Quotes about personality

„It is better to be loved by one person who knows your soul than millions who don't even know your phone number.“

—  Richard Paul Evans American writer 1962

Source: The Walk

„I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free… so other people would be also free.“

—  Rosa Parks African-American civil rights activist 1913 - 2005

„A truly intelligent person welcomes new ideas, for new ideas can add to the synergy of other accumulated ideas.“

—  Robert T. Kiyosaki American finance author , investor 1947

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

„A lot of people, they think, ‘Oh, I’m only going to be happy when I find a special person who is going to make me happy.’ No. In life, you have to be happy with yourself first, number one. When you’re happy with yourself, you have to find another person who is happy with herself so you can share your happiness.“

—  Fabio Lanzoni Italian model, actor and author 1961

Fifteen hours with Fabio http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/style/2015/12/23/fabio/?utm_term=.55d4ac289b9c (December 23, 2015)

„I was trying to figure out what I’m doing, and that was the first time I was constantly being kicked down for doing that. When I didn’t know, I just wanted to say, ‘This is what I want, this is where I am in my professional life, things changed in my personal life, things changed in my heart — everything.’ And people just thought, ‘Alright, this is what we think.’ And yeah, I made some decisions that weren’t great as well, and so did he and that’s why we went through all that to only make us better. And he has heard [the song] and he has seen the video, and it’s something that I feel like girls need hear, and it’s something I’m willing to share with people.“

—  Selena Gomez American singer and actress 1992

„What we believed in was responsible majority rule as opposed to irresponsible majority rule, and I stand by that. I think it's important that before you give a person a [right to] vote you ensure that his roots go down [and] that he's part of the whole structure of the country. So I stand by what I've said, and I think we can substantiate the fact that the things we did were to the benefit of the black people of our country more so than anybody else. And I challenge anybody to disagree with that.“

—  Ian Smith Prime Minister of Rhodesia 1919 - 2007

„What I do when I write is that I'll do a raggedy, rough version just to hear the chorus, just to see how much I like the chorus. If it works for me that way when it's raggedy, then I'll know it will just work… Listen to that, that's at home. Janet, Randy, Me… Janet and I are going "Whoo, Whoo… Whoo, Whoo…" I do that same process with every song. It's the melody, it's the melody that's most important, If the melody can sell me, then I'll go to the next step. The idea is to transcribe from what's in your mentality onto tape. If you take a song like "Billie Jean," Where the bass line is the prominent, dominant piece, the protagonist of the song, the main driving riff that you hear, getting the character of the riff to be just the way you want it to be, that takes a lot of time. Listen, you're hearing four basses on there, doing four different personalities, and that's what gives it character, but it takes a lot of work.“

—  Michael Jackson American singer, songwriter and dancer 1958 - 2009

On listening to an early version of Billie Jean on an iPhone
Ebony interview (2007)

„I. The Jews, as a class, violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department, and also Department orders, are hereby expelled from the Department.
II. Within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order by Post Commanders, they will see that all of this class of people are furnished with passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification, will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners unless furnished with permits from these Head Quarters.
III. No permits will be given these people to visit Head Quarters for the purpose of making personal application for trade permits.“

—  Ulysses S. Grant 18th President of the United States 1822 - 1885

General Order Number 11 (17 December 1862); Abraham Lincoln on learning of this order drafted a note to his General-in-Chief of the Army, Henry Wager Halleck instructing him to rescind it. Halleck wrote to Grant:
It may be proper to give you some explanation of the revocation of your order expelling all Jews from your Dept. The President has no objection to your expelling traders & Jew pedlars, which I suppose was the object of your order, but as it in terms prescribed an entire religious class, some of whom are fighting in our ranks, the President deemed it necessary to revoke it.
1860s

„Civil war, such as you have just passed through naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred, and revenge. It is our duty to divest ourselves of all such feelings; and as far as it is in our power to do so, to cultivate friendly feelings towards those with whom we have so long contended, and heretofore so widely, but honestly, differed. Neighborhood feuds, personal animosities, and private differences should be blotted out; and, when you return home, a manly, straightforward course of conduct will secure the respect of your enemies. Whatever your responsibilities may be to Government, to society, or to individuals meet them like men.“

