Quotes about personal (10000 quotes, page 34)

“The price, then, that the professional study of ethics for bureaucrats exacts from the curriculum is that questions of political philosophy ("Is the regime just?") must yield to less fundamental questions such as "How can I promote the values of the regime?" The method of regime values eschews metaphysics and addresses the students in the existential situation in which it finds them—persons who have taken or are about to take an oath to uphold the values of a particular regime. It admonishes them that taking such an oath presupposes an acceptance of the fundamental justice of the regime but does not require into how the students arrived at the conclusion that the regime is just.”

John Rohr (1934–2011) American political scientist

(1989, p. 70-71)
Ethics for bureaucrats, 1988

Justice , Question , Study , Personality

“Creativity is an integral part of our personality.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Vetulani, Jerzy (6 December 2009): W każdym z nas tkwi mr Hyde https://nto.pl/profesor-jerzy-vetulani-w-kazdym-z-nas-tkwi-mr-hyde/ar/4135849, interview. Nowa Trybuna Opolska (in Polish).

Parting , Personality

“A superintendent of a road fifty miles in length can give its business his professional attention and may be constantly on the line engaged in the direction of its details; each person is personally known to him, and all questions in relation to its business are at once presented and acted upon; and any system however imperfect may under such circumstances prove comparatively successful.
In the government of a five hundred miles in length a very different state exists. Any system which might be applicable to the business and extent of a short road would be found entirely inadequate to the wants of a long one. and I am fully convinced that in the want of system perfect in its details, properly adapted and vigilantly enforced, lies the true secret of their [the large roads’] failure; and that this disparity of cost per mile in operating long and short roads, is not produced by a difference in length, but is in proportion to the perfection of the system adopted.”

Daniel McCallum (1815–1878) Canadian engineer and early organizational theorist

Source: Report of the Superintendent of the New York and Erie Railroad to the Stockholders (1856), p. 34: Third paragraph. Cited in: Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. (1962). Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the Industrial Enterprise. p. 21-22

Secret , Failure , Question , Business

“Punitive-repressive attitudes toward extramarital sex are also linked with physical violence, personal crime, and the practice of slavery.”

James W. Prescott (1930) American psychologist

"Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence" (1975)

Sex , Personality

“There is no reason to assume that only those who finally commit a deviant act actually have the impulse to do so. It is much more likely that most people experience deviant impulses frequently. At least in fantasy, people are much more deviant than they appear. Instead of asking why deviants want to do things that are disapproved of, we might better ask why conventional people do not follow through on the deviant impulses they have. Something of an answer to this question may be found in the process of commitment through which the “normal” person becomes progressively involved in conventional institutions and behavior.”

Howard S. Becker (1928) American sociologist

Source: Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (1963), pp. 26-27.

People , Behavior , Question , Appearance

“With respect to animal diet, let it be considered, that taking away the lives of animals, in order to convert them into food, does great violence to the principles of benevolence and compassion. This appears from the frequent hard-heartedness and cruelty found amongst those persons whose occupations engage them in destroying animal life, as well as from the uneasiness which others feel in beholding the butchery of animals.”

David Hartley (philosopher) book Observations on Man

Observations on Man (1749; 6th edition, 1834), Part II, Chapter III, Section II.

Life , Food , Feeling , Appearance

“The philosophical anthropologist … can know the wholeness of the person and through it the wholeness of man only when he does not leave his subjectivity out and does not remain an untouched observer.”

Martin Buber (1878–1965) German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian

Source: Between Man and Man (1965), p. 148

Personality

“I have been so puzzled over the early labelling of personal construct theory as ‘cognitive’ that several years ago I set out to write another short book to make it clear that I wanted no part of cognitive theory.”

George Kelly (psychologist) (1905–1967) American psychologist and therapist

George A. Kelly. The Psychotherapeutic Relationship. 1965. p. 216

Books , Parting

“He represents a noble and courageous dedication to the service of freedom. He never sought for personal aggrandizement, but under heavy temptation remained loyal to the great Cause. He possessed a character that will abide with us through the generations. He loved his fellowmen, and believed in the ultimate triumph of self-government. But he did not consider France had reached a point where representative democracy would be a success. He was practical. Like Washington, he refused a crown. But while he believed Washington performed a great service in accepting the Presidency of America, he believed he had performed an equally great service in rejecting the Presidency of France. He approved the establishment of our republican institutions, and hoped they would one day be a model for the government of his own country. He recognized the value of native institutions. So, while he was loyal to freedom, he was likewise loyal to the Crown. In moderation, in the gradual evolution of government and society, he perceived the strongest defense against both reaction and revolution, and the greatest hope for permanent progress.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Ordered Liberty and World Peace (1924)

Love , Hope , Democracy , Courage

“This conscious self is only one aspect of our greater reality, however; the part that springs into earthknowing. It can be called the "focus personality," because through it we perceive our three-dimensional life. It contains within it, however, traces of the unknown or "source self" out of which it constantly emerges. The source self is the fountainhead of our present physical being, but it exists outside of that frame of reference. We are earth versions of ourselves, beautifully turned into corporal experience. Our known consciousness is filtered through perceptive mechanisms that are a part of what they perceive. We are the instruments through which we know the earth. In other terms, we are particles of energy, flowing from the source self into physical materialization. Each source self forms many such particles or "Aspect selves" that impinge upon three-dimensional reality, striking our space-time continuum. Others are not physical at all, but have their existence in completely different systems of reality. Each Aspect self is connected to the other, however, through the common experience of the source self, and can come to some degree to draw on the knowledge, abilities, and perceptions of the other Aspects. Psychologically, these other Aspects appear within the known self as personality traits, characteristics, and talents that are uniquely ours. The individual is the particle or focus personality, formed by the intersection of the unknown self with space and time. We can follow any of our traits or emotions back to this source self, or at least to a recognition of its existence.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Adventures In Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology (1975), pp.118-119

