Quotes about personal (10000 quotes, page 41)

“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but what he aspires to.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

As quoted in Become a Conscious Creator: A Return to Self-Empowerment (2007) by Lisa Ford, p. 44

Motivational , Back To Work , Graduation , Understanding

“The crowd is a social phenomenon only in the sense that it affects a number of persons at the same time.”

Everett Dean Martin (1880–1941)

Source: The Behavior of Crowds (1920), p. 7

Sense , Time , Personality

“The tri-coloured play with music begins' (in Deutsch: Das Drei Farben Singespiel beginnt..)
the cast is as follows
Dr. and MRS. Knarre, a married couple
Franziska and Charlotte, their daughters
Dr. Kahn, a physician
Charlotte Kahn, his daughter
Paulinka Bimbam, a singer
Dr. Singsong, a versatile person
Professor Klingklang, a famous conductor
An Art teacher
Professor and Students at an art academy
and Chorus..
.. The action takes places during the years 1913 to 1940 in Germany, later in Nice, France”

Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) German painter

Charlotte's 3rd introduction page, related to image JHM no. 4155-3 https://charlotte.jck.nl/detail/M004155-c/part/character/theme/keyword: 'The tri-coloured play with music begins..', p. 43
the quote is written in brush, over the whole page of the painting, with a rough painted gate above
Charlotte Salomon - Life? or Theater?

Art , Music , Teachers , Personality

“After Constantine … the ruler, not the average person or the weak person, is the model for ethical deliberations. A moral statement on the rightness of truth-telling or the wrongness of killing is tested first by whether a ruler can meet such standards.”

John Howard Yoder (1927–1997) 20th century American Mennonite theologian

Source: The Priestly Kingdom (1984), p. 138

Truth , Personality

“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

1990s, Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

Love , Hate , People , Religion

“Far from being misanthropic, when an animal activist reaches out to a fellow human being, she or he is not only advocating on behalf of animals but helping another person realize the connection between our oppression of animals and the oppression of humans — and how liberating one group benefits the other.”

Mark Hawthorne (author) (1962) American activist

"Animal Liberation Is Human Liberation", in OpEdNews.com (11 December 2007) http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mark_haw_071211_animal_liberation_is.htm

Help , Animals , Personality

“This upstart, this dangerous, unprecedented upstart, whose pursuit of the doctrines was propelled by a greed for personal power as cold as it was tameless.”

Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) English writer, artist, poet and illustrator

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 22 (p. 527)

Personality

“Jobs: As a kid, I read an article in the Scientific American. It measured the efficiency of locomotion of various species on the planet. Bears. Chimpanzees. Raccoons. Birds. Fish. How many kilo-calories per kilometer did they spend to move? Humans were measured too. And the condor won. It was the most efficient. Humankind came in with an unimpressive showing about a third of the way down the list. But somebody there had the brilliance to test a human riding a bicycle. We blew away the condor. Off the charts.
This really had an impact on me. Humans are tool builders. We build tools that can dramatically amplify our innate human abilities. We ran an ad for this once that the personal computer is the bicycle of the mind. I believe that with every bone in my body.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

1990s

Way , Bird , Fish , Reading

“In the modern world we have invented ways of speeding up invention, and people's lives change so fast that a person is born into one kind of world, grows up in another, and by the time his children are growing up, lives in still a different world.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1950s, People and Places (1959), p. 198

Children , People , World , Way

“Risk played a really important role in making me the person I am.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 67

Personality

“I've experienced all kinds of discrimination," Oshima says. "Only people who've been discriminated against can really know how much it hurts. Each person feels the pain in his own way, each has his own scars. So I think I'm as concerned about fairness and justice as anybody. But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they're doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don't want to. Like that lovely pair we just met." He sighs and twirls the long slender pencil in his hand. "Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas-none of them bother me. I don't care what banner they raise. But what I can't stand are hollow people. When I'm with them I just can't bear it, and wind up saying things I shouldn't. With those women I should've just let it slide, or else called Miss Saeki and let her handle it. She would have given them a smile and smoothed things over. But I just can't do that. I say things I shouldn't, do things I shouldn't do. I can't control myself. That's one of my weak points.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter 19, Oshima

Love , Women , Men , Pain

“A new poll shows that Americans now believe that Bill Clinton is more honest than President Bush. […] At least when Clinton screwed the nation, he did it one person at a time.”

Jay Leno (1950) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, voice actor and television host

Monologue, May 12, 2006
The Tonight Show

Time , Personality

“God is pleased with no music from below so much as in the thanksgiving songs of relieved widows, of supported orphans, of rejoicing, and comforted, and thankful persons.”

Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) English clergyman

Sermon XXV, Part IV: "The Duties of the Tongue"

God , Music , Support , Personality

“To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Section 215
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

Faith , Religion , Personality

“There has been a lot of talk about the formation of a new centre party. Some have even been kind enough to suggest that I might lead it. I find this idea profoundly unattractive. I do so for at least four reasons. First, I do not believe that such a grouping would have any coherent philosophical base…A party based on such a rag-bag could stand for nothing positive. It would exploit grievances and fall apart when it sought to remedy them. I believe in exactly the reverse sort of politics…Second, I believe that the most likely effect of such an ill-considered grouping would be to destroy the prospect of an effective alternative government to the Conservatives…Some genuinely want a new, powerful anti-Conservative force. They would be wise to reflect that it is much easier to will this than to bring it about. The most likely result would be chaos on the left and several decades of Conservative hegemony almost as dismal and damaging as in the twenties and thirties. Third, I do not share the desire, at the root of much such thinking, to push what may roughly be called the leftward half of the Labour Party…out of the mainstream of British politics…Fourth, and more personally, I cannot be indifferent to the political traditions in which I was brought up and in which I have lived my political life. Politics are not to me a religion, but the Labour Party is and always had been an instinctive part of my life.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech to the Oxford University Labour Club (9 March 1973), quoted in The Times (10 March 1973), p. 4
1970s

Life , Religion , Idea , Thinking

“Great change can only be effected by unity. But "Union without knowledge is useless; Knowledge without union is powerless." Then what is the right knowledge? Owen said it consisted in knowing that people came into the world without any intention of doing it; and often with limited capacities, and with disadvantages of person, and with instinctive tendencies which impel them against their will, and which disqualifications they did not give themselves…. Dislike dies in the heart of those who understand this, and the spirit of unity arises.”

