Personality Is Thought Quotes & Sayings

He got a booklet out of a folder. 'This is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. It's a standardized psychometric test we use to assess and analyze an individual's personality dynamic. It's got about six hundred true-or-false questions. You fill this out and then the computer will generate a report.' Well, I thought this was absolutely perfect! I was just delighted with the idea that psychodiagnostic algorithms would generate a posthumanist psychiatric profile for me for the autobiography. And both the Imaginary Intern and I felt this would really streamline the process, that it would save us a tremendous amount of work, and obviate the need for all that cloying introspection and redemptive candor that we both found so nauseating and counterrevolutionary. — Mark Leyner

The point I was trying to make before you interrupted with your inventory
of my personality is that neither of us is going to be able to stay celibate for the next six months."
She dropped her eyes. If only he knew that she'd stayed that way all her life.
We'll be living in close quarters," he went on. "We're legally married, and it's only natural that we're going to get it on."
Get it on? His bluntness reminded her that none of this meant anything to him emotionally, and contrary to all logic, she'd wanted to hear something romantic. With some pique, she said, "In other words, you expect me to keep house, work for the circus, and 'get it on' with you."
He thought it over. "I guess that's about the size of it. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Your story is not a picture of life; it lacks the elements of truth. And why? Simply because you run straight on to the end; because you do not analyze. Your heroes do this thing or that from this or that motive, which you assign without ever a thought of dissecting their mental and moral natures. Our feelings, you must remember, are far more complex than all that. In real life every act is the
resultant of a hundred thoughts that come and go, and these
you must study, each by itself, if you would create a living
character. 'But,' you will say, 'in order to note these fleeting
thoughts one must know them, must be able to follow them in their capricious meanderings.You have simply to make use of hypnotism, electrical or human, which gives one a two-fold being, setting free the witness-personality so that it may see, understand, and remember the reasons which determine the personality that acts. — Jules Verne

I thought guys liked that kind of thing." "Some do." "Well, evidently you do, too. Taryn is all those things, too, only Ginger has a personality." "Okay, then I used to like that kind of thing. Now I like your kind of thing. It's the — M. Leighton

In the moral realm, there is very little consensus left in Western countries over the proper basis of moral behavior. And because of the power of the media, for millions of men and women the only venue where moral questions are discussed and weighed is the talk show, where more often than not the primary aim is to entertain, even shock, not to think. When Geraldo and Oprah become the arbiters of public morality, when the opinion of the latest media personality is sought on everything from abortion to transvestites, when banality is mistaken for profundity because [it's] uttered by a movie star or a basketball player, it is not surprising that there is less thought than hype. Oprah shapes more of the nation's grasp of right and wrong than most of the pulpits in the land. Personal and social ethics have been removed from the realms of truth and structures of thoughts; they have not only been relativized, but they have been democratized and trivialized. — D. A. Carson

It has been observed that I show hardly any interest in talking about myself. It is hard for me to disentangle my own person from the social processes, the ideas and activities in which it has shared, which matter more than it does and which give it value. I do not think of myself as at all an individualist: rather as a 'personalist', in that I view human personality as a supreme value, only integrated in society and history. The experience and thought of one man have no significance that deserves to last, except in this sense. — Victor Serge

The Complete Work is essentially dramatic, thought it takes different forms - prose passages in this first volume, poems and philosophies in other volumes. It's the product of the temperament I've been blessed or cursed with - I'm not sure which. All I know is that the author of these lines (I'm not sure if also of these books) has never had just one personality, and has never thought or felt except dramatically - that is, through invented persons, or personalities, who are more capable than he of feeling what's to be felt. — Fernando Pessoa

Students may feel the criticism is harsh, but I think it's possible they haven't had criticism before. It's my job to point out when something is badly done, or when there's no point of view. To build a brand you have to have something about you. If not personality, then some thought process. I'm 40, and they're young, so they're meant to be informing me. They should be bringing me a book or something that I haven't seen, not like some obscure chant book by Dominican monks, but an image of the way they see the world. — Louise Wilson