Life , Spring , Knowledge , Reality

“I believe that David Letterman is the greatest talk show host that ever hosted a talk show. He'd be the last person to say that and he'd probably be horrified to hear that, but I really do believe that. Anything I do, I feel, is a pale imitation at best of what he does. I just try to do whatever I can not to imitate him, because that is the inclination when you idolize somebody, when you watch the show every night growing up as a kid.”

Jimmy Kimmel (1967) American talk show host and comedian

Julie Hinds (January 29, 2006) "Jimmy Kimmel Loves Detroit - The Late-Night Host Makes Nice As He Brings His Show To The City For Super Bowl Week", Detroit Free Press, p. 1M.

Feeling , Personality , Night

“For the very quality of personality is, that a person is a being who recognises others as having a reality as unquestionable as his own, and who thus sees himself as a member of a moral republic, standing to other persons in an immutable relationship of reciprocal duties and rights, himself endowed with dignity, and acknowledging the dignity of all the rest.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Limits of Evolution, p.7

Reality , Personality

“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)

Study , Personality

“The glitz and propaganda, the ridiculous obsessions imparted by our electronic hallucinations, and the spectacles that pass for political participation mask the deadly ecological assault by the corporate state. The worse it gets, the more we retreat into self-delusion. We convince ourselves that global warming does not exist. Or we concede that it exists but insist that we can adapt. Both responses satisfy our mania for eternal optimism and our reckless pursuit of personal comfort. In America, when reality is distasteful we ignore it. But reality will soon descend like the Furies to shatter our complacency and finally our lives. We, as a species, may be doomed. And this is a bitter, bitter fact for a father to digest.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

Truthdig, Life Is Sacred, Sep 3, 2012 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/life_is_sacred_20120903/

Optimism , Reality , Personality

“Adam Smith is, of course, justly lauded for his advocacy of free markets and limited government. Particularly famous is his idea that each person’s pursuit of self-interest leads, as if by an invisible hand, to socially efficient outcomes.”

Robert Barro (1944) American classical macroeconomist

Nothing Is Sacred (2002)

Idea , Personality

“We cleave to the past too much in Germany. All of our German art is too bogged down in the conventional... I think more highly of a free person who consciously puts convention aside.”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

As quoted in: Norbert Wolf, ‎Uta Grosenick (2004) Expressionism, p. 74
undated quotes

Art , Thinking , Past , Personality

“A very poor kid came up to me after a talk and said 'I want to go blow up a factory.' I asked how old he was and he said 17. I said 'have you ever had sex?' He said 'no.' I said 'just remember if you get caught you aren't going to have sex for twenty years at least.' That's not saying that one person having sex is worth the salmon. I'm not saying it's a reason not to act, I'm saying don't be stupid.”

Derrick Jensen (1960) American environmentalist

Interview with The A Word Magazine, March/April 2005.

Stupidity , Sex , Personality

“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.

Fools , Personality

“I don’t need to praise anything so justly famous as Frost’s observation of and empathy with everything in Nature from a hornet to a hillside; and he has observed his own nature, one person’s random or consequential chains of thoughts and feelings and perceptions, quite as well. (And this person, in the poems, is not the “alienated artist” cut off from everybody who isn’t, yum-yum, another alienated artist; he is someone like normal people only more so — a normal person in the less common and more important sense of normal.)”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“The Other Frost”, p. 29
Poetry and the Age (1953)

People , Feeling , Nature , Sense

“In the year 1660 being importuned by some friends of his, I undertook so to teach Mr. Daniel Whalley of Northampton, who had been Deaf and Dumb from a Child. I began the work in 1661, and in little more than a year's time, I had taught him to pronounce distinctly any words, so as I directed him… and in good measure to understand a Language and express his own mind in writing; And he had in that time read over to me distinctly (the whole or greatest part of) the English Bible; and did pretty well understand (at least) the Historical part of it. In the year 1662 I did the like for Mr. Alexander Popham… I have since that time (upon the same account) taught divers Persons (and some of them very considerable) to speak plain and distinctly, who did before hesitate and stutter very much; and others, to pronounce such words or letters, as before they thought impossible for them to do: by teaching them how to rectify such mistakes in the formation, as by some natural impediment, or acquired Custome, they had been subject to.”

John Wallis (1616–1703) English mathematician

p, 125
Dr. Wallis's Account of some Passages of his own Life (1696)

Understanding , Nature , Time , Reading

“Because of [my father Robert Thurman, a former Tibetan Buddhist monk], I often get asked if I'm a Buddhist. I always say no, because I have such respect for the rigor of being a practicing religious person. I'm an actress and a mom, and I probably don't have enough of an active spiritual life. And I don't know why people run around calling themselves by the names of religions when they don't actually practice them.”

