Quotes about personality

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“I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.”

Walt Whitman Song of Myself

“You’re the only person I’ve ever met who seems to have the faintest conception of what I mean when I say a thing.”

Virginia Woolf book The Voyage Out

“When you see a good person, think of becoming like her/him. When you see someone not so good, reflect on your own weak points.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“It's you, so I feel that a person who will understand you, a person who will find you is waiting out there. So just keep on trying your best.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

“The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.”

Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness

“In marriage you are not sacrificing yourself to the other person. You are sacrificing yourself to the relationship.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

“In my experience, we don't make thoughts appear, they just appear. One day, I noticed that their appearance just wasn't personal. Noticing that really makes it simpler to inquire.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

“Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

“As for the concept of collective guilt, I personally think that it is totally unjustified to hold one person responsible for the behavior of another person or a collective of persons.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

“An authentically powered person lives in love. Love is the energy of the soul. Love is what heals the personality. There is nothing that cannot be healed by love. There is nothing but love.”

Gary Zukav (1942) American writer and revivalist

“Find out what a person fears most and that is where he will develop next.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

“The mission of law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even thought the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect property.”

Frédéric Bastiat book The Law

“Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

“I have never met any really wicked person before. I feel rather frightened. I am so afraid he will look just like every one else.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

“The most dangerous kind of person… is one who is afraid of his own shadow.”

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

“Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“Whenever you are too worried about someone else's approval, that person loses respect for you.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

“A man should live his life a certain way not because of some divine authority, but because of a personal moral obligation to himself and others.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

“I believe in the supreme worth of the individual and in his right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.

I believe that the law was made for man and not man for the law; that government is the servant of the people and not their master.

I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.

I believe that thrift is essential to well-ordered living and that economy is a prime requisite of a sound financial structure, whether in government, business or personal affairs.

I believe that truth and justice are fundamental to an enduring social order.

I believe in the sacredness of a promise, that a man's word should be as good as his bond, that character—not wealth or power or position—is of supreme worth.

I believe that the rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind and that only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free.

I believe in an all-wise and all-loving God, named by whatever name, and that the individual's highest fulfillment, greatest happiness and widest usefulness are to be found in living in harmony with His will.

I believe that love is the greatest thing in the world; that it alone can overcome hate; that right can and will triumph over might.”

John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) American business magnate and philanthropist

“The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

“[A] person is so much more than the name of a diagnosis on a chart.”

Sharon M. Draper book Out of My Mind

“But then one regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

“But it's also true that the person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing. All we know about the future is that it will be different. But perhaps what we fear is that it will be the same. So we must celebrate the changes.”

Deborah Moggach (1948) English writer

“Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.”

Jhumpa Lahiri book Interpreter of Maladies

“A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“You're the strangest person I ever met, she said & I said you too & we decided we'd know each other a long time.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

“All human accomplishment has the same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy? Imagination, imagination, imagination. It converts to actual. It sustains, it alters, it redeems!”

Saul Bellow book Henderson the Rain King

“Every person has a right to risk their own life for the preservation of it.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

“Genius is the ability to independently arrive at and understand concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

“The only really sane person in there is Igor, and possibly the turnip. And I'm not sure about the turnip.”

Terry Pratchett book Making Money

“A narrow mind and a fat head invariably come on the same person.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

“A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

“You see persons and things not as they are but as you are.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

“Life has many ways of testing a person's will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.”

Paulo Coelho book The Winner Stands Alone

“Forgive the past. It is over. Learn from it and let go. People are constantly changing and growing. Do not cling to a limited, disconnected, negative image of a person in the past. See that person now. Your relationship is always alive and changing.”

Brian L. Weiss

“To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

“Bran was the only person I knew who could use words like "blackguard" and make them sound like swear words-but then he could have said "bunny rabbit" in that tone of voice and weaken my spine with the same shiver of fear.”

Patricia Briggs book Moon Called

“The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

“A person isn't a bird. You can't cage a person.”

Sharon Creech Walk Two Moons

“She was convinced that she was anorexic, because every time she looked in the mirror she did indeed see a fat person.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

“I'm not really a career person; I'm a gardener, basically.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

“Reading makes me feel I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person…. Reading is bliss.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

“Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

“Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up; if not, I'll stay down here till I'm someone else.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

“In my early professional years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?”

Carl R. Rogers (1902–1987) American psychologist

“From the moment I met you, your personality had the most extraordinary influence over me. I was dominated, soul brain and power.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I feel like an inadequate machine, a machine that breaks down at crucial moments, grinds to a dreadful hault, 'won't go,' or, even worse, explodes in some innocent person's face.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

“When we have to change our mind about a person, we hold the inconvenience he causes us very much against him.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil

“Of course, people will laugh at you, but people laugh at a great many things so there is no need to take it personally.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

“I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.”

Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere's Fan

“Anyone who falls in love is searching for missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who's in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It's like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven't seen in a long time. It's just a natural feeling. You're not the person who discovered that feeling, so don't go trying to patent it, okay?”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

“Every year, when you're a child, you become a different person.”

Alice Munro book Too Much Happiness

“Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Loving another person is a wonderful thing, and if that love is sincere, no one ends up tossed into a labyrinth. You have to have more faith in yourself.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

“I felt myself melting into the shadows like the negative of a person I'd never seen before in my life.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

“Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.”

Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly

“Silent solitude makes true speech possible and personal. If I am not in touch with my own belovedness, then I cannot touch the sacredness of others. If I am estranged from myself, I am likewise a stranger to others.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

“The only path by which another person can upset you is through your own thought.”

Joseph Murphy The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

“The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

“Lest I keep my complacent way I must remember somewhere out there a person died for me today. As long as there must be war, I ask and I must answer was I worth dying for?”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“Things every person should have:

•A nemesis.
•An evil twin.
•A secret headquarters.
•An escape hatch.
•A partner in crime.
•A secret identity.”

Wil Wheaton (1972) American actor and writer

“We are not the person other people wish we were. We are who we decide to be.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

“My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world's most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular level.”

Michael H. Hart (1932) American astronomer

“Morality in sexual relations, when it is free from superstition, consists essentially in respect for the other person, and unwillingness to use that person solely as a means of personal gratification, without regard to his or her desires.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“But it's no use now," thought poor Alice, "to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

“No one actually needs another person or another person's love to survive. Love is when we have irrationally convinced ourselves that we do.”

Gabrielle Zevin book Elsewhere

“Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“No” is a word that must never be negotiated, because the person who chooses not to hear it is trying to control you.”

Gavin de Becker (1954) American engineer

“Disarmed, I realized how easily you can lose all animosity toward someone you've deemed your enemy as soon as that person stops behaving as such.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

“I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

“If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to all others, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism.”

Erich Fromm book The Art of Loving

“… inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.”

Terry Pratchett book Moving Pictures

“Each person's life – each lifeform,
in fact – represents a world, a
unique way in which the universe experiences itself.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

“There was only one thing the perfume could not do. It could not turn him into a person who could love and be loved like everyone else. So, to hell with it he thought. To hell with the world. With the perfume. With himself”

Patrick Süskind (1949) German writer and screenwriter

“Don't trust the person who has broken faith once.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“a person hoping to become a poet must have the capacity of thinking of several things at a time.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Speak, Memory

“Insanity's so personal. It's hard to know who shares our secrets.”

Don DeLillo The Day Room

“Inside every sane person there's a madman struggling to get out," said the shopkeeper. "That's what I've always thought. No one goes mad quicker than a totally sane person.”

Terry Pratchett book The Light Fantastic

“I've found that there is always some beauty left — in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you. Look at these things, then you find yourself again, and God, and then you regain your balance. A person who's happy will make others happy; a person who has courage and faith will never die in misery!”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.”

Jim Valvano (1946–1993) American basketball player-coach

“For me, living means I can be responsive to the other person. It means I can show my emotions and my feelings. Talk to them. Feel with them …”

Morrie Schwartz (1916–1995) American sociologist

“Speaking personally, you can have my gun, but you'll take my book when you pry my cold, dead fingers off of the binding.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

“My Best Friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

“You know, ogres only sound stupid. Most are pretty smart."

"And it's a shallow person who judges anyone by the way they sound. I'm so shallow I'm surprised I don't reflect myself.”

Tamora Pierce book First Test

“I went to collect the few personal belongings which… I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.”

Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi

“If frienship is your weakest point then you are the strongest person in the world.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

“No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side.

Or you don't.”

Stephen King book The Stand

“I hold that a strongly marked personality can influence descendants for generations.”

Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) English children's writer and illustrator

“The alcoholic and the drug addict harm only themselves by their behavior; the person who violates the rules of morality governing mans life in society harms not only himself, but everyone.”

Ludwig von Mises book Liberalism

“Hate is too mild of a word. But it's nothing personal, I don't think.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

“A visiting pastor at our church in Plains once told a story about a priest from New Orleans. Father Flanagan’s parish lay in the central part of the city, close to many taverns. One night he was walking down the street and saw a drunk thrown out of a pub. The man landed in the gutter, and Father Flanagan quickly recognized him as one of his parishioners, a fellow named Mike. Father Flanagan shook the dazed man and said, “Mike!” Mike opened his eyes and Father Flanagan said, “You’re in trouble. If there is anything I can do for you, please tell me what it is.ℍ “Well, Father,” Mike replied, “I hope you’ll pray for me.” “Yes,” the priest answered, “I’ll pray for you right now.” He knelt down in the gutter and prayed, “Father, please have mercy on this drunken man.ℍ At this, a startled Mike woke up fully and said, “Father, please don’t tell God I’m drunk.ℍ Sometimes we don’t feel much of a personal relationship between God and ourselves, as though we have a secret life full of failures and sins that God knows nothing about. We want to involve God only when we plan to give thanks or when we’re in trouble and need help. But the rest of our lives, we’d rather keep to ourselves.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

“I have never been aware before how many faces there are. There are quantities of human beings, but there are many more faces, for each person has several.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

“The name of a person you love is more than language.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

“Don't condemn if you see a person has a dirty glass of water, just show them the clean glass of water that you have. When they inspect it, you won't have to say that yours is better."
-said by Elijah Muhammad to Malcolm X”

Malcolm X book The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“Be helpful. When you see a person without a smile, give him one of yours. ~”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

“The bravest person I know is afraid of the dark. She sleeps with a night lamp always, but if her friends are threatened? She suddenly thinks she's a bear twelve feet tall and attacks whoever scared her friends.”

Tamora Pierce book Cold Fire

“I understand pain. I've lived with pain my entire life. But pain is nothing compared to betrayal. And betrayal is nothing compared to knowing that the javelin in your back was rammed there by the one person in your life you actually trusted.”

Brad Meltzer book The Book of Lies