I can see you have a great deal of water in your personality. Water never waits. It changes shape and flows around things, and finds the secret paths no one else has thought about
the tiny hole through the roof or the bottom of the box. There's no doubt it's the most versatile of the five elements. It can wash away earth; it can put out fire; it can wear a piece of metal down and sweep it away. Even wood, which is its natural complement, can't survive without being nurtured by water. And yet, you haven't drawn on those strengths in living your life, have you? — Arthur Golden

Everything around me is evaporating. My whole life, my memories, my imagination and its contents, my personality - it's all evaporating. I continuously feel that I was someone else, that I felt something else, that I thought something else. What I'm attending here is a show with another set. And the show I'm attending is myself. — Fernando Pessoa

Breaking free is only the beginning. Then begins the painful process of reversing the indoctrination. The longer someone stays in a cult the harder it is for them to remember who they were before the cult took control of their mind. Or in the case of someone like me, a cult-born child, my entire personality was made and created by them. When I left I had no idea who I was. My whole existence, everything I thought I knew, had been a lie.

But it is the psychological aftermath of life in a cult that is all too often the silent killer. — Natacha Tormey

Since I reached the conclusion that the essence of the creative person is being in love with what one is doing, I have had a growing awareness that this characteristic makes possible all the other personality characteristics of the creative person: independence of thought and judgment, honesty, perseverance, curiosity, willingness to take risks and the like. — Ellis Paul Torrance

I never thought I'd say this: what Obama needs in his personality is a little George Bush. — Bill Maher

In every walk of life each man puts on a personality and outward appearance so as to look what he wants to be thought; in fact you might say that society is entirely made up of assumed personalities. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

In mindfulness meditation, the self that needs protection is put into neutral. The observing self slips into the space between the ego and the dissociated aspects of the personality and observes from there. The breath, or sound, becomes the central object of focus, as opposed to thought. Thinking becomes one more thing to observe in the field of awareness but is robbed of its preeminent position. Do not grasp after the pleasant or push away the unpleasant, but give equal attention to everything there is to observe, taught the Buddha. This is difficult at first but becomes remarkably easy once one gets the hang of it. One learns first to bring one's attention to the neutral object and then to relax into a state of choiceless awareness rather than always trying to maintain control. As the ego's position is weakened, waking life takes on aspects of dream life to the extent that new surprises keep unexpectedly emerging. — Mark Epstein

The reason it has relevance is because I, as a popular Arab personality - the Arab people like me and respect me - thought it was time for me to make an ever so tiny statement about what I thought about this whole thing. — Omar Sharif

To argue that we humans are capable of complex multifarious thought and feeling, whereas the sheep's perception is probably limited by lowly sheepish perceptions, is no more to the point than if I were to slaughter and eat you on the grounds that I am a sophisticated personality able to enjoy Mozart, formal logic and cannibalism, whereas your imaginative world seems confined to True Romances and tinned spaghetti. — Brigid Brophy

As I, my real self, grew older, I entered more and more into the substance of my dreams. One may dream, and even in the midst of the dream be aware that he is dreaming, and if the dream be bad, comfort himself with the thought that it is only a dream. This is a common experience with all of us. And so it was that I, the modern, often entered into my dreaming, and in the consequent strange dual personality was both actor and spectator. And right often have I, the modern, been perturbed and vexed by the foolishness, illogic, obtuseness, and general all-round stupendous stupidity of myself, the primitive. — Jack London

I hope I'm thought of as not just a showbiz personality, but as someone who has lived a life and who has hopefully made a contribution to something along the way - someone who is a human being as well as an actress. — Lauren Bacall

Doubt is thought's despair; despair is personality's doubt ... Doubt and despair ... belong to completely different spheres; different sides of the soul are set in motion ... Despair is an expression of the total personality, doubt only of thought. — Soren Kierkegaard

