quotations about eccentricity
The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
JOHN STUART MILL
On Liberty and Other Essays
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
Those with the money are eccentric. Those without, insane.
BRUCE ROBINSON
Withnail and I
Of course eccentrics are happy, they're loony toons. They don't know they aren't supposed to be anything but joyous.
JAN HORNUNG
This Is the Truth
The English like eccentrics. They just don't like them living next door.
JULIAN CLARY
Daily Telegraph, Sep. 2, 1992
Here is what happens in middle age: Some friends and acquaintances who were merely eccentric for years become unmistakably mad.
JENNY OFFILL
Dept. of Speculation
Hear the conversation, steamy adoration
For the phony eccentricity
The key to the mind is a cheap glass of wine
THE DATSUNS
"Get Up! (Don't Fight It)", Outta Sight/Outta Mind
It's okay to be eccentric if you're rich; otherwise you're just crazy.
YVON CHOUINARD
Let My People Go Surfing
There is a point at which eccentricity begins to impact operational effectiveness.
CHARLES STROSS
Neptune's Brood
You try to be a mystery
With all your eccentricities
Every move is so surreal
You can't touch what you really feel
BELINDA CARLISLE
"Wrap My Arms", Real
I never knew whether I was drawn to eccentric people or if they were drawn to me.
DEAN KOONTZ
Saint Odd
Eccentrics are invariably social failures--at least if we use the word failure in its conventional sense. At best the world fails to take them seriously, and at worst it ridicules them. Eccentrics also tend to be financial failures, due in part, no doubt, to their lack of social standing. When eccentrics prosper, there are generally two explanations: either they inherited a fortune or they found a way to get rewarded for their obsessive behavior.
WILLIAM B. IRVINE
On Desire
Eccentrics are ridiculed from a distance, but gain respect the more you know them.
ISAAC CHEIFETZ
Hiring Secrets of the NFL
Eccentric men have peculiar habits; they do not seem to move in the same sphere with other mortals, but are actuated by different influences from those which affect the bulk of mankind.
GEORGE FREDERICK GRAHAM
English Synonyms Classified and Explained
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Walden
Eccentricity is sometimes found connected with genius, but it does not coalesce with true wisdom. Hence men of the first order of intellect have never betrayed it; and hence also men of secondary talents drop it as they grow wiser; they are content to awaken regard and obtain applause by the rectitude and gracefulness of their going, rather than to make passengers stare and laugh, by leaping over the wall or tumbling along the road.
WILLIAM JAY
preface, Standard Works of the Rev. William Jay
She's all mixed up
Lays in bed 'til 3
All messed up
She's eccentricity
BON JOVI
"Neurotica", Crush
I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of catfish.
EDITH SITWELL
The English Eccentrics
Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric.
JOHN STUART MILL
On Liberty
Eccentric old ladies on Harleys I can deal with.
ALISON LARKIN
The English American