George Holyoake (1817–1906) British secularist, co-operator, and newspaper editor

Memorial dedication (1902)

People , World , Understanding , Knowledge

“Now this error in attitude — mistaking these men for boys — permeates the whole scholastic domain, permeates it so thoroughly that it is hard for anyone within the domain to recognize it.
What do I mean by saying that a man is treated as a boy? I mean that he is told, the moment he arrives, that his secret dream of greatness is a pipe-dream; that it will be a long time before he makes a significant, personal contribution — if ever.
He is told this not with words. He is told this in a much more convincing way. He is shown, in everything that happens to him, that nobody could dream that he could make a significant, personal contribution.”

Edwin H. Land (1909–1991) American scientist and inventor

Generation of Greatness (1957)

Men , Secret , Dreams , Way

“Maybe life involves the pairing of unsuitable people, those who wait and those who keep others waiting, and the key to happiness is finding the one person with whom you share the same internal chronometer.”

Jacob M. Appel book The Biology of Luck

The Biology of Luck (2013)

Life , People , Waiting , Personality

“I believe that He was made man, joining the human nature with the divine in one person; being conceived by the singular operation of the Holy Ghost, and born of the blessed Virgin Mary, who, as well after as before she brought Him forth, continued a pure and unspotted virgin.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Letter to a Roman Catholic, July 18, 1749, The works of the Rev. John Wesley (1872), London, Wesleyan Conference Office, vol. X, p. 81. https://books.google.com/books?id=TZBKAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA81&dq=%22continued+a+pure+and+unspotted+virgin%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjn7srt5I_NAhUUU1IKHUlzC-AQ6AEIUTAH#v=onepage&q=%22continued%20a%20pure%20and%20unspotted%20virgin%22&f=false
General sources

Nature , Personality

“This doctrine was not so much to do with sinlessness but with personal growth. It is about the attitude that should guide us in our relationships with others according to the commandment of loving your neighbor. I will just add that I am far from perfect in my faith. I often stumble and fall but I will never stop striving to serve God in the best way I can, to honor him and to serve the purpose for which he has called me. I know in my heart that what has transpired since the elections are part of God's plan for Fiji. He has given me a part to play in this and I cannot refuse it.”

Laisenia Qarase (1941) Prime Minister of Fiji

quoted in Fiji Village http://www.Fijivillage.com/news
Interview, 16 June 2006

Love , God , Faith , Way

“People who are having a love-sex relationship are continuously lying to each other because the very nature of the relationship demands that they do, because you have to make a love object of this person, which means that you editorialize about them. You know? You cut out what you don't want to see, you add this if it isn't there. And so therefore you're building a lie. But in a friendship you don't do that. You do exactly the reverse. You try more and more to be as completely pure and straight as you can be.”

Truman Capote (1924–1984) American author

From a 1970 interview
Truman Capote: Conversations (1987)

Love , Friendship , People , Lie

“All meaning alters with acceleration, because all patterns of personal and political interdependence change with any acceleration of information.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, Understanding Media (1964), p. 178-179

Change , Personality

“Some persons, instead of making a religion for their God, are content to make a god of their religion.”

Arthur Helps (1813–1875) British writer

Source: Brevia: Short Essays and Aphorisms. (1871), p. 141.

God , Religion , Personality

“God has not the slightest difficulty in bringing to a fullness of creation the person who is in some way incomplete and recognises this. The problem is with those who think that they are complete, and that creation is, at least in their case, finished.”

James Alison (1959) Christian theologian, priest

Source: Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (2001), " The man blind from birth and the Creator's subversion of sin http://girardianlectionary.net/res/fbr_ch-1_john9.htm", p. 16-17.

God , Way , Problem , Thinking

“True empathy is not about waiting to understand another person; it is about proactively seeking to do so. It takes effort to give another person your full time and attention; to ask others how they are feeling and if they coping well with things. And don’t overlook those closest to you. Never take anyone for granted. Avoid being too preoccupied to sit down and talk with your children, partners and colleagues.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Children , Feeling , Understanding , Effort

Michael Simms (software developer) (1973) Video game programmer

Quoted in "Linux Game Publishing - it's possible" http://mstation.org/linuxgamepublishing.php M station (2003)

Game , Personality

“Schizophrenia is caused by a personality fragment that is broken off, so to speak, from the primary acting personality; operating often in direct opposition to it, but in any case, operating as a secondary personality.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Seth, Dreams & Projections of Consciousness, (1986), p. 94, quoting from Seth Session 15

Personality

“As part of my current charge I have been instructed to provide an occasional journal of my recent activities*.
* I avoid the term blog, since coincidentally this word is also the name of a repulsive sub-caste of foliots, characterised by ooze, fleshy folds and gills of blue-grey gristle. Think slugs, but with worse personalities.”

Jonathan Stroud (1970) British writer of fantasy fiction

The Bartimaeus Trilogy Official Website, Bart's Journal

Thinking , Parting , Personality

“Perhaps you think that any fool could become a member of the SS. Do you really know what an SS soldier is? He is a superman. He is a professional chosen personally by Hitler. A soldier whose antecedents are analyzed for four generations back before he is given the honor of being allowed to join this elite organization.”

