Oscar Wilde Quotes

I hate the idea of always having to interpret other people's ideas and thoughts and words, because I'm very independent and, I guess, a free thinker.

Well, where there is freedom doubt itself must be free.

I wasn't made to take orders. My grandmother used to tell me: 'Laws are for idiots.' She was right.

The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept.

When we got with George, he didn't care what was happening. He liked how crazy we were looking and dressing. I kinda liked being with George more so at the time, because George let us do what we wanted to do. But I needed both lessons.

… a controlled disrespect for authority is essential to a scientist.

Certainly, I don't believe in rebellion for its own sake. But I think if you strive to do something in an individualistic way, you just become a rebel by definition.

No rebellious heart is ever at ease with paths established by others.

Only he is free who cultivates his own thoughts and strives without fear to do justice to them.

In my heart I'm independent, a bit of a rebel, a nonconformist.

he who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading, and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions.

Irreverence is a declaration of independence.

As long as a man had the courage to reject what society told him to do, he could live life on his own terms. To what end? To be free. But free to what end? To read books, to write books, to think.

I hate to tell people what they should think 'cause I really have an aversion when people tell me what to think.

I grew up with my cousins, who were as close as brothers, and frankly, I didn't like what girls were expected to do. I liked horseback riding, playing football, going to rodeos. I wanted to be in jeans all the time, and I couldn't figure out why I was supposed to conform to a certain standard, so I didn't.

The supreme lesson of any education should be to think for yourself and to be yourself; absent this attainment, education creates dangerous, stupefying conformity.

You don't have to burn books, you don't have to rebel against teachers to rebel; to rebel is to truly own your own self.

I'm politically inclined towards the left, but I don't like to be in anyone's gang; I'm a bit of a loose cannon.

The mark of our time is its revulsion against imposed patterns.

Punk has always been about doing things your own way. What it represents for me is ultimate freedom and a sense of individuality.

Rules are made for people who aren't willing to make up their own.

I don't believe in societal restrictions. It wasn't a choice - conformity simply never occurred to me.

But I found that disappointing people is a good thing, because disapproval is freedom.

Unless you hit your television with a sledgehammer, you're not going to be able to be an individual.

I am anti-ideological. Ideology destroys your freedom. It binds you to the herd.