Beyond Personality Quotes & Sayings

To read great books does not mean one becomes 'bookish'; it means that something of the terrible insight of Dostoyevsky, of the richly-charged imagination of Shakespeare, of the luminous wisdom of Goethe, actually passes into the personality of the reader; so that in contact with the chaos of ordinary life certain free and flowing outlines emerge, like the forms of some classic picture, endowing both people and things with a grandeur beyond what is visible to the superficial glance. — John Cowper Powys

An employer has no business with a man's personality. Employment is a specific contract calling for a specific performance. Any attempt to go beyond that is usurpation. It is immoral as well as an illegal intrusion of privacy. It is abuse of power. An employee owes no "loyalty," he owes no "love" and no "attitudes"-he owes performance and nothing else. The task is not to change personality, but to enable a person to achieve and to perform. — Peter Drucker

A person's beauty is sophisticated and sacred and is far beyond image, appearance or personality. — John O'Donohue

It is the distinction between transpersonal and interpersonal relationships with deities which sets naturalistic polytheism apart from neopolytheism. Interpersonal relationships are between two or more persons and are focused upon individual perspectives. A transpersonal relationship extends beyond the individual perspective, transcending the distinctions of ego and personality. For example:
A neopolytheist has a close personal relationship with a modernized personification of Thor, to whom she prays to daily.
A naturalistic polytheist practices breathing as a sacrament which allows her to focus on life's connection to the atmosphere, altering her perception of separateness, resulting in viewing the at-mosphere as a deity." - Glen Gordon, "Naturalism and the Gods — John Halstead

But in public who shall express the unseen adequately? It is private life that holds out the mirror to infinity; personal intercourse, and that alone, that ever hints at a personality beyond our daily vision. — E. M. Forster

He has personality problems beyond the dreams of analysts. — Douglas Adams

Do all the other things, of course, the ambitious things - travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having them tested for monkey poop) - but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness. Do those things that incline you towards the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial. That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality - your soul, if you will - is as bright and shining as any that has ever been. Bright as Shakespeare's, bright as Gandhi's, bright as Mother Teresa's. Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret, luminous place. Believe that it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits timelessly. — George Saunders

That peace that we're after, lies somewhere beyond personality, beyond the perception of others, beyond invention and disguise, even beyond effort itself. You can join the game, fight the wars, play with form all you want, but to find real peace, you have to let the armor fall. — Jim Carrey

Our ability to understand ourselves is now expanding beyond the information that we can receive from our five senses. We're becoming aware of ourselves as more than minds and bodies. We are becoming aware of ourselves as souls while we simultaneously have personalities and walk upon the earth. That is the huge transformation that is reshaping the human experience - the expansion of our perceptual capability beyond the five senses. We're becoming multisensory. — Gary Zukav

No personality as strong as Zelda's could go without getting criticisms and as you say she is not above reproach. I've always known that. Any girl who gets stewed in public, who frankly enjoys and tells shocking stories, who smokes constantly and makes the remark that she has "kissed thousands of men and intends to kiss thousands more," cannot be considered beyond reproach even if above it. But Isabelle I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity and her flaming self respect and it's these things I'd believe in even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all that she should be.
But of course the real reason, Isabelle, is that I love her and that's the beginning and end of everything. You're still a Catholic but Zelda's the only God I have left now. — F Scott Fitzgerald

You can't quantify love, and if you try, you can end up focusing on misleading factors. Stuff that really has more to do with personality-the fact that some people are simply more expressive or emotional or needy in a relationship. But beyond such smokescreens, the answer is there. Love is seldom-almost never-an even proposition. — Emily Giffin

There is the experience of enlightenment, to be very aware of what lies beyond the boundaries of cognitive perception, reflection and self-awareness as seen by the personality. — Frederick Lenz

I feel like until you're with the person, the person you end up marrying, you don't ever really know what you're looking for. I'm just into a girl with a really good personality, something that goes beyond looks. I want to be able to joke around, be respectful of each other ... there are a lot of things that go into compatibility. — Ryan Guzman

Goals have been called the building blocks of adult personality, and it is worth considering that who you will be in your thirties and beyond is being built out of goals you are setting for yourself today. — Meg Jay

I guess it was bound to happen eventually. I've always known it would. Everyone you trust, everyone you think you can count on, will eventually disappoint you. When left to their own devices, people lie and keep secrets and change and disappear, some behind a different face or personality, some behind a dense early morning fog, beyond a cliff. — Lauren Oliver