Uma Thurman (1970) American actress and model

Interview with Laura Yorke. Reader's Digest. July 2006

Life , People , Religion , Moms

“The attempt to place the white population under the domination of persons of color in the South has impaired, if not destroyed, the kindly relations that had previously existed between them: and mutual distrust has engendered a feeling of animosity which leading in some instances to collision and bloodshed, has prevented that cooperation between the two races so essential to the success of industrial enterprise in the Southern States.”

Andrew Johnson (1808–1875) American politician, 17th president of the United States (in office from 1865 to 1869)

Quote, Fourth State of the Union Address (1868)

Color , Feeling , Success , Personality

“If we accomplish a good deed, a charity in the hope of (getting…) future rewards, or with a more or less confessed (or admitted) ulterior motive to profit from personal advantages ("d'en retirer quelque avantage personnel", Fr.), we are probably doing a useful thing, but which is devoided of any ("tout", Fr.) truly moral character (or disposition)"”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

p .39.
Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)

Hope , Motivation , Future , Personality

“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)

Love , God , Peace , Personality

“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

Democracy , Imagination , History , Personality

“What picture of American society is likely to be imprinted on the consciousness of average Europeans? Given what they read or hear every day from intellectuals and politicians, they can hardly have any choice in the unpleasant particulars, especially if they happen to be French. The picture repeatedly sketched for them is as follows: American society is entirely ruled by money. No other value, whether familial, moral, religious, civic, cultural, professional, or ethical has any potency in itself. Everything in America is a commodity, regarded and used exclusively for its material value. A person is judged solely by the worth of his bank account. Every U. S. President has been in the pockets of the oil companies, the military-industrial complex, the agricultural lobby, or the financial manipulators of Wall Street. America is the "jungle" par excellence of out-of-control, "savage" capitalism, where the rich are always becoming richer and fewer, while the poor are becoming poorer and more numerous. Poverty is the dominant social reality in America. Hordes of famished indigents are everywhere, while luxurious chauffeured limousines with darkened windows glide through the urban wilderness.”

Jean-François Revel (1924–2006) French writer and philosopher

2000s, Europe's Anti-American Obsession (2003)

Money , Family , Reality , Reading

“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

Personality

“At the time our Prophet and Patriarch were killed, or at least soon afterwards, when the Twelve returned to Nauvoo, their immediate circumstances were not altogether agreeable and pleasant or profitable. But suffice it to say we had a meeting, a Conference, at which President Young was the centre of attraction. On his rising to speak, and as soon as he opened his mouth, I heard the voice of Joseph through him, and it was as familiar to me as the voice of my wife, the voice of my child, or the voice of my father. And not only the voice of Joseph did I distinctly and unmistakably hear, but I saw the very gestures of his person, the very features of his countenance, and if I mistake not, the very size of his person appeared on the stand. And it went through me with the thrill of conviction that Brigham was the man to lead this people. And from that day to the present there has not been a query or a doubt upon my mind with regard to the divinity of his appointment; I know that he was the man selected of God to fill the position he now holds.”

Orson Hyde (1805–1878) American Mormon leader

Journal of Discourses 19:58 (April 5, 1877).

God , People , Appearance , Time

“Because free countries have affirmed many years ago that a compulsory church rate is immoral and oppressive, for the sake of the burden laid upon individual consciences; and in affirming this truth they have unconsciously affirmed the wider truth, that every tax or rate, forcibly taken from an unwilling person, is immoral and oppressive. The human conscience knows no distinction between church rates and other compulsory rates and taxes. The sin lies in the disregarding of each other's convictions, and is not affected by the subject matter of the tax.”

Auberon Herbert (1838–1906) British politician

The Principles of Voluntaryism and Free Life

Truth , Personality , Country

“To me, capital punishment is a form of societal self-defense. It should not be employed indiscriminately, but in cases of the most heinous crimes, the death penalty may be the only appropriate punishment. Some people believe it is right to take a life to save the life of someone else, but they would not vote to take the life of a convicted criminal, no matter how horrible the crime. Others believe that killing another person for any reason is simply wrong. I respect those opinions, but I disagree with them. I'm convinced that government has a duty to promote community defense. The death penalty, when applied in appropriate cases, can be a strong deterrent to crime. It is certainly a deterrent to the convicted criminal sentenced to death, and it is also a deterrent to other potential capital offenders.”

John Ashcroft (1942) American politician

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 112

Life , Death , People , Penalty

“The purpose of my work: to introduce, or, rather, to re-introduce the original ways of human development. Once viewed as personal responsibility, personal growth, education, and social doctrine were highly effective. Now that they have begun to be approached as an "acceptance," our ideals have begun to rely on the willingness of others to go along with our philosophies. It is now time for us to return to the selfish ideals of the past.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Journals of Ayn Rand (1997)

Education , Way , Time , Past

“Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Tuesdays with Morrie (1997)

Personality

“The relation of politics to personality in this deepening of democracy has a scope broader than the need to economize on political virtue. One way to explore this relation is to consider the bearing of a program like the one outlined here upon two great sources of human sadnessː the loss of vitality and the disproportion between such vitality as we keep and the activities normally available for its expression.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: Democracy Realizedː The Progressive Alternative (1998), p. 248