Education is character development, harmonious completion of human personality. But what the state accomplishes in this field is dull drill, extinction of natural feeling, narrowing of the spiritual field of vision, destruction of all the deeper elements of character in man. The state can train subjects ... but it can never develop free men who take their affairs into their own hands; for independent thought is the greatest danger that it has to fear. — Rudolf Rocker

I thought I was the only one who still enjoyed his record collection, but after reading 'How Records Got Their Groove Back,' I happily discovered I was wrong. There is something familiar about my old vinyl. Call it nostalgia, but I don't care for the 'purity' of CDs. They have no personality! The crackle and pop of the stylus on a record player as you wait for the music to begin creates an anticipation that CDs simply can't provide. — Anthony Pilla

The significant thing about Edwards is the way he enters into the tradition, infuses it with his personality and makes it live. The vitality of his thought gives to its product the value of unique creation. Two qualities in him especially contribute to this result, large constructive imagination and a marvelously acute power of abstract reasoning. With the vision of the seer he looks steadily upon his world, which is the world of all time and space and existence, and sees it as a whole; God and souls are in it the great realities, and the transactions between them the great business in which all its movement is concerned. — H. Norman Gardiner

Adele's look is meticulously thought through and completely of her own traits. She has such a powerful beauty, such an emotional voice, and the kohl, the hair, everything feels organically molded to her personality. — Xavier Dolan

When I got home, I thought about the fact that Einstein supposedly used to stock his wardrobe with the same suits and shoes so he'd never have to think about what he was going to wear. I lack the intellect it takes to solve problems that way. I've advanced nothing in the field of psychology, and my paper on PTSD was given little attention; I wrote that psychological disorders with a genetic link, such as borderline personality disorder, might seem impossible to treat, while PTSD, which is based in trauma that has been experienced, seems easy to tackle, at least to the layperson. The opposite is true. It can be difficult to find the right medication for genetic disorders, but they can be sufficiently treated. Conversely, PTSD never goes away. One might think that our genes are so elementary that we cannot escape them, but our experiences have the ability to do far greater damage. — Bryan Way

and I attempted, above all, to get at the truth, not the masquerade that declares itself as genuineness when, habitually, the truth is invoked, but a wholesale leveling of the artifices of personality, a selfless plunge into...into what I had thought must remain forever hidden, to the substance of what I had always kept in shadow ... to that point where self becomes sorrow ... — Evan Dara

But in some curious way - I wonder will you understand me?- his personality has suggested to me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. I see things differently, I think of them differently. I can now recreate life in a way that was hidden from me before. 'A dream of form in days of thought:' ... Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. — Oscar Wilde

Ever since childhood Yurii Andreievich had been fond of woods seen at evening against the setting sun. At such moments he felt as if he too were being pierced by shafts of light. It was as though the gift of the living spirit were streaming into his breast, piercing his being and coming out at his shoulders like a pair of wings. The archetype that is formed in every child for life and seems for ever after to be his inward face, his personality, awoke in him in its full primordial strength, and compelled nature, the forest, the afterglow, and everything else visible to be transfigured into a similarly primordial and all-embracing likeness of a girl. Closing his eyes, "Lara," he whispered and thought, addressing the whole of his life, all God's earth, all the sunlit space spread out before him. — Boris Pasternak

One of our most deep-seated fears is that we might be called an "outsider." This fear has led us down the road to conformity, has put the imprint of "the organization man" on our souls, and has robbed us of originality of thought, individuality of personality, and constructive action. — Billy Graham

Every institution of our day, the family, the State, our moral codes, sees in every strong, beautiful, uncompromising personality a deadly enemy; therefore every effort is being made to cramp human emotion and originality of thought in the individual into a straight-jacket from its earliest infancy; or to shape every human being according to one pattern; not into a well-rounded individuality, but into a patient work slave, professional automaton, tax-paying citizen, or righteous moralist. — Various