Klaus Barbie (1913–1991) SS-Hauptsturmführer, soldier and Gestapo member

Quoted in "The Butcher of Lyon: The Story of Infamous Nazi Klaus Barbie" - Page 140 - by Brendan Murphy - History - 1983

Fools , Thinking , Personality

“Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? Without the favour of the everlasting register, the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had been his only chronicle.”

Thomas Browne book Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Source: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658), Chapter V

Life , Men , Time , Personality

“Verse no longer stands at the centre of communicative discourse. It is no longer, as it was from Homer to Milton, the natural repository of knowledge and traditional sentiment. It no longer gives to society its main record of past grandeur or its natural setting for prophecy, as it did in Virgil and Dante. Verse has grown private. It is a special language which the individual poet insinuates, by force of personal genius, into the awareness of his contemporaries, persuading to learn and perhaps hand on his own uses of words. Poetry has become essentially lyric — that is to say, it is the poetry of private vision rather than of public or of national occasion.”

George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer

Source: The Death of Tragedy (1961), Ch. IX (p. 309).

Communication , Nature , Knowledge , Learning

“The concept of a system is not a simple or unique one. There are many different kinds of systems, and different systems may be organized and operated in different ways. As individuals we all belong to some social system, we participate in an economic system, we are the product of several educational systems, and we are members of one or more family systems. In a similar fashion, the equipment of which physical systems are made may be members of many other systems, such as electrical, mechanical, sensing, actuating, energy, materials, and/or information systems. One of the challenges to the person who engineers a system is to find the many alternative ways in which the function, the operation, and/or the equipment of concern and interest may be considered, understood, and made to perform most effectively.”

Harold Chestnut (1917–2001) American engineer

Source: Systems Engineering Tools, (1965), Systems Engineering Methods (1967), p. 1: First paragraph of Ch. 1. The Environment for System Engineering Methods

Education , Family , Way , Fashion

“In a world where millions of human beings live in extreme poverty, die of malnutrition and lack medical care, where pandemics continue to kill, it is imperative to pursue good faith disarmament negotiations and to shift budgets away from weapons production, war-mongering, surveillance of private persons and devote available resources to address global challenges including humanitarian relief, environmental protection, climate change mitigation and adaptation, prevention of pandemics, and the development of a green economy.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

United Nations expert urges states to cut military spending and invest more in human development http://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B9C2E/(httpNewsByYear_en)/D5D061E9891363C1C1257CB7003055E0?OpenDocument.
2014

War , World , Faith , Change

“Abu Umama Suda ibn 'Ajlan al-Bahili reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said "The person closer to Allah is the one who initiates the greeting."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 5, hadith number 858
Sunni Hadith

Peace , Personality

“The entrepreneur is the person who seeks to identify what consumers, at home or abroad or both, want and would be willing to buy at a profitable price. These entrepreneurs are the job-creators because it is they who gather the men and women, the material, the machinery, and the money to turn the vision of a market into a reality.”

Keith Joseph (1918–1994) British barrister and politician

in 1986 introduction to Self-Help, Samuel Smiles originally published in 1859.
1980s

Women , Men , Money , Home

“A little reflection will enable any person to detect in himself that setness in trifles which is the result of the unwatched instinct of self-will and to establish over himself a jealous guardianship.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) Abolitionist, author

Source: Little Foxes (1865), Ch. 4.

Personality

“If this person slept with your girlfriend, she would never be attractive to you again.”

Chuck Klosterman (1972) Author, Columnist

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

Personality

“This is not the first time I've charged a person before I've made the case." — Jim Garrison [James Phelan, Scandals, Scamps, and Scoundrels.”

Jim Garrison (1921–1992) American judge

(New York: Random House, 1982), p. 155.]

Time , Personality

“I think there will always be challenges for women and men. There are always going to be male chauvenists but it's just a matter of women continuing to stand up for their rights and prove their worth. The world would end if women didn't start families, carry children, but that is no reason for them not to work, have careers, exist as a person rather than just a mother.”

Anastacia (1968) American singer-songwriter

Anastacia is my kind of girl! https://eu.marliesdekkers.com/en-it/maison-marlies/anastacia-is-my-kind-of-girl.html, MarlieDekkers.com, 2014.
General Quotes

Women , Men , Children , World

“Prior to the rebellion the great mass of the people were satisfied to remain near the scenes of their birth. In fact an immense majority of the whole people did not feel secure against coming to want should they move among entire strangers. So much was the country divided into small communities that localized idioms had grown up, so that you could almost tell what section a person was from by hearing him speak… This is all changed now. The war begot a spirit of independence and enterprise. The feeling now is, that a youth must cut loose from his old surroundings to enable him to get up in the world. There is now such a commingling of the people that particular idioms and pronunciation are no longer localized to any great extent; the country has filled up "from the centre all around to the sea"; railroads connect the two oceans and all parts of the interior; maps, nearly perfect, of every part of the country are now furnished the student of geography.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1880s, Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885)

War , People , Youth , World

“Distinction between person and office is wholly alien to the teaching of Jesus. He says nothing about that. He addresses his disciples as men who have left all to follow him, and the precept of non-violence applies equally to private life and official duty. He is the Lord of all life, and demands undivided allegiance.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Discipleship (1937), Revenge, p. 143.

Life , Men , Personality

“Just be the best and the highest expression of who you want to become. Be that. Because if you are that there is no more unhappiness. All frustration and anger comes from being less. People say not everybody can be. But everyone can be. I trust life. The only person who stands in your way is yourself.”

Protima Bedi (1948–1998) Indian model and dancer

Quoted in "I have been a hippie all my life".

