Quotes about personality
page 34

Plutarch photo

“Even a nod from a person who is esteemed is of more force than a thousand arguments or studied sentences from others.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Life of Phocion
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Chris Hedges photo
Paula Modersohn-Becker photo
Richard Feynman photo

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

" Cargo Cult Science http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm", adapted from a 1974 Caltech commencement address; also published in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, p. 343
Variant: The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.

John Wallis photo
Uma Thurman photo
Andrew Johnson photo
African Spir photo
John Ruysbroeck photo

“God loves without limit and this puts a loving person most securely at peace.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Spiritual Espousals (c. 1340)

Wilhelm II, German Emperor photo

“Imagine a monarch, holding personal command of his army, disbanding his regiments, sacred with a hundred years of history—and handing his towns over to Anarchists and Democracy.”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Reaction to the Tsar's invitation (August 1898) to the Hague Conference of 1899, quoted in Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War (London: Pimlico, 2004), pp. 429-430
1890s

Jean-François Revel photo
Aurangzeb photo

“Hamiduddin Khan Bahadur who had gone to demolish a temple and build a mosque (in its place) in Bijapur, having excellently carried out his orders, came to Court and gained praise and the post of darogha of gusalkhanah, which brought him near the Emperor's person.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

1698. Maasir-i-alamgiri, translated into English by Sir Jadu-Nath Sarkar, Calcutta, 1947, pp. 241
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1690s

Orson Hyde photo
John Ashcroft photo
Ayn Rand photo
Mitch Albom photo
Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo
Alan Keyes photo
Bill Clinton photo
Barbara Ehrenreich photo
Harun Yahya photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Horace Mann photo

“Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.”

Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician

James Burgh, in The Dignity of Human Nature, Or, A Brief Account of the Certain and Established Means for Attaining the True End of Our Existence (1754); this is very widely misattributed to Mann, appearing at least as early as the publication of Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867) edited by Mary Mann.
Misattributed

Max Boot photo
Rudolph Rummel photo
Mao Zedong photo

“My closest friend and brother – this world is lucky to have a great personality as Kim Il Sung. This causes my boundless happiness. The fate of the world revolution and the international communist movement are on your shoulders, Comrade Kim Il Sung. I wish you long life and good health.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

As quoted by the Association for the Study of Songun Politics UK http://www.uk-songun.com/index.php?p=1_287_MAO-ZEDONG-SAID-COMRADE-KIM-IL-SUNG-SHOULD-LED-THE-INTERNATIONAL-COMMUNIST-MOVEMENT

Norodom Sihanouk photo
Lennox Lewis photo
Jeffrey Tucker photo

“The primary contribution of government to this world is to elicit, entrench, enable, and finally to codify the most destructive aspects of the human personality.”

Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer

Source: Facebook post, Facebook.com, 2016-05-30 https://www.facebook.com/jeffrey.albert.tucker/posts/10151379889671198,

Daniel Pipes photo
Joseph Heller photo
Phillip Guston photo
Krysten Ritter photo
Tim Parks photo
Chuck Klosterman photo

“If you meet someone who has the same first name as this person, you immediately like them less.”

Chuck Klosterman (1972) Author, Columnist

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas (2006), Recognizing Your Archenemy

Donald J. Trump photo
Neal Stephenson photo
Dara Shukoh photo
Roger Waters photo
François de La Rochefoucauld photo
Nathanael Greene photo
Max Scheler photo
John Millington Synge photo
Mary Abigail Dodge photo

“Every person is responsible for only the good within his abilities, and for no more, and no one can tell whose sphere is the largest.”

Mary Abigail Dodge (1833–1896) American writer

Country Living and Country Thinking, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Jayalalithaa photo

“MGR has been a great influence in my life, I don’t deny that. But now I am my own person. I have evolved. Hereafter, I am responsible only for myself. Never again will anybody influence me to such an extent that all my thoughts and actions and statements are influenced and made in a particular way just because someone else wants it that way.”

Jayalalithaa (1948–2016) Indian politician and actress

Source: In an interview to Saavy magazine. The Life And Times Of Jayalalitha Ajith Pillai, A.S. Panneerselvan http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?205450, 04 May 1998.

David Lee Roth photo
Rudy Rucker photo

“Sybil had an unreal, larger-than-life feeling... as if she were a person in a book.”

Rudy Rucker (1946) American mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author and philosopher

Source: The Sex Sphere (1983), p. 103

James Thurber photo
James Anthony Froude photo
Marcos Pontes photo

“What someone says or writes about me doesn't change the way I am; it only changes my opinion about that person.”

Marcos Pontes (1963) Brazilian astronaut

Webpage Astronauta Marcos Pontes - Entrevistas http://marcospontes.com.br/$SETOR/MCP/OPINIOES/entrevistas.html

J. B. Bury photo
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan photo
Bill Evans photo
Michael Bloomberg photo
Zoran Đinđić photo
Francis Escudero photo

“Let the sacrifices of our heroes serve as an example and inspire us to come together, and teach us that our personal interests and well-being should always give way to the collective good of the Filipino people and the betterment of the country we all love.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Official Website of the Senate of the Philippines http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2009/0405_escudero3.asp
2009, Statement: A Call for Heroism

Warren Farrell photo
Daniel Goleman photo

“A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

Zero Aggression Principle ("ZAP"), from "Who is a Libertarian?"
Variant: A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim.

