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10 Nonconformists On How They Changed The World

Keeping it real is a full-time job. Inspired by this thread on Quora.

Posted on November 05, 2013, 21:48 GMT

Ariane Lange

BuzzFeed News Reporter

1. Oscar Wilde, a writer and merciless wit of (mostly) the 19th century.

Quotation from Oscar Wilde: The Major Works(From Quora)

2. Maya Angelou, a writer who lays her sorrows bare.

Quotation from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

3. Noam Chomsky, who challenged accepted ideas of linguistic theory.

Quotation from Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?(From Quora)

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4. bell hooks, an activist and scholar who does not accept the status quo.

Quotation from Feminism Is for Everybody

5. Louise Erdrich, a Native American writer who wrote in her debut novel that right and wrong "were shades of meaning, not sides of a coin."

Quotation from this essay

6. Salvador Dalí, a painter, here answering a question about why he drove in a car filled with cauliflower.

Quotation from this 1958 interview with Mike Wallace(From Quora)

7. Simone de Beauvoir, a 20th century feminist theorist who rejected norms of "womanhood."

Quotation from The Second Sex, quoted in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

8. Lenny Bruce, a comedian whose obscene act paved the way for comedians' freedom of speech.

Quotation from this interview(From Quora)

9. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Burmese activist and former political prisoner.

Quotation from her Nobel lecture

10. Frida Kahlo, a painter who defies classification.

Quotation from Encyclopedia of Lesbian and Gay Histories and Cultures