Life , People , Way , Personality

“Now in the past, in your distant past, when I spoke through others, or portions of my entity did so, then such personal connections also existed with those through whom we communicated.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 463, Page 241
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 9

Communication , Distant , Past , Personality

“When I paint an abstract picture (the problem is very much the same in other cases), I neither know in advance what it is meant to look like nor, during the painting process, what I am aiming at and what to do about getting there. Painting is consequently an almost blind, desperate effort, like that of a person abandoned, helpless, in totally incomprehensible surroundings – like that of a person who possesses a given set of tools, materials and abilities and has the urgent desire to build something useful which is not allowed to be a house or a chair or anything else that has a name; who therefore hacks away in the vague hope that by working in a proper, professional way he will ultimately turn out something proper and meaningful.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

Notes, 1985; as cited on collected quotes on the website of Gerhard Richter: on 'Abstract paintings' https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/quotes/subjects-2/abstract-paintings-7
1980's

Hope , Way , Problem , Effort

“I went to the Russo-Japanese War and killed people until I had enough of it. If you think about it soberly, this is a serious matter. Today the newspaper writes about the extermination of the enemy or how we clean them away with machine gun fire. That almost sounds like everyday household cleaning. They fire with machine guns and call it "cleaning away the remains of the enemy". Imagine that would happen in the midst of the ginza: people getting "cleaned away" as if you were shooting animals! It would be a serious affair. Compared with today the former war was old fashioned. We shot only one bullet at a time. That was not so gross like shooting your machine gun as if you were spreading water with a watering can, or throwing big bombs, or poison gas. I also once killed enemies at the battlefield of Baolisi, chasing them into a hole, and I was never punished for it. I even received monthly payments as a veteran after I came back from the war. That means that you do not always get punished for killing a person. It depends on the regulations of the time if you get punished or not. But these regulations are made by men.”

Kodo Sawaki (1880–1965) Japanese zen Buddhist monk

Comments on the Shodoka (Tokyo: Daihorinkaku,1st edition 1940, p. 414)

Men , War , People , Imagination

“Since I was a child, I’ve used my imagination to escape from life. At the same time, my imagination has plagued me with both reality-based anxieties as well as anxieties based entirely in the imagination, such as the fear of Hell I was taught to have by the Catholic Church. Paired with a talent for literary composition, a talent that it took me over ten years to refine, I became a writer of horror stories. To my mind, writing is the most important form of human expression, not only artistic writing but also philosophical writing, critical writing, etc. Art as such, especially programmatic music such as operas, seems trivial to me by comparison, however much pleasure we may get from it. Writing is the most effective way to express and confront the full range of the realities of life. I can honestly say that the primary stature I attach to writing is not self-serving. I’ve been captivated to some degree by all forms of creativity and expression—the visual arts, film, design of any sort, and especially music. In college I veered from literature to music for a few years, which is the main reason it took me six years to get an undergraduate degree in liberal arts. I’ve loved music for as long as I can remember. Since my instrument is the guitar, I know every form and style in its history and have written the classical, acoustic, and electric forms of this instrument. I think because I have had such a love and understanding of music do I realize, to my grief, its limitations. Writing is less limited in the consolations it offers to those who have lost a great deal in their lives. And it continues to console until practically everything in a person’s life has been lost. Words and what they express have the best chance of returning the baneful stare of life.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

Wonderbook Interview with Thomas Ligotti http://wonderbooknow.com/interviews/thomas-ligotti/

Love , Life , Pleasure , Fear

“I cannot believe that in the twentieth century the British people are by their deliberate vote going to constitute this assembly – a fraction of whom no doubt are men of real eminence and dignity, but the great majority of whom are quite ordinary people of the well-to-do class with all the narrowest prejudices and special interests of that class – I cannot believe that you by your votes are going to constitute them the main foundation on which the governing power in our land is reposed. I cannot believe the middle classes and the working classes, who after all have only to use their voting strength to get their own way, are going to degrade and cast away their own voting powers which their fathers won for them in the past…I cannot believe that the electors are going obsequiously to hand over their most vital constitutional right, namely, to choose the Chamber that governs the Government, to an antiquated body of titled persons utterly beyond their control.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The People's Rights [1909] (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), pp. 65-66
Early career years (1898–1929)

Men , People , Way , Past

“I have attempted to develop my thinking in such a way that the work I've done is not me – not to confuse my feelings with what I produced. I didn't want my work to be an exposure of my feelings. Abstract Expressionism was so lively – personal identity and painting were more or less the same, and I tried to operate the same way. But I found I couldn't do anything that would be identical with my feelings. So I worked in such a way that I could say that it's not me. That accounts for the separation.”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

Jasper Johns: 'I have attempted to develop my thinking', Vivien Raynor, Artnews 72 no. 3, March 1973, p. 20-22
1970s

Way , Feeling , Thinking , Painting

“Every uneducated person is a caricature of himself.”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) German poet, critic and scholar

Jeder ungebildete Mensch ist die Karikatur von sich selbst.
“Selected Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798)”, Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, trans. (Pennsylvania University Press:1968) #63
Athenäum (1798 - 1800)

Personality

“The journalist is beautiful in the manner of people who spend an immense amount of money on personal maintenance. She has professionally refined pores and a four-hundred-dollar haircut, impeccable makeup and tastefully polished nails. When she smiles, Arthur is distracted by the unnatural whiteness of her teeth, although he’s been in Hollywood for years and should be used to it by now.”

Emily St. John Mandel book Station Eleven

Source: Station Eleven (2014), Chapter 13 (p. 72)

Money , People , Smile , Beauty

“Tourists do not come here for our weather, or for the quality of our provincial cooking. Nor are they attracted by the exceptional value of our hotels, our beaches, or Birmingham. I've never met an American or a Japanese person who has said: "I want to come to Britain so I can buy an Arabic newspaper from a Bengali store where the Cashier speaks Polish."”