Way , Democracy , Loss , Personality

“Hillary Clinton did what she did for the sake of her agenda of personal ambition, carefully planned and worked out over months in which she was using and abusing the state of New York — because she looked at several other states--as a platform for her personal ambition. I, on the other hand, have responded to the call of the people of Illinois who have asked me to come and help them with a crisis situation. It doesn't violate my principal understanding of federalism, because federalism has two parts: state sovereignty and national unity.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Alan Keyes on CNN's American Morning, August 11, 2004. http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/media/interviews/04_08_11cnn.htm.
2004 Illinois U.S. Senate race

People , Understanding , Help , Parting

“Because Israel believes, when it comes right down to it America is the only big country that cares whether they live or die. That's why I can say, give up the West Bank, because the Israelis knew that if the Iraqi or the Iranian army came across the Jordan river, I would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch, and fight and die, and I would.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

At a benefit dinner hosted by the Canadian Jewish Congress in Toronto, Ontario, 2002 CNN Transcript http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0208/02/cf.00.html
2000s

Fight , Personality , Country

“What these tests tell employers about potential employees is hard to imagine, since the "right" answers should be obvious to anyone who has ever encountered the principle of hierarchy and subordination. Do I work well with others? You bet, but never to the point where I would hesitate to inform on them for the slightest infraction. Am I capable of independent decision making? Oh yes, but I know better than to let this capacity interfere with a slavish obedience to orders. At The Maids, a housecleaning service, I am given something called the "Accutrac personality test," which warns at the beginning that "Accutrac has multiple measures which detect attempts to distort or 'psych out' the questionnaire." Naturally, I "never" find it hard "to stop moods of self-pity," nor do I imagine that others are talking about me behind my back or believe that "management and employees will always be in conflict because they have totally different sets of goals."”

Barbara Ehrenreich (1941) American writer and journalist

The real function of these tests, I decide, is to convey information not to the employer but to the potential employee, and the information conveyed is always: You will have no secrets from us.
Source: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (2001), Ch. 2: Scrubbing in Maine (p. 59)

Secret , Imagination , Mood , Nature

“We see that all the enthusiasts about becoming a false Mahdi have gone upside down. That means striving for it would not make it happen, being an enthusiast would not make it happen: God is the One Who creates that person as the Mahdi.”

Harun Yahya (1956) Turkish author

4 January 2014.
A9 TV addresses, 2014

God , Personality , Falseness

“She's (Hillary Clinton) a very dishonest person. I have one of the great temperaments. I have a winning temperament. She has a bad temperament. She's weak. We need a strong temperament and that's all it is, I have a strong temperament. … I think I have a great temperament. I beat 16 very talented people in -- and I've never done this before. You don't do that with a bad temperament. … I'm leading her in the polls, as you probably have noticed. And I think I have a great temperament. I have a temperament where I know how to win. She doesn't know how to win. She's not a winner. She doesn't know how to win. Honestly, she lies a lot and she really -- she should tell the truth. I honestly believe if she told the truth -- because she made some reference to my campaigning, I've had a beautiful -- I've had a -- had a flawless campaign. You'll be writing books about this campaign. And yet she's criticizing my campaign.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, July, This Week Interview (July 30, 2016)

People , Truth , Books , Beauty

“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

Thinking , Personality

“There is no evidence that Republican leaders have been demonstrably dumber than their Democratic counterparts. During the Reagan years, the G. O. P. briefly became known as the “party of ideas,” because it harvested so effectively the intellectual labor of conservative think tanks. … In recent years, however, the Republicans’ relationship to the realm of ideas has become more and more attenuated as talk-radio hosts and television personalities have taken over the role of defining the conservative movement that once belonged to thinkers.”

Max Boot (1969) American writer and historian

How the ‘Stupid Party’ Created Trump (August 2, 2016)

Idea , Thinking , Personality

“"The Polarity Principle:" The more government, the more violence. By ‘more government’ is meant more centralization of government power, more intervention in personal, social, and economic affairs and activities, more limits on political criticism and competition, and more narrowing of electoral choices. In other words, by ‘more government’ is meant less freedom, less civil liberties, political rights, and economic freedom.”

Rudolph Rummel (1932–2014) American academic

“Libertarianism, Violence within States, and the Polarity Principle,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Jul., 1984), pp. 443-462. Published by Comparative Politics, Ph.D. Programs in Political Science, City University of New York.

Freedom , Personality

“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

Life , Fate , Health , World

“I may live in Peking rather than Phnom Penh, but I'm still the same old Sihanouk. A little original, or bizarre if you prefer. A little misunderstood, or incomprehensible if you prefer. But his convictions are intact and his personality's unaltered. For instance, I haven't become a communist: I continue to define myself as pink rather than red. I've not sewn my mouth shut: I continue to shout what I think about everything and everyone, without thinking of the consequences. And I've no intention of ending up as an exiled playboy.”

Norodom Sihanouk (1922–2012) Cambodian King

Said during his exile in Peking, as quoted by Oriana Fallaci (June 1973), Intervista con la Storia (sixth edition, 2011). page 103.
Interviews

Thinking , Personality

“If I could fight anyone it would be Jack Johnson - he was so ahead of his time. I would like to have the opportunity to fight Tyson too and I'm sure it will arise if he can face me. I would not like to have fought Muhammed Ali as I have too much respect for him on a personal and professional level. Larry Holmes, Ali's ex-sparring partner, fought Muhammed Ali and hated himself after giving him an unnecessary beating after winning. The only reason he won was because of Ali's ageing boxing skills.”

