"No member of a crew is praised for the rugged individuality of his rowing." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Like snowflakes, the human pattern is never cast twice." Alice Childress

"Each person's map of the world is as unique as their thumbprint. There are no two people alike...no two people who understand the same sentence the same way...So in dealing with people try not to fit them to your concept of what they should be." Milton Erickson

"If you have anything really valuable to contribute to the world it will come through the expression of your own personality, that single spark of divinity that sets you off and makes you different from every other living creature." Bruce Barton

"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of others." Charles Dickens

"Corporation: n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility." Ambrose Bierce, author and editor (1842-1914)

"No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it." George Washington Carver

"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary." Sir Cecil Beaton, portrait photographer

"When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free." Charles Evans Hughes

"For as the body is only as healthy as its individual cells, the world is only as healthy as its individual souls." Mark Nepo

"One is taught by experience to put a premium on those few people who can appreciate you for what you are."Gail Godwin

'The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself." Rita Mae Brown

“Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.” Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

“We are not interested in the unusual, but in the usual seen unusually.” Beaumont Newhall

“Embrace your uniqueness. Time is too short to be living someone else's life.” Kobi Yamada

“Nobody can prevent you from choosing to be exceptional.” Mark Sanborn

"At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time." Friedrich Nietzsche

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice.” Albert Einstein

“You all laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at you because you're all the same.” John Davis

“Your thorns are the best part of you.” Marianne Moore

“In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.” Coco Chanel

“We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” Max Depree

“Each second we live in a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that never was before and will never be again. And what do we teach our children in school? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? You should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are unique. In all the world there is no other child exactly like you. In the millions of years that have passed there has never been a child like you. And look at your body--what a wonder it is! Your legs, your arms, your cunning fingers, the way you move! You may be a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel.” Pablo Casals (1876-1973) Spanish cellist, conductor, composer

“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.” Margaret Mead (1901-1978) American anthropologist

“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of someone else.” Judy Garland (1922-1969) American singer, actress

“As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has—or ever will have—something inside that is unique to all time. It's our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.” Fred Rogers