Quotes about personality
page 77

Jeremy Rifkin photo
Hayley Williams photo

“"No boy is worth your teenage years!." "For me to be in love with someone means that I have to accept who I am, and not allow another person to define me. And if someone loves me in spite of all that, then that's a start."”

Hayley Williams (1988) American singer-songwriter and musician

Interview about her highschool years with the 'Sugar' magazine http://www.omgmusic.com/news/hayley-williams-girls-at-school-called-me-gay

Ron Paul photo
Honoré de Balzac photo

“Between persons who are perpetually in each other's company dislike or love increases daily; every moment brings reasons to love or hate each other more and more.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

Entre personnes sans cesse en présence, la haine et l'amour vont toujours croissant: on trouve à tout moment des raisons pour s'aimer ou se haïr mieux.
Source: The Vicar of Tours (1832), Ch. I.

Howard S. Becker photo
Gustavo Gutiérrez photo

“Through the persons who explicitly accept his Word, the Lord reveals the world to itself.”

Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928) Peruvian theologian

Source: A Theology of Liberation - 15th Anniversary Edition, Chapter Twelve, The Church: Sacrament Of History, p. 147

Ludwig Feuerbach photo

“All presentation, all demonstration—and the presentation of thought is demonstration—has, according to its original determination—and this is all that matters to us—the cognitive activity of the other person as its ultimate aim.”

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) German philosopher and anthropologist

Z. Hanfi, trans., in The Fiery Brook (1972), p. 67
Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy (1839)

Daniel Goleman photo
Jean-François Revel photo
Donald J. Trump photo
W. Somerset Maugham photo
Georg Simmel photo

“The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life. The fight with nature which primitive man has to wage for his bodily existence attains in this modern form its latest transformation. The eighteenth century called upon man to free himself of all the historical bonds in the state and in religion, in morals and in economics. Man’s nature, originally good and common to all, should develop unhampered. In addition to more liberty, the nineteenth century demanded the functional specialization of man and his work; this specialization makes one individual incomparable to another, and each of them indispensable to the highest possible extent. However, this specialization makes each man the more directly dependent upon the supplementary activities of all others. Nietzsche sees the full development of the individual conditioned by the most ruthless struggle of individuals; socialism believes in the suppression of all competition for the same reason. Be that as it may, in all these positions the same basic motive is at work: the person resists to being leveled down and worn out by a social technological mechanism. An inquiry into the inner meaning of specifically modern life and its products, into the soul of the cultural body, so to speak, must seek to solve the equation which structures like the metropolis set up between the individual and the super-individual contents of life. Such an inquiry must answer the question of how the personality accommodates itself in the adjustments to external forces.”

Georg Simmel (1858–1918) German sociologist, philosopher, and critic

Source: The Metropolis and Modern Life (1903), p. 409

Erving Goffman photo
Ryū Murakami photo
Heidi Klum photo

“People in the business always say, "You look fabulous." You get that all the time and it kind of goes in one ear and out the other because most of the time they just say that to make you feel good. It's nice when you hear it from an ordinary person and then I appreciate it.”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

Quoted in Parade Magazine 10 July 2008 http://www.parade.com/celebrity/celebrity-parade/archive/pc_0194.html.

Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet photo

“Personal injury is a more serious matter than damage to property.”

Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet (1802–1880) Lord Chief Justice

Reg. v. Heppinstale (1859), 7 W. R. 178.

George Carlin photo
Samuel Vince photo

“The rapid establishment of Christianity must therefore have been from the conviction which those who embraced it, had of its "Truth and power unto salvation." Christianity at first spread itself amongst the most enlightened nations of the earth - in those places where human learning was in its greatest perfection; and, by the force of the evidence which attended it, amongst such men it gained an establishment. It has been justly observed, that "it happened very providentially to the honour of the Christian religion, that it did not take its rise in the dark illiterate ages of the world, but at a time when arts and sciences were t their height, and when there were men who made it the business of their lives to search after truth and lift the several opinions of the philosophers and wise men, concerning the duty, the end, and chief happiness of reasonable creatures." Both the learned and the ignorant alike embraced its doctrines; the learned were not likely to be deceived in the proofs which were offered; and the same cause undoubtedly operated to produce the effect upon each. But an immediate conversion of the bulk of mankind, can arise only from some proofs of a ddivine authority offering themselves immediately to the senses; the preaching of any new doctrine, if lest to operate only by its own force, would go but a very little way towards the immediate conversion of the gnorant, who have no principle of action but what arises from habit, and whose powers of reasoning are insufficient to correct their errors. When Mahomet was required by his followers to work a miracle for their conviction, he always declined it; he was too cautious to trust to an experiment, the success of which was scarcely whithin the bounds of probablity; he amused his followers with prtended visions, which with the aid afterwards of the civil and military powr; and as the accomplishment of that event was by a few obscure persons, who founded their pretentions upon authority from heaven, we are next to consider, what kind of proofs of their divine commission they offered to the world; and whether they themselves could have been deceived, or mankind could have been deludded by them.”

