Desmond Tutu Quotes

People will know you for whatever they want to know you for.

In terms of other people's perception of me, that's their business. There are people who I have never met but, for whatever reason, I am certain that these people are jack-offs. I've never met Billy Joel, but I'm absolutely convinced he's an asshole. I can't justify that opinion, that's just what I think. But my opinion about Billy Joel isn't going to affect him in the slightest. In the same way, I am sure there are people out there who are completely convinced that I am an asshole, for whatever reason. They might even feel more justified than I feel about my presumptive opinion of Billy Joel.

No matter what I say, honestly, people would only judge me the way they want to.

It is difficult, if not impossible, for most people to think otherwise than in the fashion of their own period.

For the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture.

We are not buried in history, but surrounded by it. You can't avoid our behavior being shaped by it, to a considerable degree. We have this fantasy that we are free of history. This allows us not to see the circumstances, the historical circumstances of other people.

Do you remember all of your audiences?" Marco asks. "Not all of them," Celia says. "But I remember the people who look at me the way you do." "What way might that be?" "As though they cannot decide if they are afraid of me or they want to kiss me." " I am not afraid of you," Marco says.

A lot of time people are like, "oh my God, you're stereotyped." Good, then you're known for something.

If you consistently take an antagonistic approach, however, people are going to start thinking you're from New York.

I always really curious to see how people interpret things. I know my version, and I'm kind of bored with my version so I want to see their version.

Distance is where people get really confused. If you stand really far away from someone you're like, "That's not me. I'm so far away from that person. That person is so different from me." It's easy to forget that people - refugees from Syria, for example - are exactly like us.

People b'lief the world is built so an tellin em it ain't so caves the roofs on their heads'n'maybe yours.

What we call our data are really our own constructions of other people’s constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to.

It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.

There are some people who would never have fallen in love if they had not heard there was such a thing.

In India people can't stomach this attitude of mine, and when I say, 'Hurry up, let's get to the point,' they feel hurt.

Some people don't understand that it is the nature of the eye to have seen forever, and the nature of the mind to recall anything that was ever known.

Reality, like God and History, tends to direct people to wherever they want to go.

All religious beliefs seem weird to people not brought up in them.

Some people just see the glory and they don't want to know about the story.

I want get people to think about sensory based of thinking.

It is not from nature, but from education and habits, that our wants are chiefly derived.

Perception, after all, is not simply a matter of what you believe about yourself, it all encompasses what others think about you, and what has been thought of you historically. I say we can pay attention to those other dimensions of our identity - class, gender, sexual orientation, geographical region - while at the same time understanding how our historically produced racial identity continues to serve, or undercut us.

People are very nice to me, even though I'm known for saying rude things.

People in China criticized President Obama for chewing gum while entering the economic summit in Beijing. They're saying he looked like a rapper. Then again, to be fair, in China I look like a rapper.