At first the cartoon medium was just a novelty, but it never really began to hit until we had more than tricks ... until we developed personalities. We had to get beyond getting a laugh. They may roll in the aisles, but that doesn't mean you have a great picture. You have pathos in the thing. — Walt Disney

Leadership is the lifting of a man's vision to higher sights, the raising of a man's performance to a higher standard, the building of a man's personality beyond its limitations. - PETER DRUCKER — Samuel Chand

Leaving him and going out into the paint-fuming air I had the feeling that I had been talking beyond myself, had used words and expressed attitudes not my own, that I was in the grip of some alien personality lodged deep within me. Like the servant about whom I'd read in psychology class who, during a trance, had recited pages of Greek philosophy which she had overheard one day while she worked. It was as though I were acting out a scene from some crazy movie. Or perhaps I was catching up with myself and had put into words feelings which I had hitherto suppressed. Or was it, I thought, starting up the walk, that I was no longer afraid? I stopped, looking at the buildings down the bright street slanting with sun and shade. I was no longer afraid. Not of important men, not of trustees and such; for knowing now that there was nothing which I could expect from them, there was no reason to be afraid. Was that it? I felt light-headed, my ears were ringing. I went on. — Ralph Ellison

Above and beyond all else it must be borne in mind that hatred tends to dry up the springs of creative thought in the life of the hater, so that his resourcefulness becomes completely focused on the negative aspects of his environment. The urgent needs of the personality for creative expression are starved to death. A man's horizon may become so completely dominated by the intense character of his hatred that there remains no creative residue in his mind and spirit to give to great ideas, to great concepts. — Howard Thurman

A split personality can never become non-greedy. It can try, but it can never become. A split personality can never go beyond anger. It can try, but it can never go beyond. A split personality can never go beyond sex. It can fight. So many monks in the monasteries are doing it. They don't go beyond sex; at the most their sexuality becomes perverted, their love becomes poisoned. — Rajneesh

Insecurities. We've all experienced career setbacks, but it's not the setback itself that keeps us from moving forward in our career. It's how you internalize the setback that can stop you from moving forward. Whether the setback was a result of company cutbacks, unmet goals, misaligned expectations, personality clashes or circumstances beyond your control there are always lingering feelings of shock, devastation, anger, frustration, rejection, embarrassment, anxiety and a loss of self-identity. If I have no job, then who am I? — Sherri Thomas

Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations. Peter F. Drucker and Joseph A. Maciariello, Management: Revised Edition, 2008, p. 288. — Joseph A. Maciariello

We can stretch our personalities, but only up to a point. Our inborn temperaments influence us, regardless of the lives we lead. A sizable part of who we are is ordained by our genes, by our brains, by our nervous systems. And yet the elasticity that Schwartz found in some of the high-reactive teens also suggests the converse: we have free will and can use it to shape our personalities.
These seem like contradictory principles, but they are not. Free will can take us far, suggests Dr. Schwartz's research, but it cannot carry us infinitely beyond our genetic limits. Bill Gates is never going to be Bill Clinton, no matter how he polishes his social skills, and Bill Clinton can never be Bill Gates, no matter how much time he spends alone with a computer.
We might call this the "rubber band theory" of personality. We are like rubber bands at rest. We are elastic and can stretch ourselves, but only so much. — Susan Cain

From the twelve apostles to the Auca missionaries of our generation, the history of the Christian church is the history of "wasted" lives. The Christian may tabulate all the assets of his personality and take inventory of his preferences, but he casts all these at the feet of Christ. He is not seeking fulfillment but expendability. He counts not his life dear to himself, for he holds it in trust for Christ. His goal is beyond the grave; the crown of his high calling is in the hand of his risen Lord. (14-15) — Edmund P. Clowney

Love is the divine Mother's arms; when those arms are spread, every soul falls into them.
The Sufis of all ages have been known for their beautiful personality. It does not mean that among them there have not been people with great powers, wonderful powers and wisdom. But beyond all that, what is most known of the Sufis is the human side of their nature: that tact which attuned them to wise and foolish, to poor and rich, to strong and weak
to all. They met everyone on his own plane, they spoke to everyone in his own language. What did Jesus teach when he said to the fishermen, 'Come hither, I will make you fishers of men?' It did not mean, 'I will teach you ways by which you get the best of man.' It only meant: your tact, your sympathy will spread its arms before every soul who comes, as mother's arms are spread out for her little ones. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

