Eccentricity
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Eccentricity refers to unusual or odd behavior on the part of an individual.
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Quotes
edit- ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity.
- Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
- 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 […] Cranks, at their most familiar, are a sort of peevish prophets, and it's not enough that they should be in the right; others must also be in the wrong.
- Louis Kronenberger, "The One and the Many", Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry into American Life (1954). Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. 229 pages
- People who are eccentric enough to be quite seriously virtuous understand each other everywhere, discover each other easily, and form a silent opposition to the ruling immorality that happens to pass for morality.
- Friedrich Schlegel, Philosophical Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991) § 414
- 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 : The Autobiography of Edith Sitwell (1965) Ch. 15
- If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden, chapter 18, p. 430 (1966, US ed.). Originally published in 1854.
- Jack: You're crazy! You're fuckin' crazy!
- Howard Payne: NO! Poor people are crazy, Jack. I'm eccentric.
- Speed (1994 film) written by Graham Yost and Joss Whedon
