Social Surroundings Quotes

I wasn't from the streets, but I was in the streets. I had a good family, nice home - you know, I can't say I grew up with nothing... but I chose to hang in the streets.

Whoever is sitting with friends is in the midst of a flower garden, though he may be in the fire. Whoever sits with an enemy is in the fire, even though he is in the midst of a garden.

I just try and surround myself, for the biggest proportion of time that I can, with people who make me feel normal, because constantly feeling abnormal is quite difficult.

I grew up in a neighborhood that had a lot of things to offer, good and bad.

Surround yourself with people who make you feel stupid.

People hear the examples of kids who work when they're young, have bad experiences, and then have a rough life after that, but a lot of it is just about the people around you.

I suppose I had always been an unconscious suffragist. With my temperament and my surroundings, I could scarcely have been otherwise.

I think it was Alfred Hitchcock who said 90 percent of successful moviemaking is in the casting. The same is true in life. Who you are exposed to, who you choose to surround yourself with, is a unique variable in all of our experiences and it is hugely important in making us who we are. Seek out interesting characters, tough adversaries and strong mentors and your life can be rich, textured, highly entertaining and successful, like a Best Picture winner. Surround yourself with dullards, people of vanilla safety and unextraordinary ease, and you may find your life going straight to DVD.

If you're really successful at bullshitting, it means you're not hanging around enough people smarter than you.

It's always good to be around nice-looking people.

You can go down the list of great artists and kind of understand that they are products of their environment. Whether it's U2 or Henry Rollins or myself or Johnny Lydon, they're gonna be products of their environment.

Finding like-minded people is very important. It's hard to be a happy meal in a room full of sad people.

Humans, the supremely social mammals, are ethical and intellectual sponges. We unconsciously absorb, for good or ill, the influences that surround us.

The main consideration with those who, possessing some capital, propose to emigrate as the means of improving their condition, is, the society likely to be found in the land fixed on for their future residence.

But I think it’s important to discuss just how easy it is for any of us to get caught up in things that might seem unthinkable—to get sucked into the wrong environment and make moral compromises that can tarnish us terribly. We like to think that we change our environment, but the truth is that it changes us. So we have to be extraordinarily careful to choose the right environment—to work with, and even socialize with, the right people. Ideally, we should stick close to people who are better than us so that we can become more like them.

The great thing about being always among people of noble manners was the inevitable elevation of one's own.

For me, when I grew up, I never really had an outlet when it came to my social surroundings. Even if I had a form of popularity, I felt like I was very limited.

Most of your desires are not really about yourself. You just picked them up from your social surroundings.

I don't think I related to the Irish Catholic surroundings that was my environment when I was growing up.

I really do believe in the influence of your surroundings.

My secret is just surrounding myself with people who are a lot funnier than me.

My style is part of the music I like, the bands I see, the people I surround myself with, the places I go to.

Furthermore, the study of the present surroundings is insufficient: the history of the people, the influence of the regions through which it has passed on its migrations, and the people with whom it came into contact, must be considered.

I think I am a pretty good judge of character in general and try to surround myself with the best people I can.

Surrounded by people who love life, you love it too; surrounded by people who don't, you don't.