To love others, that is, understand others, is, in reality, an affluent mental activity. We must, in order to reach it, add to the synthesis of our own psychological phenomena those of others and construct in our thought a larger synthesis than that of our own personality. These poor creatures cannot understand themselves. They have not strength enough completely to build up their own personality; therefore it is quite natural that they cannot assimilate that of others. Selfishness, in hystericals, is a result of mental weakness, of the diminution of all sympathetic emotions. — Anonymous

For so long, maybe all my life, I thought only a house could make you whole. I thought I was nothing without an interesting address. I thought I was only as good as my color scheme, my drawer pulls, my floors ... it's the knowledge that a house can be as fragile as life itself. You'd think it would be stronger, since it can stand in one spot for centuries while generations of humans run through tis rooms, grow up, move out, and eventually die. But a house is an inherently limited entity. It can't do everything, or even most things. I t cannot give you a personality. It cannot bring you love. It cannot cure loneliness. It can provide comfort, safety, a sense of pride
that much I know. — Meghan Daum

I think a lot of it is personality. I never felt like I had to be anyone for him (Kassian), or prove anything. He didn't care what I did or thought. It made it easier to relax."
"And you felt like you had to be someone for me?" Sin asked with an arched brow. "I liked you before you had a personality. — Santino Hassell

Today the order of life allows no room for the ego to draw spiritual or intellectual conclusions. The thought which leads to knowledge is neutralized and used as a mere qualification on specific labor markets and to heighten to commodity value of the personality. — Theodor W. Adorno

What is a fanatic but a man whose faith is impregnable to doubt? It is the faith that moves mountains, the faith that accomplishes. Revolutions are not made by Hamlets. The traditional "great" man, the "big personality" of current conception, may give to the world new thoughts, noble vision, inspiration. But the man that "sees every side" cannot lead, cannot control. He is too conscious of the fallibility of all theories, even of thought itself, to be a fighter in any cause. — Alexander Berkman

A man of politics writes about philosophy: it could be that his "true" philosophy should be looked for rather in his writings on politics. In every personality there is one dominant and predominant activity: it is here that his thought must be looked for, in a form that is more often than not implicit and at times even in contradiction with what is professly expressed. — Antonio Gramsci

Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were considered so distastefully explicit that, were they merely to be breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and in extreme cases shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech and writing is evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed and totally un****ed-up personality. — Douglas Adams

Humankind is an instinctive creature that is capable of feelings and rational thoughts, which accounts for why such a rich diversity exists amongst human nature. A person's unique personality is simply a crystallization of particular aspects of human nature. Freedom of thought and expression ensures that no person replicates another person's exact persona. Every person is a creature of predicable needs and impulses, infused with the poetry of multifaceted feelings, and ruled by a scientifically calculated instrument capable of precision of thought. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Moreover, they tell us that the Extrovert Ideal is not as sacrosanct as we may have thought. So if, deep down, you've been thinking that it's only natural for the bold and sociable to dominate the reserved and sensitive, and that the Extrovert Ideal is innate to humanity, Robert McCrae's personality map suggests a different truth: that each way of being - quiet and talkative, careful and audacious, inhibited and unrestrained - is characteristic of its own mighty civilization. — Susan Cain

Personality is a physical matter almost entirely; it lowers the people it acts on - I've seen it vanish in a long sickness. But while a personality is active, it overrides 'the next thing.' Now a personage, on the other hand, gathers. He is never thought of apart from what he's done. He's a bar on which a thousand things have been hung - glittering things sometimes, as ours are; but he uses those things with a cold mentality back of them. — F Scott Fitzgerald

I thought the doctor's diagnosis was the first step to mending her. I know now that a diagnosis is taken in like an orphaned dog. We brought it home, unsure how to care for it, to live with it. It raised its hackles, snarled, hid in the farthest corner of the room; but it was ours, her diagnosis. The diagnosis was timid and confused, and genetically wired to strike out. — Christa Parravani

