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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.

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

    Napoleon Sarony / Library of Congress

    Quotation from Oscar Wilde: The Major Works

    (From Quora)

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

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

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

    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."

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

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

    Flickr: 53035820@N02

    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.

    10. Frida Kahlo, a painter who defies classification.

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