Jeremy Clarkson (1960) English broadcaster, journalist and writer

Source: For Crying Out Loud! The World According to Clarkson Volume Three (2008), p. 17

Personality , Weather , Cooking

“I call on you not to hate, because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking.”

Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) Iraqi politician and President

Saddam Hussein Farewell Letter http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16368242/ (MSNBC online)
Statement in a farewell letter written to the Iraqi people, written Nov. 5, 2006, released Dec. 27, 2006.

Hate , Thinking , Personality

“If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that "says something" about your personality, don't bother. You don't have a personality. A mental illness, maybe - but not a personality.”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

The Guardian, 5 February 2007, I hate Macs http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2006031,00.html
Guardian columns

Personality

“It is good to know that our nation's defenses against a conventional attack are impregnable, and an imperative that America remain vigilant against threats from terrorists. But as is the case with a human being, admirable characteristics of a nation are not defined by size and physical prowess. What are some of the other attributes of a superpower? Once again, they might very well mirror those of a person. These would include a demonstrable commitment to truth, justice, peace, freedom, humility, human rights, generosity, and the upholding of other moral values.”

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

Page 199
Post-Presidency, Our Endangered Values (2005)

Truth , Peace , Justice , Freedom

“Then came those years in which I was forced to recognize the existence of a drive within me that had to make itself small and hide from the world of light. The slowly awakening sense of my own sexuality overcame me, as it does every person, like an enemy and terrorist, as something forbidden, tempting, and sinful. What my curiosity sought, what dreams, lust and fear created — the great secret of puberty — did not fit at all into my sheltered childhood. I behaved like everyone else. I led the double life of a child who is no longer a child. My conscious self lived within the familiar and sanctioned world; it denied the new world that dawned within me. Side by side with this I lived in a world of dreams, drives and desires of a chthonic nature, across which my conscious self desperately built its fragile bridges, for the childhood world within me was falling apart. Like most parents, mine were no help with the new problems of puberty, to which no reference was ever made. All they did was take endless trouble in supporting my hopeless attempts to deny reality and to continue dwelling in a childhood world that was becoming more and more unreal. I have no idea whether parents can be of help, and I do not blame mine. It was my own affair to come to terms with myself and to find my own way, and like most well-brought-up children, I managed it badly.”

Hermann Hesse book Demian

Source: Demian (1919), p. 135

Life , Children , Secret , World

“The cross is a very powerful symbol and it symbolizes suffering, but it also is connected to a person who was loving and sharing and his message was about unconditional love. I tried to take a powerful image and use it to draw attention to a situation that needs attention. For me, we all need to be Jesus in our time. Jesus' message was to love your neighbor as yourself and these are people in need.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Explaining the controversial crucifixion scene in her Confessions tour http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/showbiz/2007-02/17/content_811558.htm

Love , People , Suffering , Time

“We must examine the degree to which we coddle middle-class girls. There is something sick about it. The girls I see on campuses are often innocuous, with completely homogenized personalities, miserable, anorexic and bulimic. The feminist movement teaches them that it's men's fault, but it isn't. These girls go out into the world as heiresses of all the affluence in the universe. They are the most pampered and most affluent girls on the globe. So stop complaining about men. You're getting all the rewards that come with the nice-girl persona you've chosen. When you get into trouble and you're batting your eyes and someone is offending you and you are too nice to deal with it, that's a choice. Assess your persona. Realize the degree to which your niceness may invoke people to say lewd and pornographic things to you — sometimes to violate your niceness. The more you blush, the more people want to do it. Understand your part of it and learn to parry. Sex talk is a game. The girls in the Sixties loved it. If you don't want some professor to call you honey, tell him.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Playboy interview (May 1995)

Love , Men , People , World

“There was a world of mutants, men and women who were more than normal men and women, persons who had certain human talents and certain human understandings which the normal men and women of the world had never known, or having known, could not utilize in their entirety, unable to use intelligently all the mighty powers which lay dormant in their brains.”

Clifford D. Simak book Ring Around the Sun

Ring Around the Sun (1954)

Women , Men , World , Intelligence

“Charlie Brown is the one person I identify with. C. B. is such a loser. He wasn't even the star of his own Halloween special.”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

Miscellaneous

Star , Personality

“Finally, I wish to speak, through you, directly to those who came to London today to take life. I know that you personally do not fear to give your own life in exchange for taking others — that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you do fear that you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society, and I can show you why you will fail. In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations, and even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.
They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don't want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our cities where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.”

Ken Livingstone (1945) Mayor of London between 2000 and 2008

Response to London bombings (7 July 2005)

Life , People , World , Fear

“The activity will prove to be "peculiar" by leading the active person into Christ's own passion. This activity itself is perpetual suffering and enduring. In it, Christ is suffered by his disciple. If this is not the case, it is not the activity Jesus intended. In this way, the "extraordinary" is the fulfilling of the law, the keeping of the commandments.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Meditations on the Cross (1996), Encountering the Extraordinary, p. 1

Law , Way , Suffering , Passion

“A person examining too nearly a small portion of a very large circle… would see in this detached portion merely a certain quantity of physical points, grouped in a more or less irregular manner, and so, indeed, as to seem as if they had been arranged by chance… But, placing himself at a greater distance, the eye embraces of necessity a greater number of points, and already a degree of regularity is observable… and by removing still farther from the object, the observer loses sight of the individual points, no longer observes any accidental or odd arrangements amongst them, but discovers at once the law presiding over their general arrangements, and the precise nature of the circle so traced.”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

Introductory
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

Law , Nature , Chance , Personality

“The world bursts at the seams with people ready to tell you you're not good enough. On occasion, some may be correct. But do not do their work for them. Seek any job; ask anyone out; pursue any goal. Don't take it personally when they say 'no”

Keith Olbermann (1959) American sports and political commentator

they may not be smart enough to say "yes."
" The Way I See It http://www.starbucks.com/retail/thewayiseeit_default.asp," Starbucks Coffee Cups (2005-02-01)