Lennox Lewis (1965) British-Canadian boxer

Reply to a question while being interviewed. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/forum/566535.stm

Hate , Age , Time , Fight

“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,

World , Personality

“Even as the nation monitors the Muslim world within its borders more closely for signs of Islamism, it must continue, of course, to protect the civil rights of law-abiding American Muslims. Political leaders should regularly and publicly distinguish between Islam, the religion of Muslims, and Islamism, the totalitarian ideology. In addition, they should do everything in their power to make sure that individual Muslims, mosques, and other legal institutions continue to enjoy the full protection of the law. A time of crisis doesn’t change the presumption of innocence at the core of our legal system. Police should provide extra protection for Muslims to prevent acts of vandalism against their property or their persons.”

Daniel Pipes (1949) U.S. neoconservative columnist, author, counter-terrorism analyst, and scholar of Middle Eastern history

Fighting Militant Islam, Without Bias, City Journal http://www.danielpipes.org/articles/79, Autumn 2002.

World , Religion , Law , Change

“No one who ever wants praise will be satisfied with praise, the person who wants love cannot be satisfied with love. No want is ever fulfilled. And therefore I still don't know whether it is better to fear God and keep His commandments or to curse God and die.”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

Love , God , Fear , Personality

“To answer your first question - most significantly the [ Federal Art Project ] project was my training ground in the real sense of the word. I feel very strongly about this. We were all poor, or most of us, and to have the time and opportunity to continue working - I was then in my twenties which is the important period - the crucial period for the young painter. This was most important and figures significantly in my own development. Although I feel that my personal image as a painter did not come about until I began my easel painting with personal imagery which was about 1941. The project kept me alive and working - it was my education.”

Phillip Guston (1913–1980) American artist

n.p.
1961 - 1980, Oral history interview with Philip Guston, 1965 January 29

Education , Art , Feeling , Question

“I’ve cut way back on animal products (especially dairy), and I try to only eat organic. Because of Alicia [Silverstone], I’m way more conscious of what I put in my mouth and also about how my dollar is spent. Her book The Kind Diet was a real eye-opener for me. … [In the film Vamps] Alicia and I play vampires who abstain from human blood. So we were very kind in that we weren’t killing people and drinking their blood! … All the people in my life joke that I’m vampire in real life. Not because I drink blood or anything but because I prefer to stay indoors with the blinds closed. I’m not really a SUN person. I come out of my coffin (bedroom) when the sun goes down.”

Krysten Ritter (1981) American actress

"I Interviewed Krysten Ritter about Vamps (and Living Kind)" by Alicia Silverstone, TheKindLife.com (30 October 2012) http://thekindlife.com/blog/2012/10/i-interviewed-krysten-ritter-about-vamps-and-living-kind/.

Life , People , Books , Way

“You are not your cluster of memorized ideas about yourself. Awareness of this dissolves both the cluster and the belief that others can control you. If you have a self-image of being a desirable person, others can control you by flattering it, but can they control if you have no such image?”

Vernon Howard (1918–1992) American writer

Esoteric Mind Power

Idea , Personality

“All Dickens is packed with orphans or people in uncertain relation to family groups, or clubs. It’s impossible to read anything he wrote without feeling that the question of belonging was a major issue for him. He had to write about these matters. If we read Lovecraft’s science-fiction horror stories, weird and unpleasant as they may be, they are all obsessively about fear of otherness—women’s, people of other races’, aliens’. All the over-heated horror of the books arises from this gut fear. He can’t leave it alone. Whether or not we like the books and quite regardless of any verisimilitude, it’s clear that the author is writing directly from his personal concerns. The stuff wasn’t just constructed for a literary prize. A certain form of repetition, particularly the endless reformulation, in dozens of different guises, of the same core conflict is probably the hallmark of authenticity.”

Tim Parks (1954) British writer

"In Search of Authenticity," The New York Review of Books (4 February 2015).

Women , People , Books , Fear

“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

Personality

“She (Hillary Clinton) lacks judgment, she lacks temperament and I'm the one that used unfit many, many months ago. And now they've turned it around, use it on me, unfit? I'm unfit? That's — that's a first. But she lacks the temperament and the moral character to lead this country, its very simple. She really does. She's a dangerous person who doesn't tell the truth which has been proven very loudly. I've never seen a — I don't think we've ever had greater proof of that, of anybody. And she has disregarded the lives of Americans — you see what's happening — with what she has done with her server? And you know why she did that. So, I just look at this, and I said that if she gets elected, she will cause the destruction of this country from within. Remember that. … She is disdainful of the rules set for everyone else and she hasn't changed a bit. This is — that was the good thing. I couldn't say the bad things. It was too much. Nobody would even — nobody would even believe it. You've got to see this book. Nobody would believe because it's so terrible, so terrible. And she comes across like this woman — nice, easy — but she's not. And — and she's — listen — she's not a leader, not a leader. And she is a liar.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, August, Speech at rally in Wilmington, North Carolina (August 9, 2016)

Truth , Books , Thinking , Change

“bulshytt … Technical and clinical term denoting speech (typically but not necessarily commercial or political) that employs euphemism, convenient vagueness, numbing repetition, and other such rhetorical subterfuges to create the impression that something has been said. …
It is inherent in the mentality of extramuros bulshytt-talkers that they are more prone than anyone else to taking offense (or pretending to) when their bulshytt is pointed out to them. … One is forced either to use this “offensive” word and be deemed a disagreeable person and as such excluded from polite discourse, or to say the same thing in a different way, which means becoming a purveyor of bulshytt oneself…. The latter quality probably explains the uncanny stability and resiliency of bulshytt.”

