“Any Christian who blindly accepts the opinions of the majority and in fear and timidity follows a path of expediency and social approval is a mental and spiritual slave.”

Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 2 : Transformed nonconformist
Context: In his essay "Self-Reliance" Emerson wrote, "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist." The Apostle Paul reminds us that whoso would be a Christian must also be a a nonconformist. Any Christian who blindly accepts the opinions of the majority and in fear and timidity follows a path of expediency and social approval is a mental and spiritual slave.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Any Christian who blindly accepts the opinions of the majority and in fear and timidity follows a path of expediency an…" by Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. 658
American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Ci… 1929–1968

Related quotes

Bell Hooks photo
Lydia Maria Child photo

“That a majority of women do not wish for any important change in their social and civil condition, merely proves that they are the unreflecting slaves of custom.”

Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist

Letter to the Advocates of Woman’s Suffrage (1870).
1870s

Trevor Loudon photo

“Socialism, is in short a manifestation of mental illness or major character deficiency.”

Trevor Loudon New Zealand politician

"Are Socialists Psychos?" https://www.trevorloudon.com/2006/12/are-socialists-psychos/

Benjamin Creme photo
Hermann Hesse photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"A Liberal Decalogue" http://www.panarchy.org/russell/decalogue.1951.html, from "The Best Answer to Fanaticism: Liberalism", New York Times Magazine (16/December/1951); later printed in The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1969), vol. 3: 1944-1967, pp. 71-2
1950s
Context: The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:
1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

“Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker
Carl von Clausewitz photo

“Timidity is the root of prudence in the majority of men.”

On War (1832), Book 3

Leo Tolstoy photo

“Condemn me if you choose — I do that myself, — but condemn me, and not the path which I am following, and which I point out to those who ask me where, in my opinion, the path is.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

"Letter to N.N.," quoted by Havelock Ellis in "The New Spirit" http://books.google.com/books?id=xCp6OIGcojMC& (1892) p. 226

Related topics