People , World , Personality

“To tell you the truth, I am rather perplexed about the concept of "art]. What one person considers to be "art" is often not "art" to another. "Beautiful" and "ugly" are old-fashioned concepts that are seldom applied these days; perhaps justifiably, who knows? Something repulsive, which gives you a moral hangover, and hurts your ears or eyes, may well be art. Only "kitsch" is not art — we're all agreed about that. Indeed, but what is "kitsch?"”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

If only I knew!
1950's, On Being a Graphic Artist', 1953

Truth , Beauty , Art , Fashion

“Had the modern professors of eugenics had power in France in 1694, they probably would not have permitted such a child to have been born. Their scientific knowledge would have shown conclusively that no person of value could have come from the union of his father and mother. In those days, nature had not been instructed by the professors of eugenics and so Voltaire was born.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

Voltaire (1916)

Nature , Knowledge , Personality

“The world should be assured that, although there may always be some who exploit any religion for their interests, Islam does not approve of terrorism in any form. Terrorism cannot be used to achieve any Islamic goal. No terrorist can be a Muslim, and no true Muslim can be a terrorist. Islam orders peace, and the Qur’an demands from each true Muslim that he or she be a symbol of peace and support the maintenance of basic human rights. If a ship is carrying nine criminals and one innocent person, Islam does not allow the ship to be sunk to punish the nine criminals, for doing so would violate the innocent person’s rights.”

Fethullah Gülen (1941) Turkish preacher, former imam, writer, and political figure

"Gülen’s Condemnation Message of Terrorism", 2001

World , Peace , Religion , Support

“I must make a protest against the sort of exaggerations in which the noble Lord has indulged. He has described the railway launching 2,000 or 3,000 ruffians upon some quiet neighbourhood in a manner that might lead one to imagine the train conveyed a set of banditti to plunder, rack, and ravage the country, murder the people, burn the houses, and commit every sort of atrocity…they may conceive it to be a very harmless pursuit…Some people look upon it as an exhibition of manly courage, characteristic of the people of this country. I saw the other day a long extract from a French newspaper describing this fight as a type of the national character for endurance, patience under suffering of indomitable perseverance, in determined effort, and holding it up as a specimen of the manly and admirable qualities of the British race…I do not perceive why any number of persons, say 1,000 if you please, who assemble to witness a prize fight, are in their own persons more guilty of a breach of the peace than an equal number of persons who assemble to witness a balloon ascent. There they stand; there is no breach of the peace; they go to see a sight, and when that sight is over they return, and no injury is done to any one. They only stand or sit on the grass to witness the performance, and as to the danger to those who perform themselves, I imagine the danger to life in the case of those who go up in balloons is certainly greater than that of two combatants who merely hit each other as hard as they can, but inflict no permanent injury upon each other.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1860/may/15/papers-moved-for-1 in the House of Commons (15 May 1860) on the illegal prize-fight between Tom Sayers and J. C. Heenan. The Radical MP Colonel Dickson replied that although "He sat on a different side of the House from the noble Lord, and did not often find himself in the same lobby with him on a division; but he would say for the noble Viscount, that if he had one attribute more than another which endeared him to his countrymen it was his thoroughly English character and his love for every manly sport". Palmerston was rumoured to have attended the fight and he contributed the first guinea to the collection for Sayers in the House of Commons.
1860s

Life , People , Peace , Imagination

“The fact that I was a junkie for a long time is only one slice of my own personal pie, which is made up of a lot of different slices.”

Anthony Kiedis (1962) American singer

Oct, 1994 interview

Time , Personality

“Information is always to be treasured, Raul. It is behind only love and honesty in a person’s attempt to understand the universe.”

Dan Simmons book Endymion

Source: Endymion (1996), Chapter 25 (p. 198)

Love , Understanding , Universe , Personality

“There is no way to divorce the decision determining the most sensible economic strategy from the personal values of those who make the choice.”

Kenneth R. Andrews (1916–2005) Business scholar

Source: Quote, The Concept of Strategy, 1971, p. 34

Way , Decision , Personality

“The structural viewpoint considers the roles people play, rather than the nature of the personalities in these roles. It deals with the structures in which roles are performed— the relationship of groups to each other, such as sales and production, and the degree of centralization or decentralization.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1970s, Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View, 1970, p. 2

People , Nature , Personality

“Ethnic Germans were transferred into Germany, mainly from eastern Europe; it has been estimated that approximately 600,000 persons had been transferred into the German Reich by the spring of 1942.”

Eugene M. Kulischer (1881–1956) American sociologist

Source: The Displacement Of Population In Europe, 1943, p. 25 as cited in: David L. Sills (1968) International encyclopedia of the social sciences - Volumes 13-14. p. 363

Spring , Personality

“The success of communism in the world today is due to the failure of democracy to live up to the noble ideals and principles inherent in its system. And this is what Jesus means when he said: "How is it that you can see the mote in your brother’s eye and not see the beam in your own eye?" Or to put it in Moffatt’s translation: "How is it that you see the splinter in your brother’s eye and fail to see the plank in your own eye?" And this is one of the tragedies of human nature. So we begin to love our enemies and love those persons that hate us whether in collective life or individual life by looking at ourselves. And this is one of the tragedies of human nature. So we begin to love our enemies and love those persons that hate us whether in collective life or individual life by looking at ourselves.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (November 1957)

Love , Life , Hate , World

“The average person, when they see a black man, they would say "Man, he got soul cos' his color." But I disagree with that. I think that God would be a very selfish God if He gave all the soul to one race. He lets his rain fall on the red flowers, the green flowers, the blue flowers; the good, the bad, no races, so He lets His blessings fall on all races. So I think that there are types of souls, like there are different types of cars. But they're all cars. You know, I think that, when a white guy sing[s], if he have soul, that don't mean that he had to copy no negro to get it. I believe if he feels, when one sings from the heart and it reaches another heart, that's soul.”