Samuel Vince (1749–1821) British mathematician, astronomer and physicist

Source: The Credibility of Christianity Vindicated, p. 20; As quoted in " Book review http://books.google.nl/books?id=52tAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA261," in The British Critic, Volume 12 (1798). F. and C. Rivington. p. 261-262

Stanisław Lem photo
Aldo Capitini photo
Tom DeLay photo
Richard Stallman photo
Jimmy Wales photo
Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis photo
Bruce Palmer Jr. photo
Sheikh Hasina photo

“As leaders and activists of Awami League, our responsibility is to fulfill the dream of the father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib so that every person in the country gets food, home, education, health care and prosperous life.”

Sheikh Hasina (1947) Prime Minister of Bangladesh

While addressing a special extended party meeting at the Gonobhaban, the official residence of the Prime Minister of Bangladesh (20 May 2017). http://www.thedailystar.net/politics/bangladesh-prime-minister-sheikh-hasina-speech-awami-league-politics-meeting-gono-bhaban-1408087

George Sarton photo
Nathanael Greene photo

“Hitherto our principal difficulty has arose from a want of proper supplies of money, and from the inefficacy of that which we obtained; but now there appears a scene opening which will introduce new embarrassments. The Congress have recommended to the different States to take upon themselves the furnishing certain species of supplies for our department. The recommendation falls far short of the general detail of the business, the difficulty of ad justing which, between the different agents as well as the different authorities from which they derive their appointments, I am very apprehensive will introduce some jarring interests, many improper disputes, as well as dangerous delays. Few persons, who have not a competent knowledge of this employment, can form any tolerable idea of the arrangements necessary to give despatch and success in discharging the duties of the office, or see the necessity for certain relations and dependencies. The great exertions which are frequently necessary to be made, require the whole machine to be moved by one common interest, and directed to one general end. How far the present measures, recommended to the different States, are calculated to promote these desirable purposes, I cannot pretend to say; but there appears to me such a maze, from the mixed modes adopted by some States, and about to be adopted by others, that I cannot see the channels, through which the business may be conducted, free from disorder and confusion.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (January 1780)

Cesar Chavez photo
Marie-Louise von Franz photo
Shandi Finnessey photo
Pope Benedict XVI photo

“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached. God is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

Manuel II Palaiologos, in the 7th of the 26 Dialogues Held With A Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia (1391), this quote became the subject of controversy when it was used by Benedict XIV in his lecture "Faith, Reason and the University — Memories and Reflections" (12 September 2006)
Misattributed

Plutarch photo

“As those persons who despair of ever being rich make little account of small expenses, thinking that little added to a little will never make any great sum.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Of Man's Progress in Virtue
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Richard Sherman (American football) photo

“I also think that there's a way to go about things, and there's a way to do things. And I think the issue at hand needs to be addressed internally, and before we move on, because from personal experience, you know, you are living in the hood, living in the inner city, you deal with things, you deal with people dying.”

Richard Sherman (American football) (1988) American football player

Press conference (16 September 2015), as quoted in "Video: Richard Sherman speaks passionately on Black Lives Matter" https://web.archive.org/web/20150917000340/http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/video-richard-sherman-speaks-passionately-on-black-lives-matter/ (16 September 2015), by Bob Condotta, The Seattle Times, Seattle, Washington
Press conference (16 September 2015)

Gloria Estefan photo
Sarah Monette photo
P.G. Wodehouse photo
Anne Brontë photo
Erwin Griswold photo
August Macke photo
Isaac Asimov photo

