Ashleigh Brilliant Quotes

Society doesn't have values. People have values.

There's an expression in Persian, 'to play with the lion's tail.' I wasn't what Iranian society wanted me to be - a good girl. I played with the lion's tail.

I don't know what 'normal' means, anyway.

If I have smashed the traditions, it was because I knew no traditions.

Only good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don't have time.

Technology challenges us to assert our human values, which means that first of all, we have to figure out what they are.

Conventionality is not morality.

An attack on values is inevitably seen as an act of subversion.

No iconoclast can possibly escape the severest criticism. …. The world always demands of a prophet a double standard. He must live a life consistent with his dreams, and at the same time must obey the conventions of the world. He cannot be judged either by one or the other, but must be judged by both.

If I try and be something I am not, if I try and be cool, and I am not, I am a boring white man in a suit. Usually a pin-striped suit.

Even though I did things which were not in accordance with the society's norms, deep down, I am an orthodox woman.

We fight the stereotypes, but in fighting them, we show them. There are stereotypes for a reason.

As much as we don't like to admit it sometimes, we are the influencers.

If you teach a child that appearance doesn't matter, what will be the next thing that child asserts her individuality over? Turning up on time? Turning up at all?

Whenever one honestly defies a tradition, one becomes, in reality, the more responsible to it.

The problem with all these fiercely individualistic girls was that they were all exactly the same.

Individualism has really the higher aim. Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one's age.

Conformity to a sick society is to be sick.

There is a certain expectation of girls to eventually grow up and behave and fall in line. I've always bucked against that.

It takes far more courage to violate a custom than a law.

Everybody sacrifices something in an attempt to reach what they think society wants.

I can't count the times that upon telling someone I am vegetarian, he or she responded by pointing out an inconsistency in my lifestyle or trying to find a flaw in an argument I never made. (I have often felt that my vegetarianism matters more to such people than it does to me.)

We don't really know what we believe in or care about until what we believe in or care about is threatened, challenged, or measured.

A lot of what we say and do are regurgitated things that have to do with what we think we're supposed to be saying and doing.

Fashion is custom in the guise of departure from custom