A sharp blade of sadness goes through me, deep and quick. I guess it was bound to happen
eventually. I've always known it would. Everyone you trust, everyone you think you can count on, will eventually disappoint you. When left to their own devices, people lie and keep secrets and change and disappear, some behind a different face or personality, some behind a dense early morning fog, beyond a cliff. That's why the cure is so important. That's why we need it. — Lauren Oliver

Because history became his (Keenan's) genuine passion, he tended to see the world in terms of deep historical forces that, in his mind, formed a nation's character in ways almost beyond the consciousness of the men who momentarily governed it, as if these historical impulses were more a part of them than they knew. — David Halberstam

When the excessively shy force themselves to be forward, they are frequently surprisingly unsubtle and overdirect and even rude: they have entered an extreme region beyond their normal personality, an area of social crime where gradations don't count; unavailable to them are the instincts and taboos that booming extroverts, who know the territory of self-advancement far better, can rely on. — Nicholson Baker

Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not "making friends and influencing people", that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations. — Peter F. Drucker

The Christian life is simply a process of having your natural self changed into a Christ self, and that this process goes on very far inside. One's most private wishes, one's point of view, are the things that have to be changed. — C.S. Lewis

The quality of your life was determined by the quality of your service. I'm attracted to characters who have a higher calling, who want to serve in ways where you get beyond the comfortable service and you get into the space of the sacrificial. And I really am attracted to characters who just want to do things that brighten the world. That probably is the central aspect of my personality. — Will Smith

I have a colleague who often tells people, "Look, allowing yourself to be dependent on another person is the worst possible thing you can do to yourself. You would be better off being dependent on heroin. As long as you have a supply of it, heroin will never let you down; if it's there, it will always make you happy. But if you expect another person to make you happy, you'll be endlessly disappointed." As a matter of fact, it is no accident that the most common disturbance that passive dependent people manifest beyond their relationships to others is dependency on drugs and alcohol. Theirs is the "addictive personality." They are addicted to people, sucking on them and gobbling them up, and when people are not available to be sucked and gobbled, they often turn to the bottle or the needle or the pill as a people-substitute. In summary, dependency may appear to be love because it is a force that causes people to fiercely attach themselves to one another. — M. Scott Peck

Beyond ego, beyond personality, beyond awareness, he moved, Kuang moving with him, evading his attackers with an ancient dance, Hideo's dance, grace of the mind-body interface granted him, in that second, by the clarity and singleness of his wish to die. — William Gibson

There is only one power which can from within undermine egoism at the root, and really does undermine it, namely love, and chiefly sexual love. The falsehood and evil of egoism consists in the exclusive acknowledgement of absolute significance for oneself and in the denial of it for others. Reason shows us that this is unfounded and unjust, but simply by the facts love directly abrogates such an unjust relation, compelling us not by abstract consciousness, but by an internal emotion and the will of life to recognize for ourselves the absolute significance of another. Recognizing in love the truth of another, not abstractly, but essentially, transferring in deed the centre of our life beyond the limits of our empirical personality, we by so doing reveal and realize our own real truth, our own absolute significance, which consists just in our capacity to transcend the borders of our factual phenomenal being, in our capacity to live not only in ourselves, but also in another. — Vladimir S. Soloviev

Matthew Davidson is blessed with a God-given, born-in-the-bone, talent. His musicianship is far beyond his age. When I play with Matthew, it's like playing with a musician with many years of experience. Always a perfect gentleman, Matthew's personality shines through in every performance. He obviously loves what he is doing! — Joe Osborn

The inspiration of a noble cause involving human interests wide and far, enables men to do things they did not dream themselves capable of before, and which they were not capable of alone. The consciousness of belonging, vitally, to something beyond individuality; of being part of a personality that reaches we know not where, in space and time, greatens the heart to the limit of the souls ideal, and builds out the supreme character. — Joshua Chamberlain

She was the sort of person for whom fear was the natural response to that beyond explanation. — Kate Morton

You'll never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking what sort of impression you make. — C.S. Lewis

The vigour of civilised societies is preserved by the widespread sense that high aims are worth while. Vigorous societies harbour a certain extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal gratifications. All strong interests easily become impersonal, the love of a good job well done. There is a sense of harmony about such an accomplishment, the Peace brought by something worth while. Such personal gratification arises from aim beyond personality. — Alfred North Whitehead

'Ludacris' is something that I made up. It just kind of describes me. Sometimes I have like a split personality. Sometimes I'm cool, calm, and collected, and other times I'm beyond crazy. — Ludacris

He wasn't a man who was threatened by a woman's success. He was a man who not only respected it, but was thoroughly turned on by it. Nothing aroused him more than a professional woman with an alpha personality. A woman who was an alpha in business and a sub in bed was beyond sexy. — Suzanne Steele