“Plowboy: In your opinion, what are mankind's prospects for the near future?
Asimov: To tell the truth, I don't think the odds are very good that we can solve our immediate problems. I think the chances that civilization will survive more than another 30 years—that it will still be flourishing in 2010—are less than 50 percent.
Plowboy: What sort of disaster do you foresee?
Asimov: I imagine that as population continues to increase—and as the available resources decrease—there will be less energy and food, so we'll all enter a stage of scrounging. The average person's only concerns will be where he or she can get the next meal, the next cigarette, the next means of transportation. In such a universal scramble, the Earth will be just plain desolated, because everyone will be striving merely to survive regardless of the cost to the environment. Put it this way: If I have to choose between saving myself and saving a tree, I'm going to choose me.
Terrorism will also become a way of life in a world marked by severe shortages. Finally, some government will be bound to decide that the only way to get what its people need is to destroy another nation and take its goods … by pushing the nuclear button.
And this absolute chaos is going to develop—even if nobody wants nuclear war and even if everybody sincerely wants peace and social justice—if the number of mouths to feed continues to grow. Nothing will be able to stand up against the pressure of the whole of humankind simply trying to stay alive!”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Mother Earth News interview (1980)

Leszek Kolakowski photo
Andrew Dickson White photo
John Steinbeck photo
Vanna Bonta photo

“Sex is as personally unique to individuals as it is universal.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Vanna Bonta Talks Sex in Space (Interview - Femail magazine)

Robert M. Pirsig photo
Jayde Nicole photo
John Campbell Shairp photo
Camille Paglia photo

“Consistency of the person's strategic preference across tests (and subject matters) is curiously high.”

Gordon Pask (1928–1996) British psychologist

Source: Learning Strategies, Teaching Strategies, and Conceptual or Learning Style (1988), p. 85. as cited in: Colin A. Hardy, Michael Mawer (1999) Learning and Teaching in Physical Education. p. 62.

David H. Levy photo

“I used to fear that taking medication would change my personality; now I fear that it won’t.”

David H. Levy (1948) Canadian astronomer

Humor in Psychotherapy (2007)

Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo
Mark Zuckerberg photo
Alastair Reynolds photo

“Is this a personal grudge or are you just psychotic?”

Alastair Reynolds (1966) British novelist and astronomer

A Spy in Europa (p. 105)
Short fiction, Galactic North (2006)

Rollo May photo
Henry Campbell-Bannerman photo
Chuck Klosterman photo

“If your archenemy tried to kill you, this person would attempt to stop him.”

Chuck Klosterman (1972) Author, Columnist

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

Michael Halliday photo

“[interpersonal meaning] embodies all use of language to express social and personal relations, including all forms of the speaker's intrusion into the speech situation and the speech act.”

Michael Halliday (1925–2018) Australian linguist

Source: 1970s and later, Explorations in the functions of language, 1973, p. 41 cited in: Sin-wai Chan (2004) A dictionary of translation technology. p. 113.

Charles Stross photo
Thomas Edison photo

“I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

As quoted in Jesus : Myth Or Reality? (2006) by Ian Curtis, p. 289.
Date unknown

Tokyo Sexwale photo
Iltutmish photo
Marcelo Tas photo

“Luiza (his oldest daughter) expressed this option. That, remember, is personal.”

Marcelo Tas (1959) Brazilian actor

In a news magazine Alfa, talks about his daughter being gay.

Adam Smith photo
Frank Sinatra photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Herbert Hoover photo
Neil deGrasse Tyson photo
Errico Malatesta photo
Morrissey photo
John Gray photo

“I may not be as unambiguously hostile to capitalism as many people are, but what I don't like about it is the commodification of personal experiences, it turns everyone into actors.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

Quoted in Will Self, "John Gray: Forget everything you know," http://web.archive.org/web/20080403080859/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/john-gray-forget-everything-you-know-641878.html The Independent (2002-09-03)

Muhammad photo
Chuck Jones photo
Edward Coke photo

“A witch is a person who hath conference with the Devil to consult with him or to do some act.”

Edward Coke (1552–1634) English lawyer and judge

Reported in Margaret Alice Murray, The Witch-Cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology (2007) p. 18.
Attributed

William Joyce photo

“To conclude this personal note, I, William Joyce, will merely say that I left England because I would not fight for Jewry against the Führer and National Socialism, and because I believe most ardently, as I do today, that victory and a perpetuation of the old system would be an incomparably greater evil for [England] than defeat coupled with a possibility of building something new, something really national, something truly socialist.”

William Joyce (1906–1946) British fascist and propaganda broadcaster

Peter Martland, "Lord Haw Haw: The English voice of Nazi Germany" (The National Archives, 2003), p. 173. UK National Archives KV 2/245/285.
Broadcast, 2 April 1941. In this broadcast Joyce for the first time identified himself, in response to an article in the London Evening Standard which claimed he ran a spy ring in Britain.

