Emily Post Quotes

The race of man, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity.

Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than what we suspect of what we think.

Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to drink other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits.

I'm a sheep when it comes to opinions; I will change my mind and jump on the bandwagon.

I hate driving a bandwagon.

Most people live their life around what other people do.

I know how easy it is for some minds to glide along with the current of popular opinion, where influence, respectability, and all those motives which tend to seduce the human heart are brought to bear.

The undignified mania of adaptive conformity, exhibited by many of my kinsmen, has always been very repulsive to me.

The enemy of individuality is groupthink.

When in doubt, look at what everyone else is doing.

In every generation, there's a strong tendency for everyone to think like everyone else.

What is social proof? Put simply, it's the positive influence created when someone finds out that others are doing something. It's also known as informational social influence.

When we find ourselves in groups or with charismatic individuals, we might do things we wouldn't ordinarily do.

We were born in this society, we grew up in this society. And we learn to be like everyone else, playing nonsense all the time.

We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove. We have two opinions: one private, which we are afraid to express; and another one - the one we use - which we force ourselves to wear to please Mrs. Grundy, until habit makes us comfortable in it, and the custom of defending it presently makes us love it, adore it, and forget how pitifully we came by it. Look at it in politics.

The only law which is really lived up to wholeheartedly and with a vengeance is the law of conformity.

The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.

Just because so many conforming kids wake up every morning asking, 'What is everybody else going to wear today?' doesn't mean that they don't wish it were different. Peer pressure is just that: pressure.

I've been amazed at how fast and herd-like opinions in the United States are.

Activities that seem to represent choices are often inert reproductions of accepted practice.

Most people suspend their judgment till somebody else has expressed his own and then they repeat it.

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

Young people in my generation were sort of in lockstep, and it wasn't just the '40s, either. In the '30s and in the '50s it was the same. No one ever dropped out unless he got sick or got kicked out.

People, like sheep, tend to follow a leader - occasionally in the right direction.

I'm afraid Japanese people tend to collective hysteria.