Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud - Intrapersonal

"A man like me cannot live without a hobbyhorse, without a consuming passion....I have found one....It is psychology, which has always been my distant beckoning goal and which now, since I have come upon the problem of neuroses, has drawn so much nearer. I am tormented by two aims: to examine what shape the theory of mental functioning takes if one introduces quantitative considerations, a sort of economics of nerve process; and to peel from psychopathology a gain for normal psychology."

"At that time, I had reached the peak of loneliness, had lost all my old friends, and hadn't acquired any new ones; no one paid any attention to me, and the only thing that kept me going was a bit of defiance and the beginning of The Interpretation of Dreams. On the other hand, to have lived through such a period and survived created a feeling of pride and perhaps even euphoria."

Albert Einstein - Logical/Mathematical

Albert Einstein - Logical/Mathematical

"The words of the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be "voluntarily" reproduced and combined....From a psychological viewpoint this combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought...The...elements are, in my case, of visual and some of muscular type. Conventional words or other signs have to be sought for laboriously only in a secondary stage, when the mentioned associate play is sufficiently established and can be reproduced at will."

"The fact that I neglected mathematics to a certain extent had its causes not merely in my stronger interest in science than in mathematics but also in the following strange experience...I saw that mathematics was split up into numerous specialties, each of which could easily absorb the short lifetime granted to us...In physics, however, I soon learned to scent out that which was able to lead to fundamentals and to turn aside from everything else, from the multitude of things that clutter up the mind and divert it from the essential."

Pablo Picasso - Visual/Spatial

Pablo Picasso - Visual/Spatial

"In contrast to music there are no prodigies in drawing/painting.  What one can consider an early genius is actually the genius of childhood.  It disappears at a certain age without leaving around traces.  It is possible that such a child will one day become an artist but he will have to begin again from the beginning.  I did not have this Genius, for example.  My first drawings could not have been hung in a display of children's work.  These pictures lacked the childlikeness or naivete...At the youthful age I painted in a quite academic way, as literal and precise that I am shocked today."

Igor Stravinsky - Musical/Rhythmic

Igor Stravinsky - Musical/Rhythmic

"I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God.  I did weather the world I was born to, weather it well you might say, and I have survived - though not uncorrupted - the histericism of publishers, musical festivals, recording companies, and publicity - including my own."

T.S. Eliot - Verbal/Linguistic

T.S. Eliot - Verbal/Linguistic

"Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon the table."

"There are only two ways in which a writer can become important - to write a great deal, and have his writing appear everywhere, or to write very little...I write very little and I should not become more powerful by increasing my output....My reputation in London is built upon one small volume of verse....The only thing that matters is that each of these should be perfect in their kind, so that each should be an event.  As to America: I am a much more important person here than I should be at home....If one has to earn a living, therefore, the safest occupation is that most remote from the arts."

Martha Graham - Bodily/Kinesthetic

Martha Graham - Bodily/Kinesthetic

"Once we strove to imitate gods - we did god dances. Then we strove to become part of nature by representing natural forces in dance forms - winds - flowers - trees. Dance was no longer performing its function of communication...(Modern dance) was not done perversely to dramatize ugliness or to strike at sacred tradition....There was a revolt against the ornamented forms of impressionistic dancing. There came a period of great austerity."

"The American dancer owes a duty to the American audience.  We must look to America to bring forth an art as powerful as the country itself.  For Duncan or Denis a slow rising arm signified growing corn or flowers; a downward fluttering of the fingers perhaps suggested rain.  Why should an arm try to be corn?  Why should a hand try to be rain?  Think of what a wonderful thing the hand is, and what vast potential personalities of movement it has as a hand and not as a poor imitation of something else...Our dramatic force lies in energy and vitality."

" I get the ideas going.  Then I write down, I copy out of any books that stimulate me at the time many quotations and I keep it.  And I put down the source.  Then when it comes to the actual work I keep a complete record of the steps.  I keep note of every dance I have.  I don't have notations.  I just put it down and know what the words mean, or what the movements mean and where you go and what you do and maybe an explanation here and there."

Mahatma Gandhi - Interpersonal

Mahatma Gandhi - Interpersonal

"In my opinion I would have been untrue to my maker and to the cause I was espousing if I had acted otherwise....I felt that it was a sacred moment for me, my faith was on the anvil, and I had no hesitation to rising and declaring to the men that a breach of their vow so solemnly taken was unendurable by me and that I would not take any food until they had the 35 per cent increase given or until they had fallen.  A meeting that was up to now unlike the former meetings, totally unresponsive, woke up as if by magic."

"India has been held by the sword.  I do not for one moment minimize the ability of Great Britain to hold India in subjection under the sword.  But which would be better - an enslaved but rebellious India or an India as an esteemed partner with Great Britain to share her sorrows and take part side by side with her in her misfortunes?  An India that, if need be, of her own free will, can fight side by side with Britain, not for the exploitation of a single race or a single human being, but it might be, for the good of the whole world."