Interests Quotes

“Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.”
― José Ortega y Gasset

“If you want to discover the true character of a person, you have only to observe what they are passionate about.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“Understanding” may become “misunderstanding”, if no commitment or no responsibilities are assumed, no specific objectives set, no definite expectations met and common values and interests no longer shared. Mutual understanding may then, against all odds, end up in heartache, confusion and bewilderment. ("Mutual understanding" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“There are guys who grow up thinking they'll settle down some distant time in the future, and there are guys who are ready for marriage as soon as they meet the right person. The former bore me, mainly because they're pathetic; and the latter, quite frankly, are hard to find. But it's the serious ones I'm interested in, and it takes time to find a guy like that whom I'm equally interested in. I mean, if the relationship can't survive the long term, why on earth would it be worth my time and energy for the short term?”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Last Song

“A system is corrupt when it is strictly profit-driven, not driven to serve the best interests of its people.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“If you are a leader or someone who works for the interest of a community, first make sure that you understand the interest of the people who make up that community. In this way, you will have a good chance of minimizing, perhaps, avoiding the us versus them mentality.”
― Duop Chak Wuol

“The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state is obligated to protected and encourage his particular industry; that this procedure enriches the state because the protected industry is thus able to spend more and to pay higher wages to the poor workingmen.
Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests. The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a whole system. In fact, this has already occurred. The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.”
― Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

“Each of us has interests which conflict the interests of everybody else... 'everybody else' we call 'society'. It's a powerful opponent and it always wins. Oh, here and there an individual prevails for a while and gets what he wants. Sometimes he storms the culture of a society and changes it to his own advantage. But society wins in the long run, for it has the advantage of numbers and of age.”
― B.F. Skinner, Walden Two

“How can you claim to have a passionate interest in something, and then make no effort to properly understand it?”
― Simon Cheshire, Plastic Fantastic

“You have to take an interest in something in life, I told myself. I wondered what could interest me, now that I was finished with love. I could take a course in wine tasting, maybe, or start collecting model aeroplanes.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Soumission

“One person with a belief is worth 99 people who have only interests.”
― John Stuart Mill

“Like forearm veins, my interests spread in different directions and eventually led to the hands, to writing.”
― Cameron Conaway, Caged: Memoirs of a Cage-Fighting Poet

“A man interested in the meaning of words, not one whose interests leave words meaningless.”
― Ali Smith, Winter

“A while back, when Dick and Barry and I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like, Barry proposed the idea of a questionnaire for prospective partners.”
― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

“In any government, interests precede truth.”
― Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut

“It's not in the interests of the self-serving government to educate the masses to the point where they are smart enough to see through the bullshit - because then people will be too smart to vote for them again.”
― Christina Engela

“When they are truly into something, they are absolutely single-minded in their fixation. They give it all they have. They throw heaps of money at it, research it endlessly, and do whatever seems necessary to draw closer to it. You sense real passion there.”
― Aoko Matsuda, Where the Wild Ladies Are

“Excitement is a crossroad which runs in all directions. No man lacks personality; he just never connected with you at the intersection.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“...don’t limit your options to only people who share your interests. You might take a painting class and find that you actually love painting, and plus, you might show an artiste type that they actually love science, too. Interests overlap, and sometimes you’ll find people who you like in the unlikeliest of places. It’s never a bad idea to broaden your horizons. In the end, you may find that your best friends are people you met on a knitting website.”
― Andrew T. Kelly

“I infallibly discern a flaw in all those who are interested in the same things as myself. . . .”
― Emil M. Cioran, Anathemas and Admirations: Essays and Aphorisms

“As is the way in political matters, all were convinced that the interests of the community and their own personal interests were one and the same”
― Lesley Hazleton, After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam

“Other people's houses always intrigued her by the contrast they offered to Greystones; she would see suddenly -- with detached interest and quite without envy or criticism -- the extent to which other people's preoccupations differed from her own.”
― Penelope Lively, Passing On

“We all have different things to do in life. And how we know is that it drives us and won’t let us go.”
― Donna Goddard, Pittown

“Although acting inconsistently with one’s own implicit interests and developmental trends can sometimes pay off, the data suggest that those who ignore their deeper impulses, curiosities, and values typically experience sub-optimal outcomes. For example, the latter types tend not to be the ones who make a mark on history.”
― Christopher Peterson , Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification

“When you play, you must open your heart to its magic. Listen to what it tells you, and you'll be repaid tenfold.”
― Josephine Cox, Three Letters

“Tutti credono di sapere la differenza tra reale e ideale. E soprattutto adesso che sono in tanti a ripetere che bisogna lasciar perdere i sentimentalismi e pensare soltanto all’interesse, tanto individuale, quanto collettivo, tanto di un solo uomo, quanto di un popolo o di una nazione. Perché, credimi, il sentimento è una guida sicura, molto più di quello che viene chiamato interesse. Un uomo può dire molto meglio ciò che sente, ciò che ama o ciò che detesta, che non ciò che davvero gli conviene. Adesso la maggior parte dei popoli europei è in balia di sanguinose contese, e c’è ancora chi si ostina a credere che a muoverli sia stata la coscienza del loro interesse. Ma io dico invece che essi non sanno qual è il loro interesse, mentre conoscono benissimo le loro passioni. E mentre credono di obbedire all’interesse, non fanno altro che obbedire alle passioni…”
― Miguel de Unamuno, Niebla

“My door was open when you needed me, when you didn't need me anymore, it was just the disappearance of interests.”
― Kamaran Ihsan Salih

“It always seemed to me that our fellow citizens had two passions: ideas and fornication. Without rhyme or reason, so to speak. (…) I sometimes think of what future historians will think of us. A single sentence will suffice for modern man: He fornicated and read the papers. After that rigorous definition the subject will be, if I may say so, exhausted.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“Behind every challenge of being a non specialist, there's a beauty of being a multifaceted person.”
― Iva Škorić