“He clings to his solitude, to his affected indifference and his grown-up ways, but it's just an act, so as never, never to show his real feelings.”

“…in his case it went further and became indifference to social distinction. Never once in forty years of intimacy did his son notice in him a trace of snobbishness. He was one of the exceedingly small number of Americans to whom an English duke or duchess seemed to be indifferent, and royalty itself nothing more than a slightly inconvenient presence. This was, it is true, rather the tone of English society in his time, but Americans were largely responsible for changing it, and Mr. Adams had every possible reason for affecting the manner of a courtier even if he did not feel the sentiment. Never did his son see him flatter or vilify, or show a sign of envy or jealousy; never a shade of vanity or self-conceit. Never a tone of arrogance! Never a gesture of pride!”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

“The courtiers tried every trick to lure or force him into making complaints against Tiberius; always, however, without success. He not only failed to show any interest in the murder of his relatives, but affected an amazing indifference to his own ill-treatment, behaving so obsequiously to his adoptive grandfather and to the entire household, that someone said of him, very neatly: "Never was there a better slave, or a worse master!"”
Haec omnibus insidiis temptatus elicientium cogentiumque se ad querelas nullam umquam occasionem dedit, perinde obliterato suorum casu ac si nihil cuiquam accidisset, quae vero ipse pateretur incredibili dissimulatione transmittens tantique in avum et qui iuxta erant obsequii, ut non immerito sit dictum nec servum meliorem ullum nec deteriorem dominum fuisse.

Sueton book The Twelve Caesars

“A warrior takes responsibility for his acts, for the most trivial of his acts. An average man acts out his thoughts, and never takes responsibility for what he does.”

Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time

“On the surface of the water, a midge vanishes into a hungry ripple. I'm not ready yet. He wonders why, at his age and having come so far, he still feels that. The culmination of his luck is that he will never feel any other way.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

“Being his real brother I could feel I live in his shadows, but I never have and I do not now. I live in his glow.”

Michael Morpurgo book Private Peaceful

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

“A teacher affects eternity: he can never tell where his influence stops.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

“He had never acted in his life, and couldn't play the pin in Pinafore.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Luck of the Bodkins

“(…) A liberated man is extremely law-abiding. But his laws are the laws of his real self, not of his society. These he observes, or breaks, according to circumstances and necessity. But he will never be fanciful and disorderly.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru