Eccentric Quotes

• Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

  Bertrand Russell

  Confidence, Being Yourself, Fear

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.554, Routledge

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• 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 goldfish.

  Edith Sitwell

  Women, Eels, People

  Attributed to Edith Sitwell in Life Magazine, January 4, 1963.

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• To become a person does not necessarily mean to be well adjusted, well adapted, approved of by others. It means to become who you are. We are meant to become more eccentric, more peculiar, more odd. We are not meant just to fit in. We are here to be different. We are here to be the individual.

  James Hollis

  Being Yourself, Mean, Differences

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• Before you can be eccentric, you must know where the circle is.

  Ellen Terry

  Circles, Knows

  Dame Ellen Terry (1908). “The Story of My Life: Recollections and Reflections”

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• Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.

  Mark Twain

  Virtue, Virtuous

  A Curious Dream (1872) "Mental Photographs"

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• Anybody talented in any way - they're called eccentric.

  Thelonious Monk

  Way

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• That's what being eccentric means--being natural.

  Lorraine Hansberry

  Mean, Natural, Being Natural

  Lorraine Hansberry (1987). “A Raisin in the Sun: And The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window”, Plume

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• You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Clouds, Blame, Grey Skies

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.39, Jazzybee Verlag

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• People of uncommon abilities generally fall into eccentricities when their sphere of life is not adequate to their abilities.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Fall, People

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• Eccentricity is not, as some would believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.

  Edith Sitwell

  Believe, Pride, Men

  Edith Sitwell (2011). “Taken Care Of: An Autobiography”, p.114, A&C Black

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• There's a fine line between eccentrics and geniuses. If you're a little ahead of your time, you're an eccentric, and if you're too late, you're a failure, but if you hit it right on the head, you're a genius.

  Thomas Watson, Jr.

  Too Late, Genius, Lines

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• Eccentric doesn't bother me. 'Eccentric' being a poetic interpretation of a mathematical term meaning something that doesn't follow the lines - that's okay.

  Crispin Glover

  Meaning Something, Lines, Poetic

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• The Paris slums are a gathering-place for eccentric people - people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent. Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behavior, just as money frees people from work.

  George Orwell

  Paris, People, Mad

  George Orwell (1956). “The Orwell Reader: Fiction, Essays, and Reportage”, New York : Harcourt, Brace

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• The world thinks eccentricity in great things is genius, but in small things, only crazy.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Crazy, Thinking, Genius

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• Money, like vodka, turns a person into an eccentric.

  Anton Chekhov

  Literature, Vodka, Turns

  "The Little Trilogy: The Man in a Case, Gooseberries, about Love". Book by Anton Chekhov, 1898.

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• What am I in the eyes of most people - a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person - somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then - even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Eye, Heart, People

  Letter to Theo, from The Hague, July 21, 1882.

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• That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.

  John Stuart Mill

  Success, Time, Work

  John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.202, Hackett Publishing

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• Sure, my childhood was unusual. All these eccentric, wild people frequented our home: rock stars, drag queens, models, bikers, freaks. But I was not this little rich girl. My mom and I lived in an apartment.

  Liv Tyler

  Girl, Mom, Stars

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• The character truest to itself becomes eccentric rather than immovably centered, as Emerson defined the noble character of the hero. At the edge, the certainty of borders gives way. We are more subject to invasions, less able to mobilize defenses, less sure of who we really are, even as we may be perceived by others as a person of character. The dislocation of self from center to indefinite edge merges us more with the world, so that we can feel blest by everything.

  James Hillman

  Hero, Character, Blessing

  James Hillman (2012). “The Force of Character: And the Lasting Life”, p.37, Ballantine Books

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• If you're poor and you do something stupid, you're nuts. If you're rich and do something stupid, you're eccentric.

  Bobby Heenan

  Stupid, Nuts, Rich

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• I've always had great respect for Paddington because he is amusingly English and eccentric. He is a great British institution and my generation grew up with the books and then Michael Horden's animations.

  Stephen Fry

  Book, Generations, Grew Up

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• Eccentric behavior is not routinely noticed around a movie set.

  Gene Tierney

  Behavior, Movie Sets

  Gene Tierney, Mickey Herskowitz (1979). “Self-portrait”, Peter Wyden

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• I am not a grammarian. Maybe my style is eccentric.

  Dorothy Kilgallen

  Style

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• I was watching Monster's Ball, which is a fabulous movie. It's just a little gem: beautifully shot, and shot in a way I never would have done. It made me feel very old, really, because it wasn't eccentric for its own sake, it was just very original.

  Adrian Lyne

  Monsters, Balls, Done

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• Going to Nashville to meet the in-laws was the first time when I'd been in America and not been seen as some sort of eccentric character with a cute accent.

  Nick Lowe

  Cute, Character, Nashville

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