Quotes about personality
page 74

Jonathan Miller photo
John Major photo

“John Major: What I don't understand, Michael, is why such a complete wimp like me keeps winning everything.
Michael Brunson: You've said it, you said precisely that.
Major: I suppose Gus will tell me off for saying that, won't you Gus?
Brunson: No, no, no … it's a fair point. The trouble is that people are not perceiving you as winning.
Major: Oh, I know … why not? Because…
Brunson: Because rotten sods like me, I suppose, don't get the message clear [laughs].
Major: No, no, no. I wasn't going to say that - well partly that, yes, partly because of S-H-one-Ts like you, yes, that's perfectly right. But also because those people who are opposing our European policy have said the way to oppose the Government on the European policy is to attack me personally. The Labour Party started before the last election. It has been picked up and it is just one of these fashionable things that slips into the Parliamentary system and it is an easy way to proceed.
Brunson: But I mean you … has been overshadowed … my point is there, not just the fact that you have been overshadowed by Maastricht and people don't…
Major: The real problem is this…
Brunson: But you've also had all the other problems on top - the Mellors, the Mates … and it's like a blanket - you use the phrase 'masking tape' but I mean that's it, isn't it?
Major: Even, even, even, as an ex-whip I can't stop people sleeping with other people if they ought not, and various things like that. But the real problem is…
Brunson: I've heard other people in the Cabinet say 'Why the hell didn't he get rid of Mates on Day One?' Mates was a fly, you could have swatted him away.
Major: Yeah, well, they did not say that at the time, I have to tell you. And I can tell you what they would have said if I had. They'd have said 'This man was being set up. He was trying to do his job for his constituent. He had done nothing improper, as the Cabinet Secretary told me. It was an act of gross injustice to have got rid of him'. Nobody knew what I knew at the time. But the real problem is that one has a tiny majority. Don't overlook that. I could have all these clever and decisive things that people wanted me to do and I would have split the Conservative Party into smithereens. And you would have said, Aren't you a ham-fisted leader? You've broken up the Conservative Party.
Brunson: No, well would you? If people come along and…
Major: Most people in the Cabinet, if you ask them sensibly, would tell you that, yes. Don't underestimate the bitterness of European policy until it is settled - It is settled now.
Brunson: Three of them - perhaps we had better not mention open names in this room - perhaps the three of them would have - if you'd done certain things, they would have come along and said, 'Prime Minister, we resign'. So you say 'Fine, you resign'.
Major: We all know which three that is. Now think that through. Think it through from my perspective. You are Prime Minister. You have got a majority of 18. You have got a party still harking back to a golden age that never was but is now invented. And you have three rightwing members of the Cabinet actually resigned. What happens in the parliamentary party?
Brunson: They create a lot of fuss but you have probably got three damn good ministers in the Cabinet to replace them.
Major: Oh, I can bring in other people into the Cabinet, that is right, but where do you think most of this poison has come from? It is coming from the dispossessed and the never-possessed. You and I can both think of ex-ministers who are going around causing all sorts of trouble. Would you like three more of the bastards out there? What's the Lyndon Johnson, er, maxim?
Brunson: If you've got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.
Major: No, that's not what I had in mind, though it's pretty good.”

John Major (1943) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Andrew Culf, "What the `wimp' really said to the S-H-one-T", The Guardian, 26 July 1993.
'Off-the-record' exchange with ITN reporter Michael Brunson following videotaped interview, 23 July 1993. Neither Major nor Brunson realised their microphones were still live and being recorded by BBC staff preparing for a subsequent interview; the tape was swiftly leaked to the Daily Mirror.

Matt Mullenweg photo

“My own personal dream is that the majority of the web runs on open source software.”

Matt Mullenweg (1984) American entrepreneur

Big Omaha http://www.siliconprairienews.com/2010/12/big-omaha-video-series-matt-mullenweg-robert-scoble, Conference Interview, May 2010

Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo

“Reflect upon the person you love the most, and aspire to treat everyone with that same quality of love.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume III: Solace for the Heart in Difficult Times (Hari-Nama Press, 2000)

Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo
H. G. Wells photo
Nyanaponika Thera photo
William Adams photo

“Faith is a simple trust in a personal Redeemer. The simpler our trust in Christ for all things, the surer our peace.”

