"I do not mean that they choose what is customary, in preference to what suits their own inclination. It does not occur to them to have any inclination, except for what is customary. Thus the mind itself is bowed to the yoke: even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of. … Peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes: until by dint of not following their own nature, they have no nature to follow: their human capacities are withered and starved: they become incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly their own."
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Original Language: English
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J.S. Mill, On Liberty (Henry Holt, New York: 1895), Chapter 3, pp. 109-110.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Conformity
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Conformity
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