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Definition of "bulshytt," The Dictionary, 4th edition, A.R. 3000
Anathem (2008)

Way , Personality

“In one of his letters Aurangzeb himself writes: “The fate of Dara Shukoh excited the passions of the misguided citizens of Delhi. They wept in sympathy with him and pelted the loyal Malik Jiwan who had brought him to justice with pots full of urine and excreta.” Royal troops went into action and according to Khafi Khan, “several persons were knocked down and killed and many were wounded… If the Kotwal had not come forward with his policemen, not one of Malik Jiwan’s followers would have escaped with life.””

Dara Shukoh (1615–1659) Indian prince

Khafi Khan, Muntakhab-ul-Lubab, pp. 245-46. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 6

Life , Fate , Justice , Passion

“I think that happiness resides somewhere between the extremes of personal, religious, and political. I think happiness resides where we understand someone else's point of view and needs. Happiness resides where we are not lost in the solitary dream.”

Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd

November 2005[citation needed]
Philosophy

Dreams , Understanding , Thinking , Personality

“All men want to be different, and to be greater than they are; they seek for an air other than their own, and a mind different from what they possess; they take their style and manner at chance. They make experiments upon themselves without considering that what suits one person will not suit everyone, that there is no universal rule for taste or manners, and that there are no good copies.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

Reflections on Various Subjects (1665–1678), VII. On Air and Manner

Men , Universe , Chance , Personality

“As long as man has not ascended to the rank of existence where he leaves behind him the domain of the universal and enters into his own personal domain—no longer dependent upon the principles operative in the realm of the universal—he is still subject to the rule of the species and the universal form. However, as soon as he liberates himself from the burden of the species, he becomes a free man. Complete freedom belongs only to the prophet, the man of God. The man who is a mere random example of the species, on the other hand, is wholly under the rule of the scientific lawfulness of existence. Between this species man and the man of God, between necessity and freedom, is the middle range in which most people find themselves.”

Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903–1993) American theologian

Source: Halakhic Man (1983), p. 135

God , People , Law , Freedom

“I must beg leave to recommend to your Excellency's consideration the appointing an officer to write and sign the necessary passes. The person I should wish to be appointed is Lieutenant Bio d get. If it was put in general orders, that passes signed by him should be deemed authentic, as if signed by me, it would leave me at liberty to pursue the more important employments of my station.”

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

Letter to George Washington (July 1776)

Personality

“The precepts “Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you” … are born from the Gospel’s profound spirit of individualism, which refuses to let one’s own actions and conduct depend in any way on somebody else’s acts. The Christian refuses to let his acts be mere reactions—such conduct would lower him to the level of his enemy. The act is to grow organically from the person, “as the fruit from the tree.” … What the Gospel demands is not a reaction which is the reverse of the natural reaction, as if it said: “Because he strikes you on the cheek, tend the other”—but a rejection of all reactive activity, of any participation in common and average ways of acting and standards of judgment.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1961), pp. 99-100

Love , Hate , Way , Nature

“The grief of the keen is no personal complaint for the death of one woman over eighty years, but seems to contain the whole passionate rage that lurks somewhere in every native of the island. In this cry of pain the inner consciousness of the people seems to lay itself bare for an instant, and to reveal the mood of beings who feel their isolation in the face of a universe that wars on them with winds and seas.”

John Millington Synge (1871–1909) Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore

Pt. I.
The Aran Islands (1907)

Death , Pain , War , People

“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).

Personality

“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.

Life , Way , Personality

“We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence.”

Joseph Roux (1834–1905) French poet

Part 9, LIV
Meditations of a Parish Priest (1866)

For Wife , For Father , Peace , Personality

“I think that there is a whole lot turning upside down at rock radio -- not -- excuse me, talk radio particularly. Radio as we know it is pretty much changing completely. You know, the diversity of the taste of the folks that are watching the show right now is way more than what is available in the little Motorola in your car today. And where are the new personalities? Where is the new Stern, somebody who has that much impact? Where is the new.”

David Lee Roth (1954) Rock vocalist; lead singer with Van Halen

Neil Cavuto (June 16, 2006) "Interview with David Lee Roth", Share Your World With Neil Cavuto, Fox News Network.

Cars , Way , Thinking , Change

“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

Life , Books , Feeling , Personality

“But those rare souls whose spirit gets magically into the hearts of men, leave behind them something more real and warmly personal than bodily presence, an ineffable and eternal thing. It is everlasting life touching us as something more than a vague, recondite concept. The sound of a great name dies like an echo; the splendor of fame fades into nothing; but the grace of a fine spirit pervades the places through which it has passed, like the haunting loveliness of mignonette.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

“The Book-End,” Columbus Dispatch (1923) Collecting Himself (1989).
From other writings

Life , Men , Soul , Heart

“Charity is from person to person; and it loses half, far more than half, its moral value when the giver is not brought into personal relation with those to whom he gives.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Letter IX
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

Personality

“The art of letting go is simply about personal empowerment. Realizing what you're in charge of, realizing what you control, and more importantly, what you don't control.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 98

Art , Personality

“The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles.”