Sarada Devi photo

“An unmarried person is half free whether he prays to God or not. He will advance towards Him with rapid strides when he feel a little drawn towards Him.”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

Women Saints of East and West

Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar photo
Billy Simmonds photo
Arlo Guthrie photo

“If you're in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant." And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement. And that's what it is, the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar!”

Arlo Guthrie (1947) American folk singer

Arlo has repeatedly updated this part through the years to help it match modern life more. He has updated to say that if only one person does it, they say the person in question is a certain amount of years too late. He also referenced the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy during the 40th anniversary recording. He has also started adding the phrase, "And most of them would be too young to know what a movement was." once he says, "Friends they may think it's a movement."
Alice's Restaurant Massacree

Isa Genzken photo

“For me personally, the greatest art to date has been created in New York and the most uptight and conventional art in Berlin. Obviously, I am an exception to this rule!”

Isa Genzken (1948) German sculptor

living and working in Berlin
after 2010, Isa Genzken, the artist who doesn't do interviews' (2014)

E.L. Doctorow photo
Caspar David Friedrich photo

“The artist's feeling is his law. Genuine feeling can never be contrary to nature; it is always in harmony with her. But another person's feelings should never be imposed on us as law. Spiritual affinity leads to similarity in work, but such affinity is something entirely different from mimicry. Whatever people may say of Y's paintings and how they often resemble Z's, yet they proceed from Y and are his sole property.”

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) Swedish painter

Quote from Friedrich's writings Thoughts on Art, Caspar David Friedrich; as cited in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 32
Variant translation:
The artist's feeling is his law. Pure sensibility can never be Unnatural; it is always in harmony with nature. But the feelings of another must never be imposed on us as our law. Spiritual relationship produces artistic resemblance, but this relationship is very different from imitation. Whatever one may say about X.'s paintings, and however much they may resemble Y.'s, they originated in him and are his own. (** In: 'Caspar David Friedrich's Medieval Burials', Karl Whittington - http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring12/whittington-on-caspar-david-friedrichs-medieval-burials)
undated

Colin Wilson photo
Paolo Bacigalupi photo
Georg Brandes photo
Everett Dean Martin photo
Bryce Dallas Howard photo
John Mayer photo

“It was so frightening at the time to be seventeen and have heart monitors hooked up to you. That was the moment the songwriter in me was born. I discovered a whole other side of me. I came home that night and started writing lyrics. I discovered it all at once: It was like opening up a lockbox, and inside was a depth that I didn't even know I had as a person, or a writer — incredible creativity and vision and neurosis, complete neurosis. They all go together in a package.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

On the effects of having a critical cardiac arrhythmia at age 17
Hiatt, Brian (2006-09-21), "My Big Mouth Strikes Again" http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/11515443/john_mayer_speaks_listen_to_his_hilarious_takes_on_paris_hilton_brad__angelina_living_in_ny. Rolling Stone. (1009): 66-70

Báb photo
Lewis Black photo

“Then there was the man who declared in court, he wasn't a person. "Excuse me, sir, why haven't you paid your taxes." "Well, as you can clearly see, I am not a person." "Well, you look like a person."”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

"No it's all done with mirrors, trust me!"
Taxed Beyond Belief (2002)

Robert Jeffress photo
Luke the Evangelist photo
John Pilger photo

“When governments and other vested interests attack me personally I usually regard it as a vindication, otherwise they would use facts. That's why I believe in the wonderful Claud Cockburn dictum, 'Never believe anything until it is officially denied.”

John Pilger (1939) Australian journalist

It has certainly been my experience.
John Pilger, This much i know http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/nov/13/pressandpublishing.observermagazine, The Observer, 13 November 2005

Norman Mailer photo

“He had a personality that was hopeless. He had a profound distrust of people's possibilities, and it came out in his personality. … There was an almost indecent pleasure he took in being sentimental about all the worst things.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

On Richard Nixon
Interview for French TV (1998)

Clarence Thomas photo
Jermain Defoe photo

“I've always been a religious person, and I try to think that every disappointment might just be a blessing in disguise. … I pray every day. In the mornings and, before I go to bed. I think it's important to pray not just when things are going bad.”

Jermain Defoe (1982) English association football player

"Prayer helped Defoe bounce back", interview with Football Focus (22 December 2006) http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/football_focus/6200993.stm.

Yoshida Kenkō photo
Joseph Joubert photo
Tove Jansson photo

“A person can find anything if he takes the time, that is, if he can afford to look. And while he’s looking, he’s free, and he finds things he never expected.”

Tove Jansson (1914–2001) Finnish children's writer and illustrator

Sommarboken (A Summer Book) (1972).

George Galloway photo
Franklin D. Roosevelt photo
George Mason photo
Fausto Cercignani photo

““Tomorrow is another day” is something you can say only to yourself, not to the person you want to comfort.”

Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet

Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni

Philip Rosedale photo
Antonin Scalia photo