I do not like to encourage personalized politics, so we would not like it to be thought that just because certain political personalities were attacked, this means the situation is very grave. The true gravity of the situation comes from the fact that ordinary members of the NLD are repressed all the time. We don't want a completely paralyzed political organization, while a select few leaders are protected by international attention. — Aung San Suu Kyi

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

You don't know. You've never been married and divorced. Everything is insurmountable when you're married. The fact that you want to talk at the breakfast table and he insists on reading his paper is insurmountable. Leaving the seat up on the toilet is insurmountable. Getting peanut butter in the jelly jar is insurmountable. People don't change just because they're married. All those little habits and personality quirks that you previously thought were trivial become the bane of your existence. And the major problems, like different outlooks on life, are crushing. — Janet Evanovich

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

It felt increasingly, as I became more whole, that I had made it all up, and that I was a phoney. I had to come to some place of acceptance. If I made it all up, then I am an unspeakably evil person, leading so many wonderful, intelligent people astray. What a scheming mind I must have. I knowledge will be hard too live with. But harder still is the thought that perhaps, just perhaps it is all true; that I really was horribly, ritualistically abused in a satanic setting, over and over again and as a result my mind fragmented. The implications of that are completely overwhelming. It was me, my body, that they did those things to. No, I would rather believe I am an evil and deceitful person. At least the I can change, and say sorry, and live a better life from now on. — Carolyn Bramhall

No sin is committed merely because a thought enters the mind, provided it is not made welcome. Perhaps we may use the figure that the thought first passes into an anteroom, where it stands before the mind acting as a judge. No matter how sordid or evil, it has not touched the personality with its infamy nor in any way laid guilt upon the soul unless and until the mind acting as judge admits it with a welcome. If the mind decides against it and dismisses it, the personality is not only unsullied but is, on the contrary, by this act of rejection stimulated and strengthened in moral power. — Norman Vincent Peale

It gave Jane a wicked sense of satisfaction that he'd noticed that aspect of her sister's personality, but she tried not to sound too arrogant. "Savannah doesn't worry about homework. Apparently they don't care about your GPA when you apply for beauty school."
"Beauty school, huh? I would have thought she'd already graduated valedictorian from there."
Jane blinked at him in frustration.
Fairy's side note: Adults are constantly telling teen- agers that it's what's on the inside that matters. It's al- ways painful to find out that adults have lied to you.
Hunter shrugged. "I guess I shouldn't have assumed you'd be like Savannah where math is concerned."
Meaning: After all, you aren't pretty like she is. — Janette Rallison

Travelling in other's shoes is a complex process. Everyone carries loads of inherited virtues and then, heaps of experience acquired while travelling their own exclusive path of life. One's personality, particularly the way one thinks, beholds both inborn traits and learned knowledge. Unless one is born to the same parents as the other, exactly at same time, beholding same blend of inherent traits and travelled the same path the other has travelled so far - a biological and pragmatic impossibility - it is imprudent to claim having knowledge of other's thought process. One's uniqueness is not constrained to the physical form, but is pertinent, too, to intellectual, emotional and spiritual forms. — Hari Parameshwar

The habit some writers indulge in of perpetual quotation is one it behooves lovers of good literature to protest against, for it is an insidious habit which in the end must cloud the stream of thought, or at least check spontaneity. If it be true that le style c'est l homme, what is likely to happen if l homme is for ever eking out his own personality with that of some other individual? — Ethel Smyth

Genius is the ability to leave entirely out of sight our own interest, our willing, and our aims, and consequently to discard entirely our own personality for a time, in order to remain pure knowing subject, the clear eye of the world; and this not merely for moments, but with the necessary continuity and conscious thought to enable us to repeat by deliberate art what has been apprehended and what in wavering apparition gleams fix in its place with thoughts that stand for ever! — Arthur Schopenhauer

I try to teach my students style, but always as a part of life, not as ornament. Style has to come out of communicating coherent thought, not in sticking little flowers on speeches. Style and substance and a sense of life are the things literature is composed of. One must use one's own personality in relationship to life and language, of course, and everyone has such a relationship. Some people find it, some don't find it, but it's there. — Marguerite Young

Over recent years I had increasingly lost faith in literature. I read and thought this is something someone has made up. Perhaps it was because we were totally inundated with fiction and stories... All these millions of paperbacks, hardbacks, DVDs and TV series, they were all about made-up people in a made-up, though realistic, world. And news in the press, TV news and radio news had exactly the same format, documentaries had the same format, they were also stories, and it made no difference whether what they told had actually happened or not...