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

Page 85
The Third Policeman (1967)

People , Nature , Parting , Personality

“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

Way , Change , Personality

“Most beliefs about nature and man, which were not founded on scientific observation, have served directly or indirectly religious and social interests, and hence they have been protected by force against the criticisms of persons who have the inconvenient habit of using their reason.”

J. B. Bury book A History of Freedom of Thought

p.17 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t71v5g25n;view=1up;seq=21
A History of Freedom of Thought (1913)

Nature , Personality

“Last year, the lecture was held in [an auditorium] with a capacity for just 300 people, and half the seats were empty. “What has changed? I am still the same person doing the same science. Why are people so impressed when some academy in Sweden gives an award?”

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (1952) Nobel prize winning American and British structural biologist

Appreciate science for what it is: Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

People , Science , Change , Personality

“Music should enrich the soul; it should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise. It's easy to rediscover part of yourself, but through art you can be shown part of yourself you never knew existed. That's the real mission of art. The artist has to find something within himself that's universal and which he can put into terms that are communicable to other people. The magic of it is that art can communicate to a person without his realizing it… enrichment, that's the function of music.”

Bill Evans (1929–1980) American jazz pianist

http://www.billevanswebpages.com/billquotes.html.

People , Art , Music , Soul

“Most people won’t have opportunity to do full-time service, but those lucky enough to have monetary wealth or some spare time really can make an enormous difference. As someone who’s now in the public sector, and is seeing up-close-and-personal the real impact of what we do and what we give, I can tell you: every dollar and every volunteer help, in more ways than you can count.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://mikebloomberg.com/en/issues/education/mayor_michael_bloomberg_delivers_slate_60_dinner_keynote_address_at_william_j_clinton_presidential_library
Philanthropy

People , Way , Time , Help

“Many persons get nothing out of their fasts but hunger and thirst, many more get nothing out of their night prayers but exertions and sleepless nights. Wise and sagacious persons are praiseworthy even if they do not fast and sleep during the nights.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Hunger , Sleep , Personality , Night

“My motto that keeps me in motion is do not give up. If you start passing the vehicles, hit the gas. Do what you believe is right, and not what the majority would support. Do not take any defeat personally. Never let the politics drive you crazy.”

Zoran Đinđić (1952–2003) Serbian politician

Večernje novosti, 30.12.20.

Support , Personality

“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

Love , People , Way , Personality

“Is loving men contradictory to feminism? Hardly. Every true feminist, I believe, is deepened and matured by being also a masculinist--a person who understands the male search for equality and approval as the male experiences it. As is every masculinist deepened by being a feminist (a person who understands the female search for equality and approval as the female experiences it.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 368.

Love , Men , Search , Understanding

“There are many leaders, not just one. Leadership is distributed. It resides not solely in the individual at the top, but in every person at every level who, in one way or another, acts as a leader to a group of followers — wherever in the organization that person is, whether shop steward, team head, or CEO.”

Daniel Goleman (1946) American psychologist & journalist

Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee (2002) Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. p. xiii-xiv

Way , Personality

“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.

Personality

“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

God , Feeling , Personality

“Wodeyar's musical output numbers close to 100 kritis [Compositions]. The nature of this output, whether it is in the choice of ragas like Bhanu Chandrika, Hamsanatini and Bhoopala Panchama, or in the lyrics which carry deep meanings drawn form the Upanishads and Srividya worship, show a keen and intelligent mind at work. Fascinating as the life was of this multi-faceted personality, it also had a poignancy for the trials and tribulations he faced.”

Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974) Indian writer

In Jayachamaraja Wodeyar http://www.radioweb.in/programs/jayachamaraja-wodeyar

Life , Music , Intelligence , Nature

“As a teenager I started to learn about what was on my plate – where it came from and what it was doing to my body. I became vegetarian then later on vegan. … Each and every person who decides to be vegan makes a massive difference. From literally saving animals from suffering and death, to improving their health and the environmental benefits – being vegan means seeing the bigger picture and saying I'm going to do what I can and take a stand. … I'm motivated by being the best example I can of what can be achieved physically and ethically. I strive to excel in what I love doing and don't believe in the idea that I can't be strong and muscular because I'm vegan, that I can't be fast or flexible because I'm a bodybuilder, and that one person can't make a difference.”

Billy Simmonds (1980)

"Interview with Billy Simmonds: Vegan Body Builder" https://web.archive.org/web/20160201195350/http://www.vivalavegan.net/articles/467-interview-with-billy-simmonds-vegan-body-builder.html, Viva La Vegan! (2016).

Love , Death , Health , Motivation

“I wouldn't say that I'm an orthodox Christian at all and the longer we live in the twentieth century the more fantastic discoveries are made, the more we hear what the universe is like I find it very difficult to be a kind of orthodox believer in Jesus as my saviour and that sort of thing. I'm more interested in the extraordinary nature of God. If there is God, if there is deity, then He, even as the old hymn says, He moves in a mysterious way and I'm fascinated by that mystery and I've tried to write out of that experience of God, the fantastic side of God, the quarrel between the conception of God as a person, as having a human side, and the conception of God as being so extraordinary. … So these are still things that occupy me, and every now and again, if you're lucky, you're able to make a poem out of this conception of God … so I suppose I'm trying to appeal to people to open their eyes and their minds to the extraordinary nature of God.”

