Other people

“ But you must remember that what is best for one people may be the worst for another; and that it is true wisdom to study the character of the people among whom you are, before adopting their manners, habits, or feelings, and carrying them to another people. ”

“ We all know that the 'divine glory of the ego' is socially a great nuisance; we all do actually value our friends for modesty, freshness, and simplicity of heart. Whatever may be the reason, we all do warmly respect humility—in other people. ”

“ But the bland, smooth-faced ones, who agree to everything you say, compliment you upon everything you do, smile sweetly alike at either censure or praise, and talk against you as soon as your back is turned—what can be done with such people? ”

“ I can't say I like our common people, or indeed, what we call our ladies and gentlemen, poking curiously into all the ins and outs of our bodies as a general accomplishment, and something to talk of. No, I don't like it. ”

“ What happens is that I suddenly feel the extraordinary value and importance of everybody I meet, and almost everything I see. In things I am moved in this way especially by some things; but in people by almost all people. ”

“ “How people will talk about one’s doings!” Fancy exclaimed.
“Well, if you make songs about yourself, my dear, you can’t blame other people for singing ’em.” ”

“ And this extends from material objects to lay hold, in the same spirit, of the attentions and affections of other people, of all sorts of plans and ambitions, including the noblest special purposes the mind can entertain, and indeed of any conceivable idea which may come to seem a part of one’s life and in need of assertion against someone else. ”

“ Those stiff, reserved people, who are always suspicious of strangers, miss a lot of pleasure in this world. Now you see we were both dull, moping about here alone, and now how happy we are!—at least I speak for myself. ”

“ She advises him, too, to frequent those people, and to see their inside; In order to judge of men, one must be intimately connected; thus you see them without, a veil, and with their mere every-day merit. ”

“ "and I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed." ”

“ Never mind how we feel: these friends of ours are of much account, and the many new thoughts that brighten their existence as well as our own must fall, I believe, on us as a people as well as individually. ”

“ "My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. ”

“ "What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence," returned my companion bitterly. "The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done? ”

“ How then did it work out, all this? How did one judge people, think of them? How did one add up this and that and conclude that it was liking one felt, or disliking? ”

“ But they are always understood of but few, and they are bottled-up people, a nervous, self-conscious, timorous folk, of pleasant dispositions and much sentiment, who seldom cut any large figure in the world. ”

“ People here are more expressive, more demonstrative; and it’s a pleasure, when one comes back—if one happens, like me, to be no one in particular—to feel one’s merely personal and unclassified value rise. ”

“ Yes, but since, as you say, I'm only, so far as people make out, ordinary, you're—aren't you?—no more than ordinary either. You help me to pass for a man like another. So if I am, as I understand you, you're not compromised. ”

“ “Friends we shall never be, you know that yourself. Whether we shall be the happiest or the wretchedest of people—that’s in your hands.” ”

“ The maxim to do as others do is well enough, but there are many things to be considered besides,—whether only intimate friends and acquaintances are present,—whether you are a child, or a girl old enough to be married,—but, above all, whether you are with people of much higher rank than yourself. ”

“ But let us distinguish, for our own sake and guidance, between the different kinds of things that please the same kind of people; between the things that please them habitually and those that please them occasionally ”

“ All good people agree,
And all good people say,
All nice people, like Us, are We
And every one else is They:
But if you cross over the sea,
Instead of over the way,
You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
As only a sort of They! ”

“ I should answer, in all courtesy and humility—for I sympathise deeply with such men and women, and respect them deeply likewise—but are not people discontented already, from the lowest to the highest? ”

“ ‘Excuse me,’ returned I, ‘these people, however fallen, are still men, and that is a very good title to my affections. ”

“ and there sprang up between them the light jesting conversation of people who are free and satisfied, to whom it does not matter where they go or what they talk about. ”

