“We reproach people for talking about themselves but it is the subject they treat best.”

— Anatole France

On reproche aux gens de parler d’eux-mêmes. C’est pourtant le sujet qu’ils traitent le mieux.
Series I: À propos du journal des Goncourt http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/%C3%80_propos_du_%C2%AB_journal_des_Goncourt_%C2%BB
The Literary Life (1888-1892)

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On reproche aux gens de parler d’eux-mêmes. C’est pourtant le sujet qu’ils traitent le mieux.

The Literary Life (1888-1892)

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Anatole France 122

French writer 1844–1924

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

"Men's Women, Women's Men" (1971), p. 137
The Good Word & Other Words (1978)

“How people treat other people is a direct reflection of how they feel about themselves.”

Paulo Coelho book The Winner Stands Alone

Source: The Winner Stands Alone

“Treat people the way you want to be treated. Talk to people the way you want to be talked to. Respect is earned, not given.”

Ralph Smart

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“A reproach can only hurt if it hits the mark. Whoever knows that he does not deserve a reproach can treat it with contempt.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life, p. 383 in Oxford University Press edition of Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays (1974)

“On the contrary, it's because somebody knows something about it that we can't talk about physics. It's the things that nobody knows anything about that we can discuss. We can talk about the weather; we can talk about social problems; we can talk about psychology; we can talk about international finance — gold transfers we can't talk about, because those are understood — so it's the subject that nobody knows anything about that we can all talk about!”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

Rejoinder when told that he couldn't talk about physics, because "nobody [at this table] knows anything about it."
Part 5: "The World of One Physicist", "Alfred Nobel's Other Mistake", p. 310.
Quoted in Handbook of Economic Growth (2005) by Philippe Aghion and Steven N. Durlauf.
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)

“I can’t work with computers but I work with someone who can. We talk about what the subjects will be and then I get a load of images about Liverpool. We then scan them and put them on a disk and then we manipulate them on the computer. I am treating them as posters. They are prints but I want them to look like posters.”

Peter Blake (1932) British artist

Colin Serjent, "Blake's 08, http://www.catalystmedia.org.uk/issues/nerve9/peter_blake.php Nerve, Autumn 2006
On producing serigraph prints to celebrate Liverpool as the 2008 European Capital of Culture.
Art

“The subject that interests most writers is, of course, themselves and it is easy subject to talk about. But you know it is always easier if you are a poet or a novelist because you are used to talking in your voice. You suspend your whole life talking as writer directly to the audience. The problem is being playwright is that everything that you write is for someone else to say.”

Girish Raghunath Karnad (1938–2019) Indian playwright

Expressed to R.K.Dhavan, quoted here [Sahu, Nandini title=The Post-colonial Space: Writing the Self and the Nation, http://books.google.com/books?id=xs_tj0tDnnwC&pg=PA59, 2007, Atlantic Publishers & Dist, 978-81-269-0777-9, 116]

“Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing.”

Akira Kurosawa (1910–1998) Japanese film maker

Criterion Collection essay on Rashamon, excerpted from Something Like an Autobiography as translated by Audie E. Bock (1982) http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/196-akira-kurosawa-on-rashomon
Context: Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing. This script portrays such human beings — the kind who cannot survive without lies to make them feel they are better people than they really are. It even shows this sinful need for flattering falsehood going beyond the grave — even the character who dies cannot give up his lies when he speaks to the living through a medium. Egoism is a sin the human being carries with him from birth; it is the most difficult to redeem. This film is like a strange picture scroll that is unrolled and displayed by the ego. You say that you can’t understand this script at all, but that is because the human heart itself is impossible to understand. If you focus on the impossibility of truly understanding human psychology and read the script one more time, I think you will grasp the point of it.

“The best and most clear indicator that we are progressing spiritually and coming unto Christ is the way we treat other people.”

Marvin J. Ashton (1915–1994) Apostle of the LDS Church

“It is not appropriate for people to talk about morals and ethics when they cannot put the value of morals and ethics on themselves.”

Titon Rahmawan

“We reproach people for talking about themselves but it is the subject they treat best.”

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Anatole France 122

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