Happiness is not something that you can find, acquire, or achieve directly. You have to get the conditions right and then wait. Some of those conditions are within you, such as coherence among the parts and levels of your personality. Other conditions require relationships to things beyond you: Just as plants need sun, water, and good soil to thrive, people need love, work, and a connection to something larger. It is worth striving to get the right relationships between yourself and others, between yourself and your work, and between yourself and something larger than yourself. If you get these relationships right, a sense of purpose and meaning will emerge. — Jonathan Haidt

You begin to notice what it is that makes this person a teacher, beyond the limits of his individuality and personality. Thus the principle of the "universality of the guru" comes into the picture as well. Every problem you face in life is a part of your marriage. Whenever you experience difficulties, you hear the words of the guru. This is the point at which one begins to gain one's independence from the guru as lover, because every situation becomes an expression of the teachings. First you surrendered to your spiritual friend. Then you communicated and played games with him. And now you have come to the state of complete openness. As a result of this openness you begin to see the guru-quality in every life-situation, that all situations in life offer you the opportunity to be as open as you are with the guru, and so all things can become the guru. — Chogyam Trungpa

A brand vision should attempt to go beyond functional benefits to consider organizational values; a higher purpose; brand personality; and emotional, social, and self-expressive benefits. — David A. Aaker

I think part of what I like about being a fiction writer is that I can inhabit something that's beyond the limits of my own personality. — Jenny Offill

In the Orient the ultimate divine mystery is sought beyond all human categories of thought and feeling, beyond names and forms, and absolutely beyond any such concept as of a merciful or wrathful personality, chooser of one people over another, comforter of folk who pray, and destroyer of those who do not. Such anthropomorphic attributions of human sentiments and thoughts to a mystery beyond thought is - from the point of view of Indian thought - a style of religion for children. Whereas the final sense of all adult teaching is to the point that the mystery transcendent of categories, names and forms, sentiments and thought, is to be realized as the ground of one's own very being. — Joseph Campbell

The journey of a human is not only to expand its illusory personality of his mind, in the external world, but to realize himself beyond the identity of the mind and see the truth behind the formation of life within. — Roshan Sharma

God has infinite attention, infinite leisure to spare for each one of us. He doesn't have to take us in the line. You're as much alone with Him as if you were the only thing He'd ever created. — C.S. Lewis

Well, the idea of God as a supreme being means that he is simply like us, writ large, and just bigger and better, the end product of the series; whereas this divine personality that we meet in the Bible was, for centuries, regarded simply as a symbol of a greater transcendence that lay beyond it. — Karen Armstrong

Wetikos can psychopathically (and thus toxically) mimic the human personality perfectly. If it serves their agenda, they can be convincing beyond belief, making themselves out to be normal, caring, politically correct human beings. They can endlessly talking about taking responsibility, but they never genuinely face up to and become accountable for their actions. They are unable to genuinely mourn, being only concerned with themselves. They will feign grief, however, just as they will try to appear compassionate, if it is politically expedient to do so and, hence, to their advance, they are master manipulators. — Paul Levy

You must get beyond divertissement, sketch, anecdote, the interesting moment. You must get to the mystery of human personality. What is the line of the story that leads us to a point where we see or intuit something we haven't before? — John L'Heureux

The surface personality is only the beginning of what we are. So as we meditate, we still that surface personality, we can see beyond it, and we see that we encompass multitudes. — Frederick Lenz

We were born in charge of our own being, our own personality. Other people's personalities are beyond our
control. — Franz Bardon

Women want their husbands to have the whole package. That means looking beyond the surface. Let's face it. His personality needs a complete overhaul. The guy's not only arrogant and obnoxious, but he's also - "
"Right here," a familiar royal voice said — Melissa McClone

You know a person is having a severe personality crisis if you see a high school class ring on a finger beyond the first semester in college. Male or female. It's a big sign saying nothing has mattered to my life since senior year. — Nikki Giovanni

When the mind is quiet, we come to know ourselves as the pure witness. We withdraw from the experience and its experiencer and stand apart in pure awareness, which is between and beyond the two. The personality, based on self-identification, on imagining itself to be something: 'I am this, I am that', continues, but only as a part of the objective world. Its identification with the witness snaps. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Suicide thwarts the plan of the entity which sends out the personality. Fortunately, the entity is far beyond the reach of man's destructive tendencies. — Manly Hall