William Adams (1706–1789) Fellow and Master of Pembroke College, Oxford

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 224.

György Lukács photo
Stéphane Dion photo
Thomas Henry Huxley photo

“To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or sea-side stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

"On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences" (1854) p. 29 http://books.google.com/books?id=FJZWAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA29
1850s

Kenji Miyazawa photo

“In spring I stopped eating the bodies of living things. Nonetheless, the other day I ate several slices of tuna sashimi as a form of magic to “undertake” my “communication” with “society.” I also stirred a cup of chawanmushi with a spoon. If the fish, while being eaten, had stood behind me and watched, what would he have thought? “I gave up my only life and this person is eating my body as if it were something distasteful.” “He’s eating me in anger.” “He’s eating me out of desperation.” “He’s thinking of me and, while quietly savoring my fat with his tongue, praying, ‘Fish, you will come with me as my companion some day, won’t you?’” “Damn! He’s eating my body!” Well, different fish would have had different thoughts. … Suppose I were the fish, and suppose that not only I were being eaten but my father were being eaten, my mother were being eaten, and my sister were also being eaten. And suppose I were behind the people eating us, watching. “Oh, look, that man has torn apart my sibling with chopsticks. Talking to the person next to him, he swallowed her, thinking nothing of it. Just a few minutes ago her body was lying there, cold. Now she must be disintegrating in a pitch-dark place under the influence of mysterious enzymes. Our entire family have given up our precious lives that we value, we’ve sacrificed them, but we haven’t won a thimbleful of pity from these people.””

Kenji Miyazawa (1896–1933) Japanese poet and author of children's literature

I must have been once a fish that was eaten.
Letter to Hosaka (May 1918); as quoted in Miyazawa Kenji: Selections, edited by Hiroaki Sato (University of California Press, 2007), pp. 12 https://books.google.it/books?id=D7IwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA12-13.

Margrethe II of Denmark photo
S. H. Raza photo
Louis Brownlow photo
Paul McCartney photo

“Personally, I think you can put any interpretation you want on anything, but when someone suggests that Can't Buy Me Love is about a prostitute, I draw the line. That's going too far.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics (1969), p 107 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DKG-FXj_HNYC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=%22I+think+you+can+put+any+interpretation+you+want+on+anything,+but+when+someone+suggests+that+Can%E2%80%99t+Buy+Me+Love+is+about+a+prostitute,+I+draw+the+line.+That%E2%80%99s+going+too+far.%22&source=bl&ots=dZZ8CWP3RD&sig=72RA2gERz8OtnW7coK4F0ND9sXc&hl=en#v=onepage&q=%22I%20think%20you%20can%20put%20any%20interpretation%20you%20want%20on%20anything%2C%20but%20when%20someone%20suggests%20that%20Can%E2%80%99t%20Buy%20Me%20Love%20is%20about%20a%20prostitute%2C%20I%20draw%20the%20line.%20That%E2%80%99s%20going%20too%20far.%22&f=false

Kim Jong-il photo
José Ortega Y Gasset photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Brian W. Aldiss photo

“I kill from conviction, not to pass a personality quiz.”

Brian W. Aldiss (1925–2017) British science fiction author

“Basis for Negotiations” p. 143
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

Bob Dylan photo
Billy Corgan photo
Neal Stephenson photo

“Tris was pudgy and not especially good looking, but she had the personality of a beautiful girl because she'd been raised in a math.”