Fictional writing has no value, documentary narrative has no value. The only genres I saw value in, which still conferred meaning, were diaries and essays, the types of literature that did not deal with narrative, that were not about anything, but just consisted of a voice, the voice of your own personality, a life, a face, a gaze you could meet. What is a work of art if not the gaze of another person? — Karl Ove Knausgard

The first kill would be the hardest, but the next would be easier, and the one after that easier still, because it's true: Even the most sensitive person can get used to even the most insensitive thing.
Cruelty isn't a personality trait. Cruelty is a habit.
He pushed that thought away. To call what he was doing cruel implied he had a choice. Choosing between your kind and another species wasn't cruel. It was necessary. Not easy, especially when you've lived the last four years of your life pretending to be no different from them, but necessary. — Rick Yancey

This is how [the] sport has contributed to my personality, toughness and discipline. I have a plan, and I work on it. I was going to add [the] before the word sport since I thought was either a typo or a problem translating what she said, but then I thought it made sense without it too , so I left it as is. Just know that that's not a typo on my part. — Svetlana Khorkina

I began to consider, upon the thought of "permanently" relocating, everything New York had made me. When I arrived, I was like a half-carved sculpture, my personality still and undefined image. But the city wears you down, chisels away at everything you don't need, streamlines your emotions and character until you are hard cut, fully defined, and perfect like a Rodin sculpture. That is something truly wonderful, the kind of self-crystallyzation not available in any other city. But then, if you stay too long, it keeps on wearing you down, chipping away at traits you cherish, character that you've earned. Stay forever, and it will grind you down to nothing. — Jacob Tomsky

After she had gone through most of the songs she knew, she sang an old one that she said she had written herself. I'd love to cook a stew for you But I have no pot. I'd love to knit a scarf for you But I have no wool. I'd love to write a poem for you But I have no pen. "It's called 'I Have Nothing,'" Midori announced. It was a truly terrible song, both words and music. I listened to this musical mess with thoughts of how the house would blow apart in the explosion if the gas station caught fire. Tired of singing, Midori put her guitar down and slumped against my shoulder like a cat in the sun. "How did you like my song?" she asked. I answered cautiously, "It was unique and original and very expressive of your personality." "Thanks," she said. "The theme is that I have nothing." "Yeah, I kinda thought so. — Haruki Murakami

Enthusiasm is the dynamics of your personality. Without it, whatever abilities you may possess lie dormant; and it is safe to say that nearly every man has more latent power than he ever learns to use. You may have knowledge, sound judgment, good reasoning faculties; but no one-not even yourself-will know it until you discover how to put your heart into thought and action. — Dale Carnegie

When you think that you are beautiful, you are liable to think that you are more beautiful than others, and such a thought is not a beautiful thought. To recognize or criticize ugliness and inferiority in others is to create the inferior and the ugly in yourself, and what you create in yourself will sooner or later be expressed through your mind and personality. — Christian D. Larson

Learning to pass, it turns out, is less a matter of acting than not acting. You can become part of a given scene, situation, or people ('our people,' as it were), simply by letting yourself serve as a mirror for those around you. When I was still in college, when I still thought I might make a good priest, I spent some time in a Trappist monastery. I found that by exerting as little of my own personality as possible, I was able to fit right in. The monks in no time came to call me brother, believing I was destined to make vows as one of their own. Passing begins with the assumptions of those around you. The best thing you can do to maintain the illusion is to come as close as possible to doing nothing at all. — Peter Manseau