Brigham Young photo
Sandra Fluke photo

“A country where we mean it when we talk about personal freedom – or one where that freedom doesn’t apply to our bodies and our voices.”

Sandra Fluke (1981) American women's rights activist and lawyer

2012 Democratic National Convention

“I do not sell out my personality. I represent views. I utter opinions. Let us talk about that! That should be the topic, not my personality! It is only a frame. A framework. Which does not deserve either attention, adoration, or love.”

Róbert Puzsér (1974) hungarian publicist

Én nem a személyiségemet árulom. Én álláspontokat képviselek. Véleményt mondok. Erről beszéljünk! Ez legyen a téma, ne az én egyéniségem! Az egy váz. Egy keretrendszer. Nem érdemes sem figyelemre, sem rajongásra, sem szeretetre. (Puzsér Róbert: "Én egy őrkutya vagyok"
Szily Nóra interjúja, life.hu, 2012. április 10.)
Quotes from him, Interviews

Clifford D. Simak photo
Joyce Brothers photo

“Being taken for granted can be a compliment. It means that you've become a comfortable, trusted element in another person's life.”

Joyce Brothers (1927–2013) Joyce Brothers

As quoted in On Being Blonde: Wit and Wisdom from the World's Most Infamous Blondes (2004) by Paula Munier, p. 69

Hanna Reitsch photo

“And what have we now in Germany? A land of bankers and car-makers. Even our great army has gone soft. Soldiers wear beards and question orders. I am not ashamed to say I believed in National Socialism. I still wear the Iron Cross with diamonds Hitler gave me. But today in all Germany you can't find a single person who voted Adolf Hitler into power. Many Germans feel guilty about the war. But they don't explain the real guilt we share — That we lost.”

Hanna Reitsch (1912–1979) German aviator

As quoted in "The first astronaut: tiny, daring Hanna", by Ron Laytner in The Deseret News (19 February 1981), pp. C1+, p. 12C http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=kz8jAAAAIBAJ&sjid=TYMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5612,5305691&dq=i-still-wear-the-iron-cross-with-diamonds-hitler-gave-me-but-today-in-all-germany-you-can-t-find-a-single-person-who-voted-adolf-hitler-into-power&hl=en

Kent Hovind photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“By the oath I have taken "to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," duty directs — and strong personal conviction impels — that I advise the Congress that action is necessary, and necessary now, if the Constitution is to be upheld and the rights of all citizens are not to be mocked, abused and denied. I must regretfully report to the Congress the following facts:
1. That the Fifteenth Amendment of our Constitution is today being systematically and willfully circumvented in certain State and local jurisdictions of our Nation.
2. That representatives of such State and local governments acting "under the color of law," are denying American citizens the right to vote on the sole basis of race or color.
3. That, as a result of these practices, in some areas of our country today no significant number of American citizens of the Negro race can be registered to vote except upon the intervention and order of a Federal Court.
4. That the remedies available under law to citizens thus denied their Constitutional rights — and the authority presently available to the Federal Government to act in their behalf — are clearly inadequate.
5. That the denial of these rights and the frustration of efforts to obtain meaningful relief from such denial without undue delay is contributing to the creation of conditions which are both inimical to our domestic order and tranquillity and incompatible with the standards of equal justice and individual dignity on which our society stands.
I am, therefore, calling upon the Congress to discharge the duty authorized in Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment "to enforce this Article by appropriate legislation."”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Special message to Congress on the right to vote (1965)

Pat Paulsen photo
Paul Blobel photo
Colin Blackburn, Baron Blackburn photo
Will Eisner photo
Sarah Jeong photo
Harvey Milk photo

“I ask for the movement to continue, for the movement to grow, because last week I got a phone call from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and my election gave somebody else, one more person, hope. And after all, that's what this is all about. It's not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power — it's about giving those young people out there in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias, hope. You gotta give them hope.”

Harvey Milk (1930–1978) American politician who became a martyr in the gay community

From a tape recording (1977-11-18) to be played in the event of his assassination, quoted in Randy Shilts, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1982), p. 277

Jack Valenti photo

“In a political struggle, never get personal — else the dagger digs too deep.”

Jack Valenti (1921–2007) President of the MPAA

As quoted in "What Jack Valenti Taught Us All" in The Washingtion Post (28 April 2007) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042701782.html?hpid=opinionsbox1