“The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of contradictions—none more so than the most capable.”
Source: The Financier (1912), Ch. XIII
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Theodore Dreiser20
Novelist, journalist 1871–1945Related quotes
Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches
"The Individual, Society and the State" (1940) http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/goldman/works/1940/individual.htm <br class="br">Context: Perhaps even more than constituted authority, it is social uniformity and sameness that harass the individual most. His very "uniqueness," "separateness" and "differentiation" make him an alien, not only in his native place, but even in his own home. Often more so than the foreign born who generally falls in with the established.
Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director
Source: Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic
Martin Heidegger book Being and Time
Introduction: The Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being (Stambaugh translation)
Being and Time (1927)
“Of all the things I am not very good at, living in the real world is perhaps the most outstanding.”
Bill Bryson (1951) American author
Source: I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America after Twenty Years Away
“Of all things difficult to rule, none were more so than my will and affections.”
Elisabeth Elliot book Passion and Purity
Source: Passion and Purity