Part 10, "Messal." (A "math" is a co-ed academic/research monastery. Most of the novel takes place in maths.)
Anathem (2008)

Walker Percy photo
Uri Avnery photo
John Paul Stevens photo
Dave Barry photo
Lucy Stone photo

“Fifty years ago the legal injustice imposed upon women was appalling. Wives, widows and mothers seemed to have been hunted out by the law on purpose to see in how many ways they could be wronged and made helpless. A wife by her marriage lost all right to any personal property she might have. The income of her land went to her husband, so that she was made absolutely penniless. If a woman earned a dollar by scrubbing, her husband had a right to take the dollar and go and get drunk with it and beat her afterwards. It was his dollar. If a woman wrote a book the copyright of the same belonged to her husband and not to her. The law counted out in many states how many cups and saucers, spoons and knives and chairs a widow might have when her husband died. I have seen many a widow who took the cups she had bought before she was married and bought them again after her husband died, so as to have them legally. The law gave no right to a married woman to any legal existence at all. Her legal existence was suspended during marriage. She could neither sue nor be sued. If she had a child born alive the law gave her husband the use of all her real estate as long as he should live, and called it by the pleasant name of "the estate by courtesy."”

Lucy Stone (1818–1893) American abolitionist and suffragist

When the husband died the law gave the widow the use of one-third of the real estate belonging to him, and it was called the "widow's encumbrance."
The Progress of Fifty Years (1893)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Prem Rawat photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo
Piet de Jong photo

“Majesty, there you see a how a person comes down in the world.”

Piet de Jong (1915–2016) Prime Minister of the Netherlands

When he was sworn in as State Secretary, he told Queen Juliana, for whom he had served as aide-de-camp.
P.J.S. (Piet) de Jong http://www.parlement.com/9291000/biof/00652 (Parlement & Politiek)

Ami Chandra photo

“Pandit Ami Chandra was Fiji's most distinguished Indian trade unionist, possessing high intelligence and a quiet but convincing personality. He strongly opposed any participation of the trade unions in politics; and he also used his powers of gentle persuation to bring about multi-racial trade unionism.”

Ami Chandra (1900–1954) Fijian politician

Industrial associations and local politics. http://books.google.com/books?id=Z2R3Nk3jUlsC&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=%22ami+chandra%22&source=web&ots=bw5YhLOo35&sig=vBCbwbF8o-07nOYlvYnRNu4tDis#PPA9,M1.

Nyanaponika Thera photo
Amitabh Bachchan photo
Jason Aldean photo
Evelyn Underhill photo
Al Gore photo
Jacques Ellul photo
Enoch Powell photo

“What happens then when majorities in the directly elected European Assembly take decisions, or approve policies, or vote budgets which are regarded by the British electorate or by the electorate of some of the mammoth constituencies as highly offensive and prejudicial to their interests? What do the European MPs say to their constituents? They say: “Don't blame me; I had no say, nor did I and my Labour (or Conservative) colleagues, have any say in the framing of these policies”. He will then either add: “Anyhow, I voted against”; or alternatively he will add: “And don't misunderstand if I voted for this along with my German, French, and Italian pals, because if I don't help roll their logs, I shall never get them to roll any of mine”. What these pseudo-MPs will not be able to say is what any MP in a democracy must be able to say, namely, either “I voted against this, and if the majority of my party are elected next time, we will put it right”, or alternatively, “I supported this because it is part of the policy and programme for which a majority in this constituency and in the country voted at the last election and which we shall be proud to defend at the next election”. Direct elections to the European Assembly, so far from introducing democracy and democratic control, will strengthen the arbitrary and bureaucratic nature of the Community by giving a fallacious garb of elective authority to the exercise of supranational powers by institutions and persons who are – in the literal, not the abusive, sense of the word – irresponsible.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech in Brighton (24 October 1977), from Enoch Powell on 1992 (Anaya, 1989), pp. 19-20.
1970s

Basil of Caesarea photo
Lance Armstrong photo

“I don't have anything against organized religion per se. We all need something in our lives. I personally just have not accepted that belief. But I'm one of the few.”