Little Richard (1932) American pianist, singer and songwriter

Remarks on the question: can a white man sing soul music?. Pop Chronicles: Show 15 - The Soul Reformation I: A symposium on soul http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19764/m1/, interview recorded 1.2.1968 http://web.archive.org/web/20110615153027/http://www.library.unt.edu/music/special-collections/john-gilliland/o-s.

God , Cars , Color , Guy

“A rational man must be guided by the incentive system within which he operates. No matter what his own personal desires, he must be discouraged from certain activities if they carry penalties and attracted toward others if they carry large rewards. The carrot and the stick guide scientists and politicians as well as donkeys.”

George Stigler (1911–1991) American economist

Stigler (1975, p. 171) as cited in: Owen E.Hughes (2003) Public Management and Administration. p. 11

Penalty , Personality

“We need to have a total rethink of what we do in our prisons to tackle extremism. And we need our internet companies to go further in helping us identify potential terrorists online. Many of their commercial models are built around monitoring platforms for personal data, packaging it up and selling it on to third parties. And when it comes to doing what’s right for their business, they are happy to engineer technologies to track our likes and dislikes. But when it comes to doing what’s right in the fight against terrorism, we too often hear that it’s all too difficult.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

2010s, 2015, Speech on (20 July 2015)

Business , Help , Fight , Personality

“The greatest sin of a person who goes to ‘Arafat and then leaves is to think that he has not been forgiven of his sins.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Biharul Anwar, Volume 96, Page 248
Shi'ite Hadith

Thinking , Personality

“The mazurka provided him with a repertoire of motifs, rhythms, and sonorities outside the main Italian, French, and German traditions of European music: he used it to create a series of works within this tradition which are absolutely personal—marginal works which challenge the center.
They are the most eccentric and original of Chopin's works. We shall never know exactly what and how much Chopin took directly from the popular folk tradition and how much he invented, but it does not matter: his originality is revealed as much in what he selected as in what he imagined. The folk dances gave him the possibility of exploring new harmonies, of exploiting the emotional effect of obsessive repetition, and of developing a new form of rubato.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 7 : Chopin: From the Miniature Genre to the Sublime Style

Music , Imagination , Dance , Personality

“It was Mr. Littlewood (I believe) who remarked that "every positive integer was one of his personal friends."”

John Edensor Littlewood (1885–1977) English Mathematician

(about Ramanujan) p. lvii of [Hardy, G. H., G. H. Hardy, Obituary Notices: Srinivasa Ramanujan, Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, 19, xl-lviii, 1921, http://www.numbertheory.org/obituaries/LMS/ramanujan/index.html, 2008-05-26]

Personality

“My dad said, "What the heck is software?" and my mom said, "Why would a person ever need a computer?" They said, "OK, OK, we hear you, but if it doesn't work out, you'll go back to business school right?"”

Steve Ballmer (1956) American businessman who was the chief executive officer of Microsoft

And I said "Right," and I never came back.
CNBC: "How Steve Ballmer went from making $50,000 a year as an assistant at Microsoft to becoming a billionaire" https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/27/billionaire-steve-ballmer-started-out-making-only-50000-at-microsoft.html (27 July 2018)
2010s

School , Moms , Business , Personality

“I think I'm a sober person. I think the press tries to make you into something a little bit different. In my case, a little bit of a wild man, I'm not, I'm actually not. I'm a very sober person.”

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

During an interview on 60 Minutes (11 November 2016)
2010s, 2016, November

Thinking , Personality

“The counterpart of such devotion to the commands of Jesus Christ is a thoroughgoing opposition to the institutions of culture. To Tolstoy these seem to be founded on a complex foundation of errors, including the acceptance of the inevitability of evil in man's present life, the belief that life is governed by external laws so that men cannot attain blessedness by their own efforts, the fear of death, the identification of true life with personal existence, and, above all, the practice of and belief in violence. Even less than Tertullian does he think that human corruption is resident in human nature; the evil with which men contend is in their culture only.”

H. Richard Niebuhr (1894–1962) American theologian

Source: Christ and Culture (1951), p. 60

Life , Death , Men , Fear

“The fallacy of the claim that the costs of government are borne by the rich and those who make a direct contribution to the National Treasury can not be too often exposed. No system has been devised, I do not think any system could be devised, under which any person living in this country could escape being affected by the cost of our government. It has a direct effect both upon the rate and the purchasing power of wages. It is felt in the price of those prime necessities of existence, food, clothing, fuel and shelter. It would appear to be elementary that the more the Government expends the more it must require every producer to contribute out of his production to the Public Treasury, and the less he will have for his own benefit. The continuing costs of public administration can be met in only one way — by the work of the people. The higher they become, the more the people must work for the Government. The less they are, the more the people can work for themselves.”

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

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

People , Food , Way , Thinking

“The precise reason why abstinence from animal food will be the first act … of a moral life is admirably explained in the book, The Ethics of Diet [by Howard Williams]; and not by one man only, but by all mankind in the persons of its best representatives during all the conscious life of humanity. … the moral progress of humanity — which is the foundation of every other kind of progress — is always slow; but … the sign of true, not casual, progress is its uninterruptedness and its continual acceleration. And the progress of vegetarianism is of this kind. That progress, is expressed both in the words of the writers cited in the above-mentioned book and in the actual life of mankind, which from many causes is involuntarily passing metre and more from carnivorous habits to vegetable food, and is also deliberately following the same path in a movement which shows evident strength, and which is growing larger and larger — viz., vegetarianism.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: The First Step (1892), Ch. X

Life , Books , Food , Animals

“I've been called a termagent, but people BELIEVE in me. I'm a BIG personality.”