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

"R. S. Thomas in conversation with Molly Price-Owen" in The David Jones Journal R. S. Thomas Special Issue (Summer/Autumn 2001)

God , People , Way , Nature

“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

People , Imagination , Thinking , Singing

“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)

Art , Personality

“In the twentieth century one of the most personal relationships to have developed is that of the person and the state… It’s become a fact of life that governments have become very intimate with people, most always to their detriment.”

E.L. Doctorow (1931–2015) novelist, editor, professor

Interview in Writers at Work (1988)

Life , People , Personality

“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

People , Law , Feeling , Nature

“We have all experienced the moments that William James calls melting moods, when it suddenly becomes perfectly obvious that life is infinitely fascinating. And the insight seems to apply retrospectively. Periods of my life that seemed confusing and dull at the time now seem complex and rather charming. It is almost as if some other person a more powerful and mature individual has taken over my brain. This higher self views my problems and anxieties with kindly detachment, but entirely without pity. Looking at problems through his eyes, I can see I was a fool to worry about them.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Access to Inner Worlds (1990), p. 2-3

Life , Fools , Mood , Problem

“All life produces waste. The act of living produces costs, hazards and disposal questions, and so the (Environment) Ministry has found itself in the center of all life, mitigating, guiding and policing the detritus of the average person along with investigating the infractions of the greedy and short-sighted, the ones who wish to make quick profits and trade on others’ lives for it.”

Paolo Bacigalupi book The Windup Girl

Source: The Windup Girl (2009), p. 121

Life , Question , Personality

“The masses are only to be regarded as one of three things: either as copies of great personalities, bad copies, clumsily produced in a poor material, or as foils to the great, or finally as their tools”

Georg Brandes (1842–1927) Danish literature critic and scholar

Source: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism (1889), p. 20

Personality

“It is impossible to understand the American public without taking into account the tremendous psychological effect of bringing up a generation of people in a daily environment of advertising. It is impossible to escape the advertising man; his sales talk assaults us in the morning newspaper, in the street car, with billboards along the highways, and in his shameless use of the radio. This means that from morning till night, in the midst of our work as in our recreation, we live constantly in an atmosphere of intellectual shoddiness. Every popular prejudice and vulgar conceit is played upon and pandered to in the interests of salesmanship. Everywhere material interests and herd opinion are strengthened to the loss of personal independence. The tendency is to think and speak for effect rather than out of one's inner life. There is a marked decline the ability to play with ideas, or to live the spiritual life for its own sake. Hence a decline in civilization of interest, humor and urbanity. Advertising tends to make mechanized barbarians of us all.”

Everett Dean Martin (1880–1941)

Source: The Conflict of the Individual and the Mass in the Modern World (1932), pp. 29-30

Life , People , Cars , Idea

“I think everyone has what it takes to be a good actor innately within them. It’s really about connecting to your own humanity and your own behaviors, and getting to a level of self-awareness so that you can have perspective and step outside of yourself and transform and become another person. You can’t become another person if you’re not self-aware; you wouldn’t know what’s changed. [But] the ability to play pretend is something that everyone has access to; you see little kids doing it. On the spectrum of imagination, there are people who are more imaginative than others—I guess some kids are hardcore pretenders and have imaginary friends for years and other kids play and they have fun, but it’s not quite as specific like that. I’m sure there’s a range, but I think everyone can pretend.”

Bryce Dallas Howard (1981) American actress

Bryce Dallas Howard https://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/bryce-dallas-howard (February 10, 2017)

People , Behavior , Imagination , Thinking

“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

Home , Time , Heart , Personality

“How great hath been the number of those who have falsely laid claim to a cause within Islám, and ye followed in their footsteps without having witnessed a single proof. What evidence can ye then produce in the presence of your Lord, if ye do but meditate a while?
Take ye good heed in your night lest ye be a cause of sadness to any soul, whether ye be able to discover proofs in him or not, that haply on the Day of Resurrection ye may not grieve Him within Whose grasp lieth every proof. And when ye do not discern God’s testimony in a person, he will verily fail in manifesting the power of Truth; and God is sufficient to deal with him. Indeed on no account should ye sadden any person; surely God will put him to the proof and bring him to account. It behooveth you to cling to the testimony of your own Faith and to observe the ordinances laid down in the Bayán.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

XVIII, 3
The Kitáb-I-Asmá

God , Truth , Sadness , Faith

“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)

Personality

“There are a disproportionate amount of assaults against children by homosexuals than by heterosexuals, you can't deny that. And the reason is very clear: homosexuality is perverse. It represents a degradation of a person's mind and if a person will sink that low and there are no restraints from God's law, then there is no telling to whatever sins he will commit as well.”

Robert Jeffress (1955) Pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas

God , Children , Law , Personality

“When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Luke the Evangelist Gospel of Luke

14:8-11 NIV
Gospel of Luke

Wedding , Personality

“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

Personality

Quotes about personal page 34

Quotes about personal
page 34