Lance Armstrong (1971) professional cyclist from the USA

As quoted in response to the comment "For a miracle man, you're not very religious", in "10 questions for Lance Armstrong" by Bill Saporito in TIME magazine (28 September 2003)

Margaret Cho photo
Titian photo

“Your Ceasarean Majesty, I consigned to senõr Don Diego di Mendoza, the two portraits of the most serene Empress [ Isabella ], in which I have used all the diligence of which I was capable. I should have liked to take them to your Majesty in person, but that my age and the length of the journey forbade such a course. I beg your Majesty to send me words of the faults or failings which I may have made, and return the pictures that I may correct them. Your Majesty may not permit anyone else to lay hand on them.... Your Majesty’s most humble and constant servant, Titiano.”

Titian (1488–1576) Italian painter

In a letter to Emperor Charles V, from Venice, 5 Oct, 1544; copied in the 'Archives of Simancas' by Mr. Bergenroth; as quoted by J.A.Y. Crowe & G.B. Cavalcaselle in Titian his life and times - With some account... Volume II, publisher John Murray, London, 1877, p. 103
This letter is written by Titian himself - free from the polite style of his secretary/friend Arentino; he is telling the Emperor that he had finished two portraits of the Empress Isabella, he painted after her death after a probably Flemish original. The two portraits were sent to the court in Brussels.
1541-1576
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titian#/media/File:Isabella_of_Portugal_by_Titian.jpg

Maneka Gandhi photo

“Meat can no longer be protected as a personal choice. If your meat is going to destroy my health and our environment, you ought to have to pay for it.”

Maneka Gandhi (1956) Indian politician and activist

On taxing meat-eaters, as quoted in "Interview: Maneka Gandhi" http://www.thescavenger.net/social-justice-2/people/59-social-justice/people/81-interview-maneka-gandhi.html, The Scavenger (21 November 2009)
2001-2010

Henry Adams photo
Mike Parson photo
Katie Couric photo

“The person I enjoyed interviewing the most was Elmo from Sesame Street because he is so unpredictable and he is always eating my hair and my face.”

Katie Couric (1957) American journalist

Source: " Katie Couric : Ask the expert http://www.powertolearn.com/ask_the_expert/expert_archive/katie_couric.shtml" at powertolearn.com, accessed May 24, 2008.

Halle Berry photo

“I used to believe that if my career was going great, then I was not entitled to a great personal life. Well, I've stopped thinking that way. I believe I can have it all.”

Halle Berry (1966) American actress

Barry Koltnow (April 1, 2004) "Halle, them's the breaks", The Advertiser, p. 048

“Anjan Dutta is one of the most interesting persons I have ever met.”

Arin Paul (1980) Indian film director

Washington Bangla Radio http://www.washingtonbanglaradio.com/content/121578810-interview-arin-paul-film-maker-doshta-dosh-1010-jyanto-durga-durga-live (2010)

Muhammad photo
Chuck Klosterman photo

“This person has done at least two (2) things that would be classified as "unforgivable."”

Chuck Klosterman (1972) Author, Columnist

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

Ernst Mach photo
Mohamed Morsi photo
Joseph Strutt photo
Cees Nooteboom photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Gene Vincent photo
Malala Yousafzai photo
Ben Carson photo
Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Lucy Stone photo
Muhammad Ali photo

“I'd like for them to say he took a few cups of love, he took one tablespoon of patience, teaspoon of generosity, one pint of kindness. He took one quart of laughter, one pinch of concern, and then, he mix willlingness with happiness, he added lots of faith, and he stired it up well, then he spreads it over his span of a lifetime, and he served it to each and every deserving person he met.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

Response to George Plimpton, question at the end of an interview: "What would you like people to think about you when you've gone?" - Interview (video) http://youtube.com/watch?v=ebu0OBa1pus

Ali Shariati photo

“The enlightened soul is a person who is self-conscious of his "human condition" in his time and historical and social setting, and whose awareness inevitably and necessarily gives him a sense of social responsibility.”

Ali Shariati (1933–1977) Iranian academic and activist

Source: Where Shall We Begin, 1997-2013, p. 1 ; as cited in: Robert Deemer Lee, Overcoming tradition and modernity: the search for Islamic authenticity, (11997), p. 127.

