Why not be oneself? That is the whole secret of a successful appearance. If one is a greyhound, why try to look like a Pekingese?
--
Quoted in Edith Sitwell, a Unicorn Among Lions (1981) by Victoria Glendinning, p. 54, and in An Uncommon Scold (1989) by Abby Adams, p. 74Edith Sitwell
» Edith Sitwell - all quotes »
Secret: A private matter whispered abroad and never kept to oneself. By naming it a secret, we immediately indicate its presence. If we really wanted to keep secrets, we would not have a name for them.
Peter Greenaway
The ideas need not be complex. Most ideas that are successful are ludicrously simple. Successful ideas generally have the appearance of simplicity because they seem inevitable.
Sol LeWitt
Pride is an established conviction of one’s own paramount worth in some particular respect, while vanity is the desire of rousing such a conviction in others, and it is generally accompanied by the secret hope of ultimately coming to the same conviction oneself. Pride works from within; it is the direct appreciation of oneself. Vanity is the desire to arrive at this appreciation indirectly, from without.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Spiritually, deliberation is a difficult and rather unrewarding labor. One dares leave nothing out in the fog, leave no little secret lying there in concealment. Perhaps one discovers that the tower cannot be as high as desired. Perhaps one had never seriously made a beginning on it and therefore did not really find out that one was incapable of doing it; but then one nevertheless had kept this dream in one’s soul, this seductive fantasy with which one could at times entertain oneself-why destroy it, since it nether injures nor benefits? One discovers a little defect in one’s work-well, the building could last for all that, just as well as all the others, because, after all, one does not build for an eternity-so why make difficulties for oneself? Suppose one discovered no irregularity at all, then why all this deliberation.
Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
Kindness and friendliness become aspects of personalized service or of public relations of big firms, rationalized to further the sale of something. With anonymous insincerity, the Successful Person thus makes an instrument of his own appearance and personality.
C. Wright Mills
Sitwell, Edith
Sitwell, Osbert
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z