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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• 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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• Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.

  Mark Twain

  Virtue, Virtuous

  A Curious Dream (1872) "Mental Photographs"

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• There is all the difference in the world between departure from recognised rules by one who has learned to obey them, and neglect of them through want of training or want of skill or want of understanding. Before you can be eccentric you must know where the circle is.

  Ellen Terry

  Skills, Circles, Differences

  Ellen Terry (Dame) (19??). “The story of my life”

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• Everybody thought I was a bit of an eccentric for wanting to be out there looking at the stars, but I still do

  Brian May

  Stars, Stills, Bits

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• At first, I did stories on people who were maybe just eccentric. Omar was a natural progression from that.

  Jon Ronson

  People, Stories, Firsts

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• Tom is the most eccentric person I have ever worked with. We get on very well and I am most impressed with how he can hold an audience in the palm of his hand.

  Louise Jameson

  Hands, Holding On, Palms

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• The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.

  John Stuart Mill

  Courage, Vigor, Genius

  John Stuart Mill (2012). “On Liberty”, p.56, Courier Corporation

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• It is no accident that I made Cartoon Town a simple little village - in many ways it mirrored my home town. And, yes, many of my puppet characters took on some of the more eccentric characteristics of people I knew there.

  William Jackson

  Home, Character, Simple

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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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• Because artists can be extremely eccentric and insane, and unfortunately, the people they hurt the most are the people that are closest to them.

  Maynard James Keenan

  Hurt, Artist, People

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• The woman poet must be either a sexless, reclusive eccentric, with nothing to say specifically to women, or a brilliant, tragic, tortured suicide.

  Marilyn Hacker

  Suicide, Brilliant, Poet

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• You know, so I was a weird eccentric kid but I did believe in the power of the word and of the word being made flesh I suppose, which again I suppose came from my temperament as well as my upbringing.

  Thomas Keneally

  Believe, Kids, Flesh

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• So long as a man rides his hobbyhorse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him - pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?

  Laurence Sterne

  Peace, Kings, Men

  'Tristram Shandy' (1759-67) bk. 1, ch. 7

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• Weirdism is definitely the cornerstone of many an artist's career.

  E. A. Bucchianeri

  Artist, Careers, Creative

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• Librarians, Dusty, possess a vast store of politeness. These are people who get asked regularly the dumbest questions on God's green earth. These people tolerate every kind of crank and eccentric and mouth breather there is.

  Garrison Keillor

  People, Mouths, Earth

  "A Prairie Home Companion". Radio show, December 13, 1997.

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