comfortable, and that could be something which was in trend years ago. So, I don’t follow fashion.

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.

I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people.

Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.

I periodically realize every few years that the only person whose taste I really trust is me.

My children came out as individuals in their own right. They were not my products. They had their own characters and were very strong-minded. I gave them a lot of freedom when they were still very young. The one thing they got from me is morals. They would never betray anyone. They are really good people.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

I’m a really particular person. I want it my way.

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

We are second-hand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences, and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves: nothing original, pristine, clear.

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

I’ve always been very liberal when it comes to people thinking for themselves.

It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.

I am not happy, and the quest for happiness as a principal objective is not part of my world. Of course, ever since I can remember, I have done what I felt like doing.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

I think everyone’s inherently snobbish. Things that are very popular are not taken seriously, because the snobbish side of one says, ‚Well, if everyone likes it it can’t be that good.‘ Whereas if only I and a couple of other people like it, then it must be really something special.

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

There isn’t anybody that looks like me without clothes on.

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’m different than most people. When I cross the finish line of a big race, I see that people are ecstatic, but I’m thinking about what I’m going to do tomorrow. It’s as if my journey is everlasting, and there is no finish line.

I trust my taste. I trust it completely and I always have done, and I’ve always thought it isn’t that different from everybody else’s.

I am just one human being.

We are all special cases.

I just want to be myself.

In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.

The only thing I know is I ain’t changing my brand. I know what I believe. I’m confident in what I know. And I’m gonna say it. And if folks like it, wonderful. If they don’t like it, I understand.

The indestructible is one: it is each individual human being and, at the same time, it is common to all, hence the incomparably indivisible union that exists between human beings.

Fashion is an imposition, a reign on freedom.

I have met 18 million youth, and each wants to be unique.

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.‘

When I was fourteen and first started going out, I always wanted to be the opposite of everyone else. So I would go to the club in a polo T-shirt and pants and sneakers and a hat on backward, just so I would not be dressed like other girls.

The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.

As a body everyone is single, as a soul never.

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

Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.

It doesn’t matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I’m a woman or a man.

While children are struggling to be unique, the world around them is trying all means to make them look like everybody else.

The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.

Secretly we’re all a little more absurd than we make ourselves out to be.

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

We human beings are strange creatures and still reserve the right to think for ourselves.

Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.

Rituals are important. Nowadays it’s hip not to be married. I’m not interested in being hip.

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.

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

The poor are discussed as this homogeneous mash, like porridge. The idea that they might be individuals, and be where they are for very different, diverse reasons, again seems to escape some people.

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

People have so many hang-ups about how other people live their lives. People always want to keep you in a little box, or they need to label you and fix you in time and location.

If you’re too big to fit into fashion, then you just have to do your own fashion.

We are all different. There is no such thing as a standard or run-of-the-mill human being, but we share the same human spirit.

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.

I don’t know if I’ve ever cared much what others think.

In my research, I’ve interviewed a lot of people who never fit in, who are what you might call ‚different‘: scientists, artists, thinkers. And if you drop down deep into their work and who they are, there is a tremendous amount of self-acceptance.

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

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