Social Adaptability Quotes

We're highly social animals - I'm told by scientists that what makes us different from other animals is an acute social awareness, which is what has made us so successful.

I was a little nerdy, but I got along with everybody. I had fun at school - skateboarding, surfing, getting kicked out of class for making too much noise.

I did have quite a different upbringing to a lot of my peers. We all have a sort of code that we get, especially as Beatles kids. It's an unspoken sort of word of understanding. But I'm comfortable around a lot of different types of people.

A society which is mobile, which is full of channels for the distribution of a change occurring anywhere, must see to it that its members are educated to personal initiative and adaptability. Otherwise, they will be overwhelmed by the changes in which they are caught and whose significance or connections they do not perceive. The result will be a confusion in which a few will appropriate to themselves the results of the blind and externally directed activities of others.

To watch an American on a beach, or crowding into a subway, or buying a theatre ticket, or sitting at home with his radio on, tells you something about one aspect of the American character: the capacity to withstand a great deal of outside interference, so to speak; a willing acceptance of frenzy which, though it's never self-conscious, amounts to a willingness to let other people have and assert their own lively, and even offensive, character. They are a tough race in this.

My parents were Hungarian immigrants; my father was a tailor and we lived in the back of a tailor store. And that was my first inkling of what it was like to be raised in America. It had a profound effect on me - I saw different people coming in all the time with different attitudes and I liked it. And as I grew older, I found that I was able to use something inside of me to get some sympathy if I wanted it. I used to shine shoes, and I would use a waif-like look. I'd get a dime and I'd be as happy as could be.

No matter what squad I go to, I always feel I can add something to it.

I was a solid C student because I was doing so many plays. I was a drama nerd, but I was also kind of a Zelig-like character; I would shift between different groups of people. But the people I spent most of my time with were either chorus or swing choir or the drama nerds.

I'm not a get-off-my-lawn guy. I embrace the new generation.

There’s a carrying capacity in any society for how much change it can incorporate at any one time.

I was friends with everybody. I never stuck to one clique.

I would rather have a young fellow too much than too little dressed; the excess on that side will wear off, with a little age and reflection; but if he is negligent at twenty, he will be a sloven at forty, and stink at fifty years old. Dress yourself fine where others are fine, and plain where others are plain; but take care always that your clothes are well made and fit you, for otherwise they will give you a very awkward air.

I always got along with all types of people - popular people as well as drug addicts.

I feel I can hang out with any group of people and find common ground to talk with them.

I grew up in a house with a lot of kids, brothers and sisters. So I don't mind a lot of talking, yelling, playing. I can tune most of that out.

I think if somebody knows how to play the game, he or she can play anywhere. You know how to fit in.

I'm easy. Put me in an interesting location with good people and I'm there.

As a kid, I was school swot, but I used to hang around the billiard halls, learning that Geordie sense of humour, mixing with low-lifes. They were the sort who'd pick your pocket and then say 'Here you are lad, here's tuppence, get yourself some chips'. I was a good rugby player, a good runner, so I fitted in at Cambridge quite easily.

You have to have a bunch of dimensions [of yourself]. You have to be able to adapt in this world. You can't be a nice guy living in a world of savages.

One of my closest friends was a half-black, half-Jewish girl. Another good friend had a shaved head... but I was also friends with jocks. I was a 'floater,' I guess you could say.

I wasn't a cliquey person, and I think that's because I came from a large family. I got along with everybody, and I usually got along with the people that people didn't like.

I have many different sides; I can be the life and soul of the party - or a wallflower.

A traveller must have the back of an ass to bear all, a tongue like the tail of a dog to flatter all, the mouth of a hog to eat what is set before him, the ear of a merchant to hear all and say nothing.

I think it's a mistake to try to pin down one particular reason for a person's personality. Don't we all, for many reasons, act differently in different circumstances and with different people?

I'm a person who floats in many different groups.