“ I.—Let us work for others: which may mean no more than being the useful one in the house and perhaps taking a Sunday-school class.
II.—Let us live with noble people, i.e. read steadily books which keep us in touch with larger minds—if you are constantly meeting clever people that does instead, but if you lead quiet lives with not much to talk about, except gossip and family events, then secure a daily talk with people worth talking to. ”

“ The people are all ‘kin’ to one another, and are singularly honest and truthful. ‘They are all sincere men in these parts,’ said the guide, ‘and if they tell you a tale, you may know it’s because they’re deceived.’ We met a man on a horse. ”

“ When I say you and I, I generalise. I mean, so far, at least, as I am concerned, those commonplace, trite affections for people we really care nothing about, to which the world gives the name of friendships. ”

“ The relation of certain people—who while different from their fellow human beings, are sometimes of the highest character and the finest aptitudes—to the often hostile society in which they move, presents difficult and still unsolved problems. ”

“ Now—would you believe it?—every man about you, whatever be his age, his size, his features, or complexion, has a little dirty blue bag upon his knees, filled with something. They all know each other—grin, smile, smirk, but don't shake hands—a polite reciprocity—as they are none of the cleanest: cut little dry jokes about places and people unknown, and mix strange phrases here and there through the dialogue, about “demurrers and declarations, traversing in prox and quo warranto.” ”

“ I would give all I possess to get out of myself; but somehow, at the end, I find myself so vastly more interesting than nine tenths of the people I meet. ”

“ In the sense of their relation toward other men—you, for example. You've proved that. You're not natural! You don't live, or act, or eat, or play like natural people. All you know about is one tiny niche. ”

“ People is the name of the body, State of the spirit, of that ruling person that has hitherto suppressed me. ”

“ Let them talk and let yourself be free from care concerning what they say,—if you know you are acting from principle. Tastes differ. Yours is as apt to be right as your neighbor’s. Live your own life—only so it be a brave, true, sensible one—and let the other fellow live his. ”

“ I will not say that everything was utterly commonplace, because I doubt if anything can be that, except to utterly commonplace people—and there my vanity steps in; ”

“ Consequently our words tend to conceal what is private and peculiar in our impressions, and to make us believe that different people live in a common world to a greater extent than is in fact the case. ”

“ Once, he said to her: "You are like me, you are different from most people. ”

“ He looked at people as if they were things. ”

“ May not the complaint, that common people are above their station, often take its rise in the fact of uncommon people being below theirs? ”

“ But no power upon earth is so worthy of honor for itself, or of reverential obedience to the rights which it represents, that I would consent to admit its uncontrolled and all-predominate authority. When I see that the right and the means of absolute command are conferred on a people or upon a king, upon an aristocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I recognize the germ of tyranny, and I journey onward to a land of more hopeful institutions. ”

“ Possessing little in the way of means, less in that of accomplishments, and nothing at all in the line of looks, they had formed a vast circle of acquaintance, chiefly by a hearty, unaffected interest in each individual personality. ”

“ Men whom I may meet yet, and tell them how I love them, in some other world? Men, too, whom I might have hated, and who might have hated me, had we met on this poor piecemeal earth; but whom I may learn to regard with justice and with charity in the world where all shall know, even as they are known? ”

“ The strong bent of nature is seen in the proportion which this topic of personal relations usurps in the conversation of society. What do we wish to know of any worthy person so much, as how he has sped in the history of this sentiment? ”

“ We're all human beings here, one like the other." ”

“ Thus, your whole life, you, above all, who listen to me, and who considered the duplicity of your character as knowledge of the world and of the court, your whole life has been only one train of dissimulation and artifice; even your sincerest and most intimate friends have only in part known you; you were beyond the reach of the world, for you changed character, sentiment, and inclination, according to circumstances and the disposition of those to whom you wished to make yourselves agreeable. ”

“ How pleasant it was to sit and hear rough men tell pieces out of their own common lives, in place of the frippery talk of some fine circle with its conventional sentiment, and timid, second-hand criticism. ”

“ "Who's 'they'? Why don't you all get together and be 'they' yourselves?" ”