Taubie Kushlick (1910–1991) South African actor and director

Sunday Times interview (1980s)

People , Personality

“One thing which keeps on astonishing me in the present debate is the complete lack of doubt in both camps. Personally, I don’t think that either theory, of Aryan invasion and of Aryan indigenousness, can claim to have been "proven" by prevalent standards of proof; even though one of the contenders is getting closer. Indeed, while I have enjoyed pointing out the flaws in the AIT statements of the politicized Indian academic establishment and its American amplifiers, I cannot rule out the possibility that the theory which they are defending may still have its merits."”

Koenraad Elst book Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate

1990s, Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate, (1999)

Thinking , Personality

“Thus God is not to be lived in contemplation but in acts, in actual practice. In giving of our best, in the intrinsic value of every act, God descends as person and strengthens us.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Hymn

God , Personality

“We are so accustomed to hear arithmetic spoken of as one of the three fundamental ingredients in all schemes of instruction, that it seems like inquiring too curiously to ask why this should be. Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic—these three are assumed to be of co-ordinate rank. Are they indeed co-ordinate, and if so on what grounds?
In this modern “trivium” the art of reading is put first. Well, there is no doubt as to its right to the foremost place. For reading is the instrument of all our acquisition. It is indispensable. There is not an hour in our lives in which it does not make a great difference to us whether we can read or not. And the art of Writing, too; that is the instrument of all communication, and it becomes, in one form or other, useful to us every day. But Counting—doing sums,—how often in life does this accomplishment come into exercise? Beyond the simplest additions, and the power to check the items of a bill, the arithmetical knowledge required of any well-informed person in private life is very limited. For all practical purposes, whatever I may have learned at school of fractions, or proportion, or decimals, is, unless I happen to be in business, far less available to me in life than a knowledge, say, of history of my own country, or the elementary truths of physics. The truth is, that regarded as practical arts, reading, writing, and arithmetic have no right to be classed together as co-ordinate elements of education; for the last of these is considerably less useful to the average man or woman not only than the other two, but than 267 many others that might be named. But reading, writing, and such mathematical or logical exercise as may be gained in connection with the manifestation of numbers, have a right to constitute the primary elements of instruction. And I believe that arithmetic, if it deserves the high place that it conventionally holds in our educational system, deserves it mainly on the ground that it is to be treated as a logical exercise. It is the only branch of mathematics which has found its way into primary and early education; other departments of pure science being reserved for what is called higher or university instruction. But all the arguments in favor of teaching algebra and trigonometry to advanced students, apply equally to the teaching of the principles or theory of arithmetic to schoolboys. It is calculated to do for them exactly the same kind of service, to educate one side of their minds, to bring into play one set of faculties which cannot be so severely or properly exercised in any other department of learning. In short, relatively to the needs of a beginner, Arithmetic, as a science, is just as valuable—it is certainly quite as intelligible—as the higher mathematics to a university student.”

Joshua Girling Fitch (1824–1903) British educationalist

Source: Lectures on Teaching, (1906), pp. 267-268.

Life , Truth , Education , School

“The great work which is to be done is to change public opinion, to indoctrinate, to set small groups to work here and there in different cities who will live a life of sacrifice, typifying the Catholic idea of personal responsibility. Numbers and organizations are not important. We are just beginning after all. But one person can do a tremendous amount of boring from within, in his office, factory, neighborhood, parish, and among his daily acquaintances and associates.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

All the Way to Heaven :The Selected Letters of Dorothy Day (2010), p. 81

Life , Idea , Change , Personality

“I trust my readers will join me in grandly ignoring the complaints of sour-faced and grumpish scholars that "no such person" ever existed and that his Boke of Voiages and Travailes is a hoax and a forgery. What do they know, the old frumps, who have never dared emerge from their dusty libraries to tread the heaving quarterdeck and raise sail for Golden Ind, and Far Cathay, and the Islands of Prester John?”

John Mandeville (1300–1372) writer

Lin Carter Dragons, Elves, and Heroes (1969; New York: Ballantine, 1971) p. 127.
Criticism

Personality

“It is an assumption that there is always one single dimension for assessing persons and their actions that has canonical priority. This is the dimension of moral evaluation; “good/evil” is supposed always to trump any other form of evaluation, but that is an assumption, probably the result of the long history of the Christianisation and then gradual de-Christianisation of Europe, which one need not make. Evaluation need not mean moral evaluation, but might include assessments of efficiency, … simplicity, perspicuousness, aesthetic appeal, and so on.”

Raymond Geuss book Philosophy and Real Politics

Source: Philosophy and Real Politics (2008), p. 39.

History , Evil , Personality

“A man, in so far as he is an individual, may be very sharply detached from others, a sort of spiritual crustacean, and yet be very poor in differentiating content. And further, it is true on the other hand that the more personality a man has and the greater his interior riches and the more he is a society within himself, the less brusquely he is divided from his fellows.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VIII : From God to God

Personality

“Paul Krugman is a very smart and very annoying person. Over the past few years he's been hammering away at political and economic advocates for austerity policies with unmitigated glee and derision. He does so with a brio and condescension that some people can find off-putting -- but that doesn't mean that he's wrong. … Look, I think Paul Krugman has a few policy blind spots. His method of argumentation alienates as many people as it attracts. But he's not wrong when he's talking about austerity. In his response, Michael Kinsley has managed to embody the conventional wisdom in Washington -- and in doing so, embody every policy caricature of Paul Krugman's worldview.”

Daniel Drezner (1968) American journalist

The worst piece of conventional wisdom you will read this year http://www.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/16/the_worst_piece_of_conventional_wisdom_you_will_read_this_year (MAY 16, 2013)

Wisdom , People , Thinking , Past