John A. McDougall photo
John Gray photo
Walker Percy photo
Ali Al-Wardi photo
Bob Dylan photo
Isocrates photo
Theodore Kaczynski photo
Yehudi Menuhin photo
Marino Marini photo
Philip José Farmer photo
Harvey Milk photo
Maddox photo

“I'm impressed that they've been able to take a 2D character with a 1D personality and bloat it into a 3D disaster.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

Garfield sucks http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=garfield_sucks
The Best Page in the Universe

Clarence Thomas photo
George Boole photo

“The last subject to which I am desirous to direct your attention as to a means of self-improvement, is that of philanthropic exertion for the good of others. I allude here more particularly to the efforts which you may be able to make for the benefit of those whose social position is inferior to your own. It is my deliberate conviction, founded on long and anxious consideration of the subject, that not only might great positive good be effected by an association of earnest young men, working together under judicious arrangements for this common end, but that its reflected advantages would overpay the toil of effort, and more than indemnify the cost of personal sacrifice. And how wide a field is now open before you! It would be unjust to pass over unnoticed the shining examples of virtues, that are found among tho poor and indigent There are dwellings so consecrated by patience, by self-denial, by filial piety, that it is not in the power of any physical deprivation to render them otherwise than happy. But sometimes in close contiguity with these, what a deep contrast of guilt and woe! On the darker features of the prospect we would not dwell, and that they are less prominent here than in larger cities we would with gratitude acknowledge; but we cannot shut our eyes to their existence. We cannot put out of sight that improvidence that never looks beyond the present hour; that insensibility that deadens the heart to the claims of duty and affection; or that recklessness which in the pursuit of some short-lived gratification, sets all regard for consequences aside. Evils such as these, although they may present themselves in any class of society, and under every variety of circumstances, are undoubtedly fostered by that ignorance to which the condition of poverty is most exposed; and of which it has been truly said, that it is the night of the spirit,—and a night without moon and without stars. It is to associated efforts for its removal, and for the raising of the physical condition of its subjects, that philanthropy must henceforth direct her regards. And is not such an object great 1 Are not such efforts personally elevating and ennobling? Would that some part of the youthful energy of this present assembly might thus expend itself in labours of benevolence! Would that we could all feel the deep weight and truth of the Divine sentiment that " No man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.”

George Boole (1815–1864) English mathematician, philosopher and logician

George Boole, "Right Use of Leisure," cited in: James Hogg Titan Hogg's weekly instructor, (1847) p. 250; Also cited in: R. H. Hutton, " Professor Boole http://books.google.com/books?id=pfMEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA153," (1866), p. 153
1840s

Helen Clark photo

“I believe I'm the best person for the job. Obviously I'm a woman, but I've never sought election on the basis of being a woman. I've always sought election as the best person for the job.”

Helen Clark (1950) 37th Prime Minister of New Zealand

Quoted in " 'I have the skills for the job' - Helen Clark on bid for top UN job https://www.radiolive.co.nz/WATCH-I-have-the-skills-for-the-job---Helen-Clark-on-bid-for-top-UN-job/tabid/504/articleID/117913/Default.aspx" (5 April 2016)

Nathanael Greene photo
Muhammad photo
John Aubrey photo

“He was a shiftless person, roving and magotie-headed, and sometimes little better than crased.”

John Aubrey (1626–1697) English writer and antiquarian

Anthony Wood (1667), Life (from 1632 to 1672, written by himself; continued till 1695 a 1695, 1772, 1848, O.H.S. 1891–1900 http://www.archive.org/stream/lifeandtimesant00clargoog#page/n150/mode/2up); as quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary, Draft Revision June 2009, maggoty, adj. http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00299405
Criticism

John Kenneth Galbraith photo

“The market had reasserted itself as an impersonal force beyond the power of any person to control, and, while this is the way markets are supposed to be, it was horrible.”

Chapter VI https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929, Things Become More Serious, Section II, p 111
The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929)

Boris Johnson photo
Sarah Brightman photo
James Wilde, 1st Baron Penzance photo
Shreya Ghoshal photo