Or about how when you're a child, to stop you from following the crowd you're assaulted with the line "If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you?" but when you're an adult and to be different is suddenly a crime, people seem to be saying, "Hey. Everyone else is jumping off a bridge. Why aren't you?
Interpretation
The quote critiques the contradictory societal pressures regarding conformity and individuality across different life stages.
In this thought-provoking quote, Steve Toltz highlights the irony of how societal expectations shift from discouraging conformity in childhood to promoting it in adulthood. The metaphor of jumping off a bridge serves to illustrate the inherent tension between the desire to fit in and the value of standing out, ultimately questioning the standards by which we navigate social behavior.
In practice
During a speech about innovation in the workplace, one could say this quote to inspire employees to think outside the box.
Upon this theology he rarely pondered. The kernel of his practical religion was that it was respectable, and beneficial to one's business, to be seen going to services; that the church kept the Worst Elements from being still worse; and that the pastor's sermons, however dull they might seem at the time of taking, yet had a voodooistic power which 'did a fellow good-- kept him in touch with Higher Things.
Man's ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy-that he live in accordance with his own nature.
What, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts.
Being a Christian means renouncing ourselves, taking up the cross and carrying it with Jesus. There is no other way.
The world is too brutal for me-I am glad there is such a thing as the grave-I am sure I shall never have any rest till I get there.
God is Love, we are taught as children to believe. But when we first begin to get some inkling of how He loves us, we are repelled; it seems so cold, indeed, not love at all as we understand the word.
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