Famous Personality Quotes & Sayings

The process of transforming the heart can be difficult because as we open it, we inevitably encounter our own pain and become more aware of the pain of others. In fact, much of our personality is designed to keep us from experiencing this suffering. We close down the sensitivity of our hearts so that we can block our pain and get on with things, but we are never entirely successful in avoiding it. Often, we are aware of our suffering just enough to make ourselves and everyone around us miserable. Carl Jung's famous dictum that "neurosis is a substitute for legitimate suffering" points to this truth. But if we are not willing to experience our own hurt and grief, it can never be healed. Shutting out our real pain also renders us unable to feel joy, compassion, love, or any of the other capacities of the heart. — Don Richard Riso

The status of celebrity offers the promise of being showered with 'all good things' that capitalism has to offer. The grotesque display of celebrity lives (and deaths) is the contemporary form of the cult of personality; those 'famous for being famous' hold out the spectacular promise of the complete erosion of a autonomously lived life in return for an apotheosis as an image. The ideological function of celebrity (and lottery systems) is clear - like a modern 'wheel of fortune' the message is 'all is luck; some are rich, some are poor, that is the way the world is...it could be you! — Guy Debord

Hope is only an extension of time granted to us until we decide to give up. — Michael Mintz

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

For me the major turning point in my working life was when I figured out that the work I produced when I felt inspired wasn't any different from the work I produced when I felt uninspired
at least a few months later. I think that "inspiration" has to do with your own confidence in your ideas, your blood sugar, the external pressures in your life, and a million other factors only tangentially related to the actual quality of the work. If creative work makes you sane and happy (and if it supports you financially), it's terrible to harness it to something you can't control, like "inspiration"
it sucks to only be happy when something you can't control occurs. — Cory Doctorow

I think in the end, when you're famous, people like to narrow you down to a few personality traits. I think I've just become this ambitious, say-whatever's-on-her-mind, intimidating person. And that's part of my personality, but it's certainly not anywhere near the whole thing. — Madonna Ciccone

Forget the press - just being a partner of somebody who's very, very famous, it's hard to keep your center and your personality intact. — Patti Scialfa

I can't say, 'It doesn't matter if you win or lose.' It's not true. You go in to win. — Katarina Witt

Working in Hollywood can be tumultuous, with incredible highs and lows and you need to be grounded. — Douglas Wood

The fashion industry tends to attract people with serious personality defects. They just want to be rich and famous. But at some point you have to decide: Are you going to mindlessly go the easy way or are you going to go the ethical way? — Katharine Hamnett

Power is not of a man. Wealth does not center in the person of the wealthy. Celebrity is not inherent in any personality. To be celebrated, to be wealthy, to have power requires access to major institutions. — C. Wright Mills

A great principle of moral advancement, on par with "Love thy neighbor" and "All men are created equal," is the one on the bumper sticker: "Shit happens. — Steven Pinker

You know, I'm a television personality. It's not like I'm a famous hooker or something! — Brett Somers

THERE'S NO OTHER WAY to find out whether or not you'll be successful other than just doing it — Richard Branson

Lederman is also a charismatic personality, famous among his colleagues for his humor and storytelling ability. One of his favorite anecdotes relates the time when, as a graduate student, he arranged to bump into Albert Einstein while walking the grounds at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. The great man listened patiently as the eager youngster explained the particle-physics research he was doing at Columbia, and then said with a smile, That is not interesting. — Sean Carroll

The first lecture of each new year renews for most people a light stage fright. — John Edensor Littlewood

If you go through the biography of any famous personality you idolize you are sure to see the how the words 'I can' and 'I believe' played a very vital role in their fame. — Stephen Richards

I grew up with Forrest J. Ackerman's 'Famous Monsters of Filmland' along with a plethora of movie tomes and wanted to write about film with a sense of personality, passion, and humor. — Harry Knowles

One of the words I railed against was "personality," as in a "TV personality." But now I wonder if it isn't the only word for that vast swarm of people who are famous for being famous - and possibly nothing else. What did the Gabor sisters actually do? — William Zinsser

I am not the kind of leader who pontificates about what should be done - I don't operate on scenarios, and I am not a prophet. — Mangosuthu Buthelezi

Being famous before you've formed your personality, before you have that self-esteem, is dangerous. — Chris Evert

I never cultivated a personality. Almost everyone who is really famous has cultivated a personality. — Val Kilmer

The most liberating of all thoughts is disregard or "disconcern" for what other people think. Famous mail-order impresario and entrepreneur J. Peterman wrote (in his autobiography Peterman Rides Again); "Once you realize that most people are keeping up appearances and putting on a show, their approval becomes less important." Excessive concern over what other people think inhibits personality more than any other factor. — Maxwell Maltz

Our job as Christians is to stick so close to Jesus that when people are around us, they sense him. — Jefferson Bethke

Men nowhere, east or west, live yet a natural life, round which the vine clings, and which the elm willingly shadows. Man would desecrate it by his touch, and so the beauty of the world remains veiled to him. He needs not only to be spiritualized, but naturalized, on the soil of earth. — Henry David Thoreau

Because only slow food can teach us the things that really matter - care, beauty, concentration, discernment, sensuality, all the best that humans are capable of, but only if we take the time to think about what we're eating. — Alice Waters

It took me 14 years to write poems about Vietnam. I had never thought about writing about it, and in a way I had been systematically writing around it. — Yusef Komunyakaa

if you don't think about death, you don't appreciate life. — John Grisham

Yes!" He wrapped both arms around me, but when I tried to do the same he jumped away. "Watch the suit," he said, glaring. Oh, boy. — Michelle Hodkin

I don't have a problem with recognition ... It's very, very rarely about who I am, it's always, 'I love your work.' ... It's always in relation to my work, which I think is a really lucky thing to have happen as opposed to, 'Oh, you're a famous personality.' — C. C. H. Pounder

When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle conceived Sherlock Holmes, why didn't he give the famous consulting detective a few more quirks: a wooden leg, say, and an Oedipus complex? Well, Holmes didn't need many physical tics or personality disorders; the very concept of a consulting detective was still fresh and original in 1887. — Christopher Fowler