—  Nathan Bedford Forrest Confederate Army general 1821 - 1877

1860s, Farewell address (1865)

„Many things have been said about me which are wrong, and which white and black persons here, who stood by me through the war, can contradict. I have been in the heat of battle when colored men, asked me to protect them. I have placed myself between them and the bullets of my men, and told them they should be kept unharmed. Go to work, be industrious, live honestly and act truly, and when you are oppressed I'll come to your relief. I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for this opportunity you have afforded me to be with you, and to assure you that I am with you in heart and in hand.“

—  Nathan Bedford Forrest Confederate Army general 1821 - 1877

1870s, Speech before the Pole-Bearers Association (1875)

„A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.“

—  W. H. Auden Anglo-American poet 1907 - 1973

Squares and Oblongs, in Poets at Work (1948), p. 170

„In the late Middle Ages there were, no doubt, many persons in monasteries and convents who had no business there and should have been out in the world earning an honest living, but today it may very well be that there are many persons trying to earn a living in the world and driven by failure into mental homes whose true home would be the cloister.“

—  W. H. Auden, book Forewords and Afterwords

"The Protestant Mystics", p. 73
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

„No person can be a great leader unless he takes genuine joy in the successes of those under him.“

—  W. H. Auden Anglo-American poet 1907 - 1973

Not by Auden; sources from the 1980s attribute it to the Rev. W. A. Nance (the name seems to have been confused with Auden's).
Misattributed

„But the guilty person is only one of the targets of punishment. For punishment is directed above all at others, at all the potentially guilty.“

—  Michel Foucault, book Discipline and Punish

Source: Discipline and Punish (1977), Chapter Three, The Gentle Way in Punishment
Context: This, then, is how one must imagine the punitive city. At the crossroads, in the gardens, at the side of roads being repaired or bridges built, in workshops open to all, in the depths of mines that may be visited, will be hundreds of tiny theatres of punishment. Each crime will have its law; each criminal his punishment. It will be a visible punishment, a punishment that tells all, that explains, justifies itself, convicts: placards, different-coloured caps bearing inscriptions, posters, symbols, texts read or printed, tirelessly repeat the code. Scenery, perspectives, optical effects, trompe-l’œil sometimes magnify the scene, making it more fearful than it is, but also clearer. From where the public is sitting, it is possible to believe in the existence of certain cruelties which, in fact, do not take place. But the essential point, in all these real or magnified severities, is that they should all, according to a strict economy, teach a lesson: that each punishment should be a fable. And that, in counterpoint with all the direct examples of virtue, one may at each moment encounter, as a living spectacle, the misfortunes of vice. Around each of these moral ‘representations’, schoolchildren will gather with their masters and adults will learn what lessons to teach their offspring. The great terrifying ritual of the public execution gives way, day after day, street after street, to this serious theatre, with its multifarious and persuasive scenes. And popular memory will reproduce in rumour the austere discourse of the law. But perhaps it will be necessary, above these innumerable spectacles and narratives, to place the major sign of punishment for the most terrible of crimes: the keystone of the penal edifice.

„Numbers aren’t the important thing … what matters is deciding in your heart to accept another person completely. When you do that, it is always the first time and the last.“

—  Haruki Murakami, book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

The Kidney-shaped Stone that Moves Every Day (translated by Jay Rubin)
Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

„The intolerant can be viewed as free-riders, as persons who seek the advantages of just institutions while not doing their share to uphold them.“

—  John Rawls, book A Theory of Justice

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter VI, Section 59, pg. 388

„The trouble with you and me, Ned, is that we want everyone in the world to personally love us, and of course that's impossible; you just don't meet everyone in the world.“

—  Leonard Bernstein American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist 1918 - 1990

Ned Rorem, Paris Diary (1966)

„I think art is the only thing that's spiritual in the world. And I refuse to forced to believe in other people's interpretations of God. I don't think anybody should be. No one person can own the copyright to what God means.“

—  Marilyn Manson American rock musician and actor 1969

Variant: I think art is the only thing that's spirtual in the world. And I refuse to be forced to believe in other people's interpretations of God. I don't think anybody should be. No one person can own the copyright to what God means.

„The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today“

—  Francis of Assisi Catholic saint and founder of the Franciscan Order 1182 - 1226