quotations about eccentricity
Eccentricity is always defined in relation to something it is not, but the imaginary 'centre' (or 'centricity') from which it departs is far from stable.
MIRANDA GILL
Eccentricity and the Cultural Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Paris
ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
Contrary to what is often assumed, the meaning of eccentricity is neither timeless nor self-evident. The very synonyms used to define it--bizarre, singular, original, peculiar, odd--suggest the frustration of rationality and the failure of the codes by which social and mental life is interpreted. Indeed, the concept owed its success precisely to its ability to adapt to new contexts.
MIRANDA GILL
Eccentricity and the Cultural Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Paris
Properly, eccentricity is not so much a component of genius, as it is a consequence of the habits of men of genius. The reputation for genius is usually acquired by severe and protracted intellectual labor. This occasions repeated reactions from an extreme tension to an extreme relaxation of spirits--the transitions expressing themselves in sharp and abrupt impulses.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
put aside my eccentricities
there's nothing for me in this one horse town
at least until the circus came around
GOOD RIDDANCE
"Twelve Year Circus", For God and Country
All eccentricities are defects of natural character.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Genius is a wretched, blind maniac, whose eccentricities are condoned because of what is got from him.
LEV SHESTOV
All Things Are Possible
Eccentricity, to be socially acceptable, had still to have at least four or five generations of inbreeding behind it.
OSBERT LANCASTER
All Done From Memory
On a very rough-and-ready basis we might define an eccentric as a man who is a law unto himself, and a crank as one who, having determined what the law is, insists on laying it down to others. An eccentric puts ice cream on steak simply because he likes it; should a crank do so, he would endow the act with moral grandeur and straightaway denounce as sinners (or reactionaries) all who failed to follow suit.
LOUIS KRONENBERGER
"The One and the Many", Company Manners
In all communities where vice and hypocrisy are sustained by the authority of custom, eccentricity is a moral duty.
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
The Intellectual Life
A man should be himself at all times; eccentricities, and even inaccuracies, are more tolerable than mimicry, affectation, and false consequences.
SAMUEL HANSON COX
Quakerism Not Christianity; Or
It's amazing what passing the half-century mark does to free one to be eccentric.
MADELEINE L'ENGLE
A Circle of Quiet
Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us 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
Taken Care Of