How strange, this habit of weeping. Do animals weep? Surely they feel sadness - but do they express it with tears? He doubts it. He has never heard of a weeping cat or dog, or of a weeping wild animal. It seems to be a uniquely human trait. He doesn't see what purpose it serves. He weeps hard, even violently, and at the end of it, what? Desolate tiredness. A handkerchief soaked in tears and mucus. Red eyes for everyone to notice. And weeping is undignified. It lies beyond the tutorials of etiquette and remains a personal idiom, individual in its expression. The twist of face, quantity of tears, quality of sob, pitch of voice, volume of clamour, effect on the complexion, the play of hands, the posture taken: One discovers weeping - one's weeping personality - only upon weeping. It is a strange discovery, not only to others but to oneself. Resolve — Yann Martel

Forgiveness is key to enchanted love because it is key to living right, period. It is the capacity to see beyond the veil of personality and worldly illusions. No one is perfect or attractive every day. Forgiveness means we are capable of relating to someone on a deeper level than the ordinary self. And that we are committed to doing so no matter what the appearances are, no matter what the situation is. — Marianne Williamson

But then I looked in the glass and saw the spy beyond the clergyman, the image beyond the image, and beyond the spy was yet another man, the image beyond the image beyond the image. Reality blurred; fantasy and truth became inextricably intertwined. I told myself I had imagined the distant stranger but as I felt my personality begin to divide I covered my face with my hands. — Susan Howatch

Literature is the adventure. It's the story, it's the fight, it's people falling in love, it's people with deep personality disorders who succeed anyway beyond themselves. That's what great literature is. — Walter Mosley

A quick glance at the American left reveals a movement in the midst of a nervous breakdown, displaying behavior that goes beyond inconsistency into the realm of bipolar moods and multiple personality disorders. — Michael Medved

It is my hope that this book helps those who know and love people with DID: family members, lovers, coworkers, and friends. It is also my hope that those charged with intervening in families in which there is violence will take away a more nuanced approach to their important work, informed by a deeper understanding of trauma.
Most of all, I hope that those of you who have DID know that the disorder itself is an incredible survival technique. You should feel proud to have survived. Trauma has had a major impact on my life, as it has on yours, but I've learned that my life extends beyond the pain and darkness. Survivors of trauma are full of life, creativity, courage, and love. We are more than the sum of our parts. — Olga Trujillo

The study of consciousness that can extend beyond the body is extremely important for the issue of survival, since it is this part of human personality that would be likely to survive death. — Stanislav Grof

An insult bestowed on your interior and exterior personality; for causes beyond control, kills you innumerably, till the last breath. — Aniruddha Sastikar

No man who cares about originality will ever be original. It's the man who's only thinking about doing a good job or telling the truth who becomes really original
and doesn't notice it. — C.S. Lewis

The ignorant mass looks upon the man who makes a violent protest against our social and economic iniquities as upon a wild beast, a cruel, heartless monster, whose joy it is to destroy life and bathe in blood; or at best, as upon an irresponsible lunatic. Yet nothing is further from the truth. As a matter of fact, those who have studied the character and personality of these men, or who have come in close contact with them, are agreed that it is their super-sensitiveness to the wrong and injustice surrounding them which compels them to pay the toll of our social crimes. The most noted writers and poets, discussing the psychology of political offenders, have paid them the highest tribute. Could anyone assume that these men had advised violence, or even approved of the acts? Certainly not. Theirs was the attitude of the social student, of the man who knows that beyond every violent act there is a vital cause. — Emma Goldman

The borderline Queen experiences what therapists call "oral greediness". The desperate hunger of the borderline Queen is akin to the behavior of an infant who had gone too long between feelings. Starved, frustrated, and beyond the ability to calm of soothe herself, she grabs, flails, and wails until at last the nipple is planted securely and perhaps too deeply in her mouth. She coughs, gags, chokes, and spits, eyeing the elusive breast like a wolf guarding her food. Similarity, the Queen holds on to what is hers, taking more than she could use, in case it might be taken away prematurely. — Christine Ann Lawson

The idea that I might be sociopathic was nothing new to me - I'd known for a long time that I didn't connect with other people. I didn't understand them, and they didn't understand me, and whatever emotional language they spoke seemed beyond my capacity to learn. Antisocial personality disorder could not be officially diagnosed until you were eighteen years old - prior to that it was just "conduct disorder." But let's be honest: conduct disorder is just a nice way of telling parents their kids have antisocial personality disorder. I saw no reason to dance around the issue. I was a sociopath, and it was better to deal with it now. — Dan Wells