Quotes about personality page 20
Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter
Source: Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life
“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
Carrie Fisher book Wishful Drinking
Variant: Resentment is like drinking a poison and waiting for the other person to die.
Source: Wishful Drinking
“An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.”
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer
As quoted without citation in Discovering Evolutionary Ecology: Bringing Together Ecology And Evolution (2006) by Peter J. Mayhew, p. 24
Attributed
Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader
Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?
“My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.”
Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British poet
As quoted in Reader's Digest Vol. 111, No. 666, (October 1977)
“A person who does not read is no better than one cannot read.”
Earl Nightingale (1921–1989) American motivational speaker
Source: Lead the Field
“You know you're a hot mess when the only person buying you drinks all night is yourself.”
Chelsea Handler (1975) American comedian, actress, author and talk show host
“Color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality.”
James Baldwin book The Fire Next Time
Source: The Fire Next Time
“Another person's life is that person's life. You can't take responsibility.”
Haruki Murakami book South of the Border, West of the Sun
Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun
Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian
Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys
Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer
Source: How to Kill a Rock Star
Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman
Source: Lady Holland's Memoir (1855), p. 257: Let us swear an eternal friendship. Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. The Rovers
Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People
Variant: you can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People
“If you’re alive, you’re a creative person.”
Elizabeth Gilbert Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Source: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Max Ehrmann (1872–1945) American writer, poet, and attorney
Source: Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life
“ABSTAINER, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.”
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist
The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
Context: Abstainer, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
“To realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation.”
Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist
Source: The Alchemist
Brandon Sanderson Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones
Source: Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones
Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Variant: I think that if we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange.
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
“There are 6 reasons that a person does anything: Love, faith, greed, boredom, fear… revenge.”
Ally Carter book Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover
Source: Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover
“A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.”
Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer
“She might be a great person, but life's so much bigger than just loving someone.”
Kazuo Ishiguro (1954) Japanese-born British author
Source: Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934) Hungarian American psychologist
Source: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Neil Strauss book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists
Source: The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists
“Everything we do we choose. So what is there to regret? You are the person you chose to be.”
Paul Arden (1940–2008) writer
Source: Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite
“I like you because you were mad. And you're pretty. And pretty sane for a mad person.”
Maureen Johnson book 13 Little Blue Envelopes
Source: 13 Little Blue Envelopes
J. Sheridan Le Fanu book Carmilla
Variant: Thus fortified I might take my rest in peace. But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exists and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.
Source: Carmilla
“Knowing a person isn't like knowing a string of facts. It's more like… a feeling.”
Sophie Kinsella (1969) British writer
Source: The Wedding Girl
Italo Calvino (1923–1985) Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels
Source: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
“You had to know a person well to make them laugh like that.”
Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince
Source: Clockwork Prince
“The person we know at first, she thinks, is not the one we know at last.”
Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin
Source: Let the Great World Spin
Christine Feehan American writer
Source: Ruthless Game
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
"Einstein's Reply to Criticisms" (1949), The World As I See It (1949)
Context: A man's value to the community depends primarily on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows. We call him good or bad according to how he stands in this matter. It looks at first sight as if our estimate of a man depended entirely on his social qualities.
And yet such an attitude would be wrong. It is clear that all the valuable things, material, spiritual, and moral, which we receive from society can be traced back through countless generations to certain creative individuals. The use of fire, the cultivation of edible plants, the steam engine — each was discovered by one man.
Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society — nay, even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms. Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community.
The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion.
“I personally can't think of anything less sacrosanct than a bad book or even a mediocre book.”
Helene Hanff book 84, Charing Cross Road
Source: 84, Charing Cross Road
Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author
Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential
“The most unpresentable persons are generally the most interesting.”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) Venezuelan novelist
Source: Las memorias de Mamá Blanca
William James Is Life Worth Living?
"Is Life Worth Living?"
1890s, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
“The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person.”
Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“The depressed person is a radical, sullen atheist.”
Julia Kristeva (1941) Bulgarian-French philosopher, psychoanalyst & academic
“The most truly generous persons are those who give silently without hope of praise or reward.”
Carol Ryrie Brink book Magical Melons
Source: Caddie Woodlawn's Family
Mark Batterson (1969) American pastor and writer
Source: Draw the Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